George Yaney

He made quite an impression on me when I took Russian courses in the 1960s.

I only just now stumbled across George´s obituary on the Internet. I remember George fondly as a fellow college park pick-up soccer player from the time I was a junior in high school, if not earlier, through the mid 70s. (Brian and I were teammates on the Northwestern HS team). "History Tigers" was the adopted name of our group as it included not only George but other professors and probably students as well from the U of MD history department. My conversations with George were limited to...

I took three courses from Dr. Yaney: Russian History I in Fall 1971, Russian History II in Spring 1972, and Russian Revolution in Fall 1973. His stimulating lectures provided much of the foundation of my world view as an undergraduate physics major, and continued to inform me throughout my life. He introduced me to the surprising idea that the democratic process may actually impede government decision making, as highlighted in his series of lectures “Great Failures of Democracy”. In...

I'm one of Gandalf's grandchildren, Conrad, by his son, Brian. There's no way to cover even a small percentage of what was great about Gandalf (the nickname we grandchildren had for our grandfather), but here are some stories I love. 1) On a visit home, he asked me how New York was going, and if I had things under control. Lazily quoting a memorable moment of an Anthony Hopkins/Cuba Gooding Jr. movie, I said "control is an illusion, Gandalf." He looked at me for about 5 seconds, turned...