Teresa Rakowska-Harmstone

Teresa Jadwiga Rakowska-Harmstone (1927–2017) was a Polish-Canadian political scientist. She was an expert in the politics of Eastern Europe, Soviet Studies, and post-Soviet Studies. Rakowska-Harmstone was a professor at Carleton University from 1966 until her death, where she helped establish the Institute of Soviet and East European Studies and was head of the Department of Political Science. She was also a professor at Collegium Civitas from its founding, and served a term as the head of the Department of International Relations there.

Life and career Rakowska-Harmstone moved to Montreal when her father was named the Polish consul there. She attended McGill University, where she obtained a bachelor's degree in 1950, and then she graduated from Harvard University with a Master of Arts degree in 1952. In 1966, she obtained her doctorate there.

Rakowska-Harmstone was a prominent scholar of Soviet and Eastern European studies in Canada. Her textbook Communism in Eastern Europe, first printed in 1979, was considered a classic work on the subject. Rakowska-Harmstone was a member of the Polish Scientific Institute in America.

Selected works Russia and Nationalism in Central Asia: The Case of Tadzhikistan (1970) Communism in Eastern Europe (1979) Warsaw Pact: Political and Military Integration; A Political Analysis (1990) Disintegration and Re-definition of East Europe (1992)