Events

Ljubo Sirc, CBE, Founder President of the CRCE

Trained in both economics and law, Sirc is able to unite the perspective of a scholar with personal experience to observe firsthand the dangers of communist regimes. Born in Kranj, Slovenia, he participated in the Resistance and served in the Yugoslav Army between 1941 and 1945. In 1947, due to his political opposition and friendship with Western diplomats, he was sentenced to death. His sentence was ultimately commuted to twenty years in prison, of which he served seven, much of it in solitary confinement. In his various teaching posts since then, including twenty years at the University of Glasgow, Sirc has been a leading expert on socialist economics and communist regimes. He is the author of numerous books and articles in a variety of languages. His autobiography, Between Hitler and Tito, was published in 1989.

Philip Hanson, Interviewer

Philip Hanson is Professor Emeritus of the Political Economy of Russia and Eastern Europe at The University of Birmingham and a former Director of that university�s Centre for Russian and East European Studies. He has published widely on the Soviet and Russian economies and on post-communist transition. His books include From Stagnation to Catastroika, 1992; Regional Economic Change in Russia (co-edited with Michael Bradshaw), 2000; and The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Economy: An Economic History of the USSR after 1945, 2003.

Christmas drinks and nibbles will be served

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