In Memoriam: Janusz Bugajski (1954–2025)
In Memoriam: Janusz Bugajski (1954–2025)
“Be an optimist. Life is temporary and short.” – Janusz Bugajski, September 23, 1954 – October 17, 2025
Two weeks ago, we lost a dear friend and colleague, Janusz Bugajski. It is difficult to explain his analytic contributions, because they were so varied and vast over the course of his career. Janusz was dedicated to the craft, regardless of the medium: sharp analytic Jamestown articles, books, and even his own television programs. Many, including myself, benefited from Janusz’s wisdom, experience, and insight. He mentored dozens of analysts who will carry his legacy forward. He connected a network of researchers, policymakers, and thinkers across the Atlantic. And we should not forget Janusz’s infectious zest for life and music—a reminder that we must keep space for what is new. The most important lesson I learned from Janusz is a caution against the kind of analytic complacency that afflicts too many. We should strive to be objective, but we do not have to be neutral. — Peter Mattis, President of The Jamestown Foundation
Janusz Bugajski was born to a Polish émigré military family in Great Britain in 1954. His parents raised him in the Polish patriotic tradition, emphasizing Poland’s freedom and independence. His grandfather served as a cavalry officer in Piłsudski’s army fighting against Russia during WWI and later joined the Anders’ Army during WWII. His father heroically fought in Anders’ Army throughout Europe, including at the battle for Monte Cassino in WWII. Janusz’s father knew the reality of what Russia’s Soviet Union meant for Poles and other nationalities, an Evil Empire, as years later Ronald Raegan called it. Both sides of his family were exiled to Siberia, along with over one million Polish families, when Stalin and Hitler partitioned Poland. These memories became part of his DNA.
In 1977, Janusz earned a B.A. with Honors from the University of Kent at Canterbury in the United Kingdom. Growing up in the UK, he was an avid Chelsea football club supporter at a very young age, scrounging money together to attend matches at “The Shed.” He spent many Saturdays following and loudly cheering (or criticizing!) his team. Janusz collected an eclectic music library throughout his life, ranging from Rock n Roll, Krautrock, Reggae, Punk, and Canterbury. He enjoyed sharing his hobbies with his family, often playing tracks and teaching them the trivia of the band. In 1981 he obtained his M.Phil. in social anthropology from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He had planned to move to Sudan or Peru to study hunting and gathering societies for his doctoral dissertation. But the same year he graduated from LSE, Poland fell under Martial Law and Janusz, recalling the stories his father and grandfather had shared with him, joined the Polish government in exile to help Solidarność. This completely changed his professional path.
His new career trajectory led him to work as senior research analyst for Radio Free Europe in Munich, Germany in 1984-85 before moving to the United States to work at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC. As Communism was collapsing behind the Iron Curtain in Soviet-dominated Europe, he established the Eastern European Studies program at CSIS in 1986 and worked closely with former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski in helping Poland and other countries eventually join NATO and the European Union.
During the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s, Janusz focused his work on the Balkans, developing a deep understanding of the region. Although the relationships and political processes in the Balkans were foreign and distant enough for members of Congress to ignore, Janusz had a unique ability within the foreign policy community to explain why American involvement was morally right and ethically responsible, without sounding pedantic or preachy. He could explain why doing “this one thing” was the right thing to do. As the war in Bosnia and Croatia was raging, he suggested to the U.S. Senate the deployment of international preventive force to Macedonia, which resulted in establishing the United Nations Preventive Deployment Force (UNPREDEP) in 1995, the first mission in the history of United Nations peacekeeping to have a preventive mandate.
Janusz advocated for NATO intervention to stop the war in Bosnia and avert ethnic cleansing of the Kosova Albanians by Milosevic’s military forces. He became a persistent voice supporting the independence of Kosovo and Montenegro.
As a Senior Fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, he focused his work on Ukraine and Russia, especially following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. In his earlier publications, he predicted the disintegration of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia and argued the Russian empire will inevitably collapse, leading to the formation of new independent states by the indigenous nations of the Russian Federation. At a presentation of the Ukrainian language translation of his book Failed State: A Guide to Russia’s Rupture in Kyiv in 2023, many people echoed the narrative that “the United States would not allow the Russian Federation to collapse.” Janusz would respond, “The people on the ground in those countries will be the ones to decide, not Washington,” pointing as an example Ukraine’s own choice to realize its self-determination despite President Bush’s “Chicken Kyiv Speech” in 1991. Janusz could shine a light through the thickest fog that comes with war.
His experience with the Balkans in the 1990s, coupled with the long-term involvement with Ukraine and more recently with the “Free Nations of Post Russia Forum,” culminated in his most recent anthology, Free Nations, New States: The End Stage of Russian Colonialism, which he presented in Kyiv, Ukraine this past summer. While he was there, Russia launched a drone and missile attack on the capital, and part of a drone damaged the Polish Embassy. The symbolism was obvious to Janusz. In his conversations with Ukrainians in government and academia, the strength of the Warsaw-Kyiv partnership was clear. The book and the forums were the start of his new mission, specifically the launch the Promethean Liberation program at the Jamestown Foundation. Ever the optimist, finishing one book, was for Janusz, the beginning of another.
Janusz also served as the chair of the South-Central Europe area studies program at the Foreign Service Institute of the U.S. Department of State for 25 years. He lectured at the American University, the Smithsonian Institution, the Woodrow Wilson Center, and many U.S. and international universities. He has testified before numerous U.S. Congressional Committees, including the Helsinki Commission, the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees, and the House Committees on Foreign Affairs and Defense Appropriations.
Janusz hosted the “Bugajski Hour” television shows broadcast in the Balkans and was a columnist for a number of media outlets in the United States, United Kingdom, Albania, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Georgia, Kosova, and Ukraine. Janusz’s word reached far and wide, and he made people feel heard, like their voices mattered.
In his spare time, Janusz created intricate wooden sculptures and was enthralled with Westerns and murder mysteries. It was his attention to detail that would come through in his nonfiction writing, and no doubt also helped him finish writing a book of fiction. Janusz has authored 25 books (24 have been published and one was completed in his last days), dedicated to Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Russia’s neo-imperialism, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. His book Nations in Turmoil was selected by Choice as one of the outstanding academic books of 1993. He received the Warsaw University award for the Best Foreign Language Book – Failed State: A Guide to Russia’s Rupture (2023). He was scheduled to travel to Toronto in November 2025 to receive another book award for this work. A long read based on his book, “Mapping Russia’s Devolution,” was translated into over 14 languages.
Among his awards are the Distinguished Public Service Award from U.S. Department of State, U.S. Agency for International Development, U.S. Information Agency, and Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (1998). In 2010, he was awarded the Medal of Gratitude by the Polish Free Trade Union Solidarity.
When he returned home to Washington from his trips abroad, as far away as Taiwan, Tokyo, Warsaw, or Brussels, you could find Janusz gardening, a hobby he shared with his mother-in-law, and playing football with his German shepherd. “Remain optimistic. Life is temporary and short.”
Janusz is survived by his wife, Margarita, his three children, Simona, Petar, and Nevena, his brother, Tadeusz, his mother-in-law, Stoyanka, many friends around the world, and his new puppy Krym Ukrainski.
Tributes
“One of the most eminent global thinkers has left us. His brilliant analyses always shed a strong light on political trends at the turn of the century, indicating to the Euro-Asian societies in transitions how important it is to achieve democracy, human rights and media freedoms. And in that, he particularly focused on us in the Balkans. His objective views about the situation in the region were always respected in the important centres in Washington.” – Milo Đukanović, former President of Montenegro
“Mr. Bugajski built a remarkable career researching Russia’s external ambitions, the politics of post-communist Europe and the transatlantic alliance. He authored more than 20 books, including his most recent work, Pivotal Poland: Europe’s Rising Power (2025).” — Embassy of Poland in Washington, DC
“He was a visionary, an embodiment of the Polish Solidarity spirit, a true freedom fighter.” — Fatima Tlis, journalist
“His voice, insight, and unwavering advocacy for democracy profoundly shaped the understanding of Southeastern Europe in Washington and beyond… For Kosovo, he was an early and tireless advocate of independence and international recognition, a voice of moral clarity when hesitation prevailed….Janusz Bugajski will be remembered in Albania, Kosovo, and throughout the Balkans as a friend, one who spoke truth to power, believed in the democratic future of the region, and inspired generations of scholars, diplomats, and journalists to do the same. His absence leaves a deep void, but his words, ideas, and moral example will continue to guide us. ” – Tirana Times
“Janusz was a brilliant analyst of Eurasian affairs, a prolific author whose publications profoundly shaped our understanding of the region, and a steadfast advocate for democracy, good governance, and press freedom. His insights were consistently clear, principled, and deeply informed.” — Elez Biberaj, former VOA Eurasia Division Director
“Generations in the future will read Janusz’s body of work and wonder: How it was that Janusz could see the future so clearly and explain his own times with such precision?” – Peter Doran, former President of CEPA
Books by Janusz Bugajski
Free Nations, New States: The End Stage of Russian Colonialism, Anthology
edited by Janusz Bugajski, Rogue Umbrella, 2025
Pivotal Poland: Europe’s Rising Power, Jamestown Foundation 2024
Failed State: A Guide to Russia’s Rupture, Jamestown Foundation 2022
(Translated into Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, Montenegrin)
Eurasian Disunion: Russia’s Vulnerable Flanks (with Margarita Assenova), Jamestown Foundation, 2016
Conflict Zones: North Caucasus and Western Balkans Compared, Jamestown Foundation, 2014
Return of the Balkans: Challenges to European Integration and U.S. Disengagement,
Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2013
Journeys of No Return: The Balkan Sagas of Anvil Kutlas, Create Space, 2011 (fiction)
Georgian Lessons: Conflicting Russian and Western Interests in the Wider Europe,
CSIS Press, 2010
Dismantling the West: Russia’s Atlantic Agenda, Potomac Books, 2009
America’s New European Allies, Nova Science Publishers, 2009
Expanding Eurasia: Russia’s European Ambitions, CSIS Press, 2008
The Eastern Dimension of America’s New European Allies, U.S. Army War College, 2007
Atlantic Bridges: America’s New European Allies (with Ilona Teleki), Rowman & Littlefield, 2007
America’s New Allies: Central-Eastern Europe and the Transatlantic Link, CSIS Press, 2006
Kosova Rising: From Occupation to Independence, Koha, Prishtina, Kosova, 2006
Cold Peace: Russia’s New Imperialism, Praeger/Greenwood, 2004
(Translated into Romanian, Bulgarian, and Lithuanian)
Back to the Front: Russian Interests in the New Eastern Europe, Donald T. Treadgold Papers in Russian,
East European, and Central Asian Studies, No.41, University of Washington, 2004
Political Parties of Eastern Europe: A Guide to Politics in the Post-Communist Era, M. E. Sharpe, 2002
Nations in Turmoil: Conflict and Cooperation in Eastern Europe, Westview Press, 1993;
Second edition, 1995
Ethnic Politics in Eastern Europe: A Guide to Nationality Policies, Organizations, and Parties, M. E. Sharpe, 1994
Fourth World Conflicts: Communism and Rural Societies, Westview Press, 1991
Sandinista Communism and Rural Nicaragua, Praeger / CSIS, 1990
East European Fault Lines: Dissent, Opposition, and Social Activism, Westview Press, 1989
Czechoslovakia: Charter 77’s Decade of Dissent, Praeger/CSIS, 1987