Near abroad

In the political language of Russia and some other post-Soviet states, the near abroad (Russian: ближнее зарубежье, blizhneye zarubezhye) refers to the newly independent republics (other than Russia itself) which emerged after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

History

Some sources claim that the term was popularised by Russian foreign minister Andrey Kozyrev in the early 1990s, referring to central and eastern Europe, however the usage of the expression is attested before Kozyrev became minister, giving translators hard time. Early attempts to translate the Russian term include "the concept of 'abroad close at hand,'" "nearby foreign lands," and "countries not far abroad." As a result of the acceptance of the term "near abroad," the word "abroad" has acquired the function of a noun in English.

"Near abroad" became more widely used in English, usually to assert Russia's right to have major influence in the region, but also for marketing purposes by various companies. Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared the region Russia's "sphere of influence", and strategically vital for Russia. The concept has been compared to the Monroe Doctrine.

Gerard Toal

Gerard Toal (Irish: Gearóid Ó Tuathail; born 1962 in the Republic of Ireland) is Professor of Government and International Affairs and Director of the Government and International Affairs program, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, National Capital Region campus. Toal grew up in the border region of Ireland, in the village of Smithborough, County Monaghan. He received a B.A. in History and Geography from National University of Ireland, Maynooth with First Class Honours in 1982. He obtained a M.A. in Geography from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1984 and a Ph.D. in Political Geography from Syracuse University in 1989. John O'Loughlin in Illinois and John A. Agnew in Syracuse, were his academic advisors. Following his Ph D, Toal was hired in 1989 as Assistant Professor of Geography at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg where he worked for ten years before moving to the Washington DC region to establish what became the Government and International Affairs program in the School of Public and International Affairs.

Near

NEAR or Near may refer to:

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Geography

Linguistics

Russia

Coordinates: 60°N 90°E / 60°N 90°E / 60; 90

Russia (ⁱ/ˈrʌʃə/; Russian: Росси́я, tr. Rossiya; IPA: [rɐˈsʲijə]), also officially known as the Russian Federation (Russian: Росси́йская Федера́ция, tr. Rossiyskaya Federatsiya; IPA: [rɐˈsʲijskəjə fʲɪdʲɪˈratsɨjə]), is a sovereign state in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic. At 17,125,200 square kilometres (6,612,100 sq mi), Russia is the largest country in the world, covering more than one-eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area. Russia is the world's ninth most populous country with over 144 million people at the end of 2015.

Extending across the entirety of northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a wide range of environments and landforms. From northwest to southeast, Russia shares land borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland (both with Kaliningrad Oblast), Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, and North Korea. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk and the U.S. state of Alaska across the Bering Strait.

Dance Theater Workshop

Dance Theater Workshop, colloquially known as DTW, was a New York City performance space and service organization for dance companies that operated from 1965 to 2011. Located as 219 West 19th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, DTW was founded in 1965 by Jeff Duncan, Art Bauman and Jack Moore as a choreographers' collective. In 2002 DTW opened its new Doris Duke Performance Center, which contains the 192-seat Bessie Schönberg Theatre.

From 1975-2003, DTW was led by David R. White, Executive Director and Producer. Under White's leadership, DTW became one of the most influential contemporary performing arts centers and artist incubators in the United States and abroad, responsible for identifying and nurturing some of the most important dance and other performing artists of our time, including: Bill T. Jones, Mark Morris, Susan Marshall, Whoopi Goldberg, Bill Irwin, Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar, Donald Byrd and John Jasperse, among many others.