Speaker Biography: Vladimir V. Kara-Murza

Vladimir V. Kara-Murza is a member of the federal council of the Republican Party of Russia–People’s Freedom Party, and of Solidarnost (“Solidarity”), Russia’s democratic opposition movement which was instrumental in organizing mass protests after the flawed 2011 parliamentary elections. He was a candidate for the Russian parliament in 2003, representing the Union of Right Forces and Yabloko parties, and has served as campaign chairman for presidential candidate Vladimir Bukovsky (2007–08) and advisor to Duma opposition leader Boris Nemtsov (2000–03). Kara-Murza is the author of Reform or Revolution: The Quest for Responsible Government in the First Russian State Duma (Moscow 2011), and a contributor to Russia’s Choices: The Duma Elections and After (London 2003) and Russian Liberalism: Ideas and People (Moscow 2007). In 2005, he produced They Chose Freedom, a television documentary on dissent in the Soviet Union. From 2004 to 2012, Kara-Murza was the Washington bureau chief of RTVi television. He was dismissed (and blacklisted from the Russian media) over his support for the Magnitsky Act, a U.S. bill that introduces targeted sanctions against Russian human rights violators. He was previously a correspondent for Novye Izvestia and Kommersant newspapers and editor-in-chief of the Russian Investment Review. He has published op-eds in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and the Financial Times and writes a weekly blog, Spotlight on Russia, for World Affairs. Vladimir Kara-Murza holds an M.A. degree in history from Cambridge University, England.