Kunalakis, Marcos

Family

Born in the working-class family of the Greeks Antonis and Vasiliki Kunalakisov, originally from Crete ( Greece ). Together with Konstantinos Mitsotakis , the future Prime Minister of Greece, Marcos father fought in the ranks of Cretan rebels against the German Nazis during the Second World War, for which he was awarded the anti-Hitler coalition. He was also a participant in the civil war in Greece ^[3] . Arriving in the USA, Anthony initially worked as a mechanic at the Greyhound bus company, then on weekends at his brother’s Zenith bar and taxi driver, taking Marcos with him, and later acquired his own lorry and worked in the construction sector. Subsequently, upon completion of studies, Marcos followed in his father's footsteps, becoming a builder. He still has a Class A driving license ^{[15] [20]} .

Antonis Kunalakis was very interested in the events taking place in the world, so Marcos grew up in a house where international news was constantly discussed ^{[14] [15]} . The family still speaks Greek ^[20] .

Marcos' sister, Diane, worked with the , later becoming president of the Pankrit Association of America. ^[21]

Education

He graduated from Lowell High School in San Francisco ^{[20] [22]} .

In 1978, he graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a bachelor 's degree in political science .

In the early 1980s he attended the Graduate School of International Studies at Stockholm University ( Sweden ), where he studied international relations and perfectly mastered the Swedish language .

In 1988, he received a master 's degree in journalism from Columbia University .

In 1988-1989, under the he studied at the under the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Germany in Bonn and the National School of Administration in Paris ( France ).

In 1995-1996, he studied international journalism at the University of California , and later at ( Mexico ).

In 2016, he received a Ph.D. degree “ with the greatest honor ”, defending a thesis on political science / international relations at the Central European University in Budapest ( Hungary ) ^{[11] [13]} .

Journalist

In 1989-1991, being a reporter in the Prague bureau of the Newsweek news magazine , and being in Rome and Vienna , he covered the events of the revolutions in Eastern Europe ( Hungary , Czechoslovakia , East Germany , Bulgaria , Romania ) and Albania , the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the cold war , as well as at the initial stage of interethnic conflicts in Yugoslavia ^{[13] [14]} .

During the Afghan War, he wrote for The Los Angeles Times Magazine.

In 1991-1992, he worked as a foreign correspondent for NBC Radio and in Moscow , covering events related to the collapse of the USSR ^[13] . Having been attacked, Kunalakis was hospitalized and was forced to complete his work. Upon his return to the United States, he began writing.

At various times, he wrote for The Wall Street Journal , The Los Angeles Times Magazine, International Herald Tribune , San Francisco Chronicle , The Dallas Morning News , The Miami Herald and many other regional and international newspapers and magazines ^{[11] [13]} .

Recent years

In 2014, he condemned the foreign and domestic policies of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan , admitting, however, that despite his ethnicity, as well as serious problems in Greek-Turkish relations and the Turkish military occupation of northern Cyprus , he knows and loves Turkey ^{[ 23] [24]} . In the same year, after the Boeing 777 disaster in the east of the Donetsk region of Ukraine , in another article he wrote that Russia , represented by its president Vladimir Putin, is the state sponsor of terrorism ^[25] . In general, condemns both domestic and foreign policies of Putin ^[26] .

In 2015, when Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras closed banks and called for a referendum on financial policy , Kunalakis compared Greece to the USSR and the countries of the Soviet bloc , recalling the years when he lived in the Soviet Union as a journalist ^[27] .

In November 2017, the Atlantic Council issued a report entitled “Trojan horses of the Kremlin 2.0: Russia's influence on Greece, Italy and Spain,” co-authored by Marcos Kunalakis and Antonis Klapsis, who wrote, in particular, a section on Greece . The authors claim that Greece, which suffered from a volatile social and economic crisis, along with a million migrants and refugees who entered the country, turned out to be fertile ground for Russia to intervene in the country's affairs, and the Euro-skeptic and anti-capitalist government of Greece was an ideal ally in Russia's plans. In addition, according to the authors, in addition to political influence, Russia has established strong business interests in Greece. So, Ivan Savvidi , a Russian Greek from Georgia , one of the richest people in Russia, a member of the United Russia party, Vladimir Putin , a former member of the State Duma and a resident of the Greek city of Thessaloniki , is investing in the strategic sectors of Greece and openly supporting the opposition New Democracy party and its pro-Western leader, Kyriakos Mitsotakis . Along with Savvidi, " there are second-level players who play in real estate and business meetings, seeking opportunities to strengthen Greek-Russian ties where they exist ." For example, three Russian companies, including Gazprom , acquired large stakes in Greek gas companies DEPA and DESFA . The report, as pro-Russian, also refers to the Greek anti-European and anti - American ultra - right party Golden Dawn , which considers Russia a “ natural ally ” of Greece: according to its leader Nikolaos Mikhaloliakos , Athens and Moscow have a wide range of common interests in the Balkans and in the Eastern Mediterranean , and therefore Greece should dissociate itself from the West ( EU , NATO and the USA ) and offer Russia access to the “ warm seas ” in exchange for a Russian guarantee of its national security ^{[28] [29] [30]} .

Miscellaneous

In 2002-2004 - Chairman of the international non-profit organization Internews Network (today ).

In 2005, together with his wife, diplomat Eleni Tsakopoulos-Kunalakis ^[31] donated $ 2 million to Stanford University . With these funds, as well as with the as a charitable contribution to the , a nominal Hellenistic research professor was opened in honor of Konstantinos Mitsotakis ( English Tsakopoulos Kounalakis chair in honor of Constantine Mitsotakis ) ^{[14] [15] [32]} . At the expense of spouses ($ 1.2 million), the same professorship was opened in 2003 at Georgetown University ( born Markos and Eleni Tsakopoulos Kounalakis chair in honor of Constantine Mitsotakis ) ^{[5] [22] [33]} .

In 2007, he shot the short animated film “The War Prayer” ( Russian “Military Prayer ”), based on the Mark Twain ^{[34] [35] [36]} . Illustrator was Akis Dimitrakopoulos, narrator actor Peter Coyoti , and characters were voiced by Ferlingetti Lawrence and . The film was created by Kunalakis under the impression of reading the story during the war in Yugoslavia ^{[14] [37]} .

Together with his wife, he is a member of the Leadership 100 charity foundation of the Greek Orthodox Archbishopric of America , which supports the organizations of the American Archbishopric in the promotion and development of Greek Orthodoxy and Hellenism in the United States ^[38] . The foundation was created in 1984 under the auspices of Archbishop Jacob ^[39] [32] .

• senior foreign fello of the “ brain trust ” “Center for Media, Data and Society” (Central European University).
• Member of the Southern California.
• Member of the Advisory Board, ^[19] .
• invited fello of the Hoover Institute of War, Revolution and Peace (since 2013) ^{[11] [13]} .
• member of the Council on Foreign Scholarships J. William Fulbright (since 2017) ^[19] .

In the past

• Member of the Board of Supervisors .
• Member of the Advisory Board, .
• member of the Wilson Council of the Woodrow Wilson (WWICS).
• member of the board of directors of the think tank, .
• Vice-Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Southeast Europe Project WWICS ^{[11] [13]} .

• "Defying Gravity: The Making of Newton" ( , 1993)
• Beyond Spin: The Power of Strategic Corporate Journalism ( co-authored by Jossey-Bass , 1999)
• “ ” (co-authored by , 2008) ^[40]
• “Reflections 1980-82: Markos Kounalakis” (Ernst Galeria Press, 2012) ^{[11] [14] [41]}

Currently writing another book ^[13] .

Since 2000, married to Eleni Tsakopoulos-Kunalakis. The wedding took place in Phanar , the historic district of Constantinople (today Istanbul , Turkey ), at the invitation of the Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I ^{[21] [23]} . The couple has sons Neo and Aeon ^{[11] [13] [20]} .

• Washington Monthly