What compels someone like NIU’s Albert Resis to devote his academic career to the study of the USSR? Curiosity, he says.

The associate professor has taught Soviet history, Soviet foreign relations and Soviet culture at NIU since 1964.

“We know so little about Soviet Russia. Practically every prediction made about that country was wrong. They didn’t surrender in 1941—they ended up in Berlin in 1945. All the experts said they would collapse in 1941.”

Very few universities offered courses in Russian language, history or culture before World War II. “There was nothing on Soviet economics, like it was the other side of the moon,” Resis said.

His interest was fueled by a wartime experience and misinformation rather than facts. Resis spent three years, three months and three days of U.S. Army duty guarding German prisoners of war who were housed in this country. After talking with the prisoners, Resis realized that “their views of Russia were even more cockeyed than ours.” The Germans espoused the “straight Nazi racist propaganda. They (the prisoners) said they (the Russians) were subhuman,” he said.

Resis decided to study Russian history and culture because: “Here was this big surprise from this little country we knew very little about. It was an ally of the U.S. and overnight a rival. That does stir one’s interest.”

When Resis’ army enlistment ended, he returned to Northwestern University and in 1948 finished the master’s degree program in French history that he had started before the war. He completed a two-year certificate program at the Russian Institute at Columbia University in New York City in 1950, receiving his doctoral degree from there in 1964.

The study of Soviet foreign relations is fascinating, Resis said, because much information is unavailable, despite the U.S.S.R.‘s policy of Glasnost.

“Much of the information is locked up. It’s kind of like being a paleontologist, trying to reconstruct the animal on the basis of a shin bone. Half the fun is thinking of ways of beating Soviet secrecy of its own past.”

Resis retains his love of French history and music. Before entering the Army, he also had considered becoming a professional bassoonist.

And the historian sadly reports misinformation still exists, decades after his decision to learn about Russia.

Resis recalled a 1975 study in which 28 percent of the persons polled said the U.S. fought Russia in WW II. “Forty-four percent thought we weren’t allies in WW II,” he said.