Thomas de Waal
{{Short description|British journalist (born 1966)}}
{{EngvarB|date=April 2015}}
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{{Infobox person
| name = Thomas de Waal
| image = File:Thomas de Waal 2013 (cropped).jpg
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| caption = De Waal at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington DC, 20 June 2013
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| birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1966}}
| birth_place = Nottingham, UK
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| nationality = British
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| alma_mater = Balliol College, Oxford
| occupation = Journalist
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| notable_works = Black Garden (2003)
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Thomas Patrick Lowndes de Waal (born 1966) is a British journalist and writer on the Caucasus. He is a senior fellow at Carnegie Europe. He is best known for his 2003 book Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War.
Life and career
Thomas De Waal was born in Nottingham, England. He is the son of Esther Aline (née Lowndes-Moir), a writer on religion, and Anglican priest Victor de Waal. De Waal graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, with a First Class Degree in Modern Languages (Russian and Modern Greek).
De Waal is the co-author of Chechnya: Calamity in the Caucasus (New York, 1998) and author of Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War (New York, 2003).{{cite web |title=Awards & Grants: Black garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through peace and war |url=http://www.ala.org/awardsgrants/node/19746 |access-date=16 May 2021 |website=Choice Reviews |publisher=American Library Association}}
As a journalist, de Waal has reported for, amongst others, the BBC World Service, the Moscow Times, and The Times.Russia bars UK reporter on security grounds by Oliver Bullough He was a Caucasus editor at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) in London until December 2008, and later a research associate with the peace-building NGO Conciliation Resources.
From 2010 to 2015, de Waal worked as a Senior Associate in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, specialising primarily in the South Caucasus region.[http://www.carnegieendowment.org/experts/index.cfm?fa=expert_view&expert_id=479 Thomas de Waal – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110227005215/http://carnegieendowment.org/experts/index.cfm?fa=expert_view&expert_id=479 |date=27 February 2011 }} Currently he is a senior fellow with Carnegie Europe, specializing in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus region.{{cite web |title=Thomas de Waal |url=https://carnegieeurope.eu/experts/479 |website=Carnegie Europe - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace |access-date=20 May 2021}}
In his position as Senior Fellow for Carnegie Europe, de Waal has written extensively on the Caucasus, with commentary on ongoing events, on breakaway regions, and also larger publications on the region, including books introducing the Caucasus region, and, in The Great Catastrophe (2015), on the aftermath and politics of the Armenian Genocide, also highlighting efforts by Armenians, Kurds, and Turks to come to terms with this history.{{cite news |last1=Larsen |first1=Joseph |title=Book Review: Great Catastrophe by Thomas de Waal |url=http://gtarchive.georgiatoday.ge/news/174/Book-Review%3A-Great-Catastrophe-by-Thomas-de-Waal |access-date=9 August 2023 |agency=Georgia Today |date=14 May 2015}} In 2014, de Waal had provided the introduction to Two Close Peoples, Two Distant Neighbours, a book collecting the major writings on Armenian-Turkish relations by Hrant Dink.{{cite book |last1=Dink |first1=Hrant |last2=Dikbaş |first2=Nazım |last3=De Waal |first3=Thomas |last4=Mahçupyan |first4=Etyen |title=Two close peoples two distant neighbours |date=2014 |publisher=Hrant Dink Foundation |location=Istanbul |isbn=978-605-64488-4-3 |url=https://hrantdink.org/attachments/article/109/TwoClosedpeopleTwoDistantNeighbours.pdf |access-date=10 August 2023}}
Next to the Carnegie Europe website, his analysis has been published in Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, and various other outlets.{{cite journal |last1=Waal |first1=Thomas de |title=Nagorno-Karabakh in the Shadow of Ukraine |journal=Foreign Affairs |date=30 May 2022 |url=https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/armenia/2022-05-30/nagorno-karabakh-shadow-ukraine |access-date=9 August 2023 |issn=0015-7120}}{{cite journal |last1=Waal |first1=Thomas de |title=How Georgia Stumbled on the Road to Europe |journal=Foreign Policy |date=7 July 2022 |url=https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/07/07/georgia-moldova-ukraine-european-union-membership/?tpcc=recirc_latest062921 |access-date=9 August 2023}} Like other prominent commentators on the region, De Waal has been criticized for some of the analysis he has put forward.{{cite journal |title=Carnegie Europe and Thomas de Waal under critique |journal=Agos |date=15 June 2021 |url=https://www.agos.com.tr/en/article/25781/carnegie-europe-and-thomas-de-waal-under-critique |access-date=9 August 2023 |language=en}}
In 2023, de Waal published a translation of Osip Mandelstam's Tristia.
In 2021, he was criticised in an open letter addressed to Carnegie Europe and signed by fourteen scholars, including Henry Theriault, Bedross Der Matossian, Elyse Semerdjian, and Marc A. Mamigonian for his article "What Next After the U.S. Recognition of the Armenian Genocide?",{{Cite web |last=Waal |first=Thomas de |title=What Next After the U.S. Recognition of the Armenian Genocide? |url=https://carnegieeurope.eu/2021/04/30/what-next-after-u.s.-recognition-of-armenian-genocide-pub-84440 |access-date=2022-06-29 |website=Carnegie Europe |language=en}} stating that its "inaccuracies and minimizations have ... contributed to denial of the Armenian Genocide".{{Cite web |title=Carnegie Europe and Thomas de Waal under critique |url=https://www.agos.com.tr/en/article/25781/carnegie-europe-and-thomas-de-waal-under-critique |access-date=2022-06-29 |website=Agos |language=en}}
Work on Russia and Chechnya
De Waal has repeatedly worked on and reported from Chechnya.
In 2006 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia denied an entry visa to De Waal, who was due to attend in Moscow the presentation of a Russian version of his book on the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, citing a law that says a visa can be refused "in the aims of ensuring state security."{{cite news |title=British journalist denied entry visa |url=https://ifex.org/british-journalist-denied-entry-visa/ |access-date=30 May 2021 |agency=CJES/IFEX |date=4 July 2006}} De Waal believes that his visa denial was retaliation for his critical reporting about the Russian war in Chechnya.The St Petersburg Times, "[https://archive.today/20120919031203/http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=18480 Activists, Reporters Also Called a Threat]" by Carl Schreck, 8 August 2006 (Issue # 1193)De Waal, Thomas. "[https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/barredbymoscow Opinions: Barred by Moscow]" Prospect Magazine, July 2006, issue 124.
De Waal wrote the introduction to Anna Politkovskaya's first book in English, A Dirty War (2004), which describes the atrocities and abuses of that conflict.{{cite book |last1=Politkovskaya |first1=Anna |title=A Dirty War |date=2004 |publisher=Harvill Press |isbn=1860468977}}
Other biographical background
De Waal is the brother of Africa specialist Alex de Waal, barrister John de Waal, and potter and writer Edmund de Waal.
Through his grandmother, Elisabeth de Waal (née Ephrussi), Thomas de Waal is related to the Ephrussi family who were wealthy Jewish bankers and art patrons in pre-World War II Europe and whose fortunes started in 19th-century Odessa. He had done some research on the family's Russian branch, and helped with the research of his family's history by his brother Edmund de Waal, which led to the publication of the book The Hare with Amber Eyes.
Bibliography
- {{cite book|title=Chechnya: Calamity in the Caucasus|publisher=NYU Press |year=1999|isbn=0814731325}}
- {{cite book|title=Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War|publisher=New York University Press |year=2003|isbn=0814719449}}
- {{cite book|title=The Caucasus: An Introduction |publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2010|isbn=978-0195399769}} (2nd edition, 2018)
- {{cite book|title=Great Catastrophe: Armenians and Turks in the Shadow of Genocide|publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2015|isbn=978-0199350698}}
- {{cite book|title=Beyond Frozen Conflict: Scenarios for the Separatist Disputes of Eastern Europe|publisher=Center for European Policy Studies|year=2020|isbn=978-1538144176}}
- {{cite book|title=Tristia, by Osip Mandelstam: Translated from the Russian by Thomas de Waal|publisher=Arc Publications |year=2023|isbn=9781910345931}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [https://findingaids.library.columbia.edu/ead/nnc-rb/ldpd_12194542 Finding aid to the Thomas de Waal interviews at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library]
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Category:English male journalists
Category:English people of Dutch descent
Category:English people of Austrian-Jewish descent
Category:Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford
Category:20th-century British journalists
Category:20th-century British non-fiction writers
Category:20th-century British male writers
Category:21st-century British journalists