Scienceגבריאל גורודצקי

Gabriel Gorodetsky

Gabriel Gorodetsky is an Israeli historian and emeritus professor of history at Tel Aviv University who studies Soviet foreign policy and Stalin.

born 1945Research on Stalin's foreign policyThe book Grand DelusionEditing The Maisky DiariesDirecting the Cummings Center

Born: 13 May 1945, Jerusalem
Occupation: historian, professor
Education: Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Gabriel Gorodetsky was born in 1945 in Jerusalem

Gabriel Gorodetsky was born in Jerusalem on 13 May 1945.

He studied history and Russian studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He then earned a doctorate at Oxford, supervised by the British historian E. H. Carr.

From 1991 to 2007 he directed the Cummings Center for Russian Studies at Tel Aviv University. He held visiting posts at St Antony's College and All Souls College in Oxford, the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He also taught as a visiting professor in Munich, Cologne and Budapest.

His book Grand Delusion argued that Stalin pursued realpolitik and turned to appeasement of Hitler in the hope of delaying war. His other works deal with Anglo-Soviet relations, Stafford Cripps in Moscow and the diaries of the Soviet ambassador Ivan Maisky. In 2010 he received an honorary doctorate from the Russian State University for the Humanities in Moscow.

He was married to Ruth Herz, a jurist from Cologne, who died in February 2023.