Franco-American with family ties to many frontier regions of Russia and the Ukraine, trained at the sorbonne, first by founders of the Annales school (mainly Pierre Chaunu), then François-Xavier Coquin, Professor Kobtzeff's pluri-disciplinary and multi-faceted work is a study of the interface of civilizations and their relationship with their natural environments. Familiarity with French, American and Slavic geographic research lead to first assignments: the CNES (French space agency), the US National Parks Service, and scientific institutions in Alaska where he lived for four years in an indigenous community, co-founded a museum, and became involved, as an educator or journalist, in the problems of
multi-cultural societies, borderlands, and management of maritime resources, discovering how a remote area becomes a crossroads of global forces. After more comparative research in Italy (as acting director of the Gogol Library) and France (faculty member of the Sorbonne and the Collège de France) he began traveling extensively across Central and Eastern Europe and the Arctic regions, producing publications and teaching on international competition or cooperation in fields ranging from war, the environment, or outer-space, to human rights and identity.
B.A. and M.A. in history, Université de Paris Sorbonne (Paris IV)
B.Th., Institut de Théologie Orthodoxe Saint Serge (Paris)
D.E.A. in history, Université de Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris I)
Ph.D. in East European studies, Université de Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris I)
2020: "Le pacifisme de Tolstoï dans son contexte historique", Table ronde " Faire la paix avec Tolstoï ", Conférence
Catholique des Baptisé-e-s Francophones, January 30.
2019: "De la polémologie comme grille de lecture des grands conflits contemporains et instrument de paix: pour une
redécouverte de Gaston Bouthoul et d'Erich Fromm". Conference "Faire Paix" hosted by Ecole de Management de Normandie (also co-sponsor) organized by Université de Caen. Sponsored by Région Normandie. November, 15.
2019: "Défense de la nature : les origines de l'écologie en France et dans le monde francophone." organized by FfIRE
(Forum francophone interdépartemental de recherches et d'enseignement) - a partnership between AUP and OIF (l'Organisation
Internationale de la Francophonie), OIF headquarters, September 26
2019 : “Sur les traces du Transsibérien”. Individual presentation organized by Association Linguarik, Université populaire de Poissy. September 22.
2019 : “Pour une étude comparative des pèlerinages sur les tombes de Saint Germain d’Alaska et de Saint Séraphim de
Sarov. commentaires sur des notes de terrain. " Conference “Liturgies de pèlerinages, 66e Semaine d’études liturgiques“, organized by Institut Saint-Serge, Paris, July 1-4
2017 : comments and discussion in the roundtable « le Siècle Arctique » with Mika Mered and Stéphane Dugast, Institut
Libre des Etudes en Relations Internationales, 30 June
2016: "The Geopolitics of the Arctic”, International Geostrategic Maritime Observatory round-table event on Geostrategy of the Mediterranean Sea, Paris, December
2015: "Russia in the Mediterranean", International Geostrategic Maritime Observatory round-table event on Geostrategy of the
Mediterranean Sea, Paris, June
2014: Panelist, round-table discussion organized by Confrontations Europe think tank, “Comment consolider les
relations de l'Union européenne avec l'Ukraine ? Comment relancer le dialogue avec la Russie ? ("How to consolidate
the relations of the EU with the Ukraine? How to restore dialogue with Russia?")
Nature & Cultures: the American University of Paris online
geographic magazine for global explorers:
http://www.natureandcultures.net/
Waters of the Globe: https://watersoftheglobe.org/