MIKHAIL GORBACHEV
April 10-11, 1993

As the University of Richmond’s Robins Center lights shone down on Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet President somehow found himself more lauded by Western listeners than the people he once led. Gorbachev’s Easter Sunday visit to the University was part of his larger tour of Virginia colleges, commemorating Thomas Jefferson’s 250th birthday. Freedom, democracy, and leadership remained the focus of his speech, which drew a crowd of about 8,000 to the private liberal arts school.

Gorbachev appeared as one of the inaugural keynote speakers for the Jepson School of Leadership Studies, which had opened its doors just one year earlier as the newest addition to the University of Richmond. Before his evening address, Gorbachev and his wife, Raisa, dined with esteemed University faculty and met with the first-ever class of Leadership Studies majors. Those who met Gorbachev on campus remember his diplomatic, yet personable demeanor, describing him as a “true statesman.” Of the Jepson School, Gorbachev later remarked in his speech: “Perhaps even among those who are in the first classes of this school, there is someone who will become a new Thomas Jefferson. Why not?”

Mikhail Gorbachev, University of Richmond Magazine, 1993, Courtesy of
Boatwright Library