Episode #4: Tales of the High Seas and the Soviet Union with Willard Sunderland

Dear Readers,

The History on Drugs podcast is back. This week’s guest is my colleague Willard Sunderland. Willard is the Henry R. Winkler Professor of Modern History at the University of Cincinnati and an expert on the history of the Russian Empire. Our conversation centers around a great adventure from which Willard had just returned—sailing a 32-foot sailboat from Lake Erie to Finland. Though there’s a lot of history involved in this too, as the trip shadowed the same route taken by John Quincy Adams back in 1809. We discuss not only the ins and outs of sailing a small boat across the North Atlantic, but Adams' earlier voyage and U.S.-Russian relations (and researching and writing a book about all of that). Willard also tells some amazing stories about visiting the Soviet Union in the 1980s as well as working as a translator on a Soviet fishing boat. This is a great, wide-ranging conversation that takes us from Ohio to Finland to the Soviet Union and back again.

The view from Willard’s boat.

As always, the episode is available through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Pocketcasts, and the Substack app.

Episode Outline

0:00-6:40: Episode introduction.

6:40-15:30: Describing the route from Lake Erie to Finland—Buffalo, Manhattan, Boston, Newfoundland, and the big water.

15:30-23:20: Dealing with storms and “rogue” waves.

23:20-33:10: Background on the trip, the inspiration, the preparation—buying, fortifying, and outfitting the big-water boat.

33:10-38:47: How the crew sleeps, being on watch, what one pays attention to while on watch.

38:47-1:06:35: Personal connections to Russia and the intellectual origins of the voyage, John Quincy Adams, U.S.-Russian relations, writing a book about the trip, the available sources from Adams’ voyage and retracing his route, landfall.

1:06:35-1:12:30: Willard’s approach to historical research, frequent travel to Russia, seeking inspiration from the experience of being there, how going to Russia in the 1980s inspired him to study history.

1:12:30-1:18:56: Glasnost and getting to the Soviet Union as a student in the 1980s, a freakish stroke of good luck that got him a spot on a student exchange.

1:18:56-1:28:50: Arriving in the Soviet Union, first impressions, meeting people in their homes where they could show their full colors, the excitement of seeing the Soviet Union open up.

1:28:50-end: Absurd luck and joining a Soviet fishing boat as a translator, life on a 300-foot Soviet ship, arbitrating disputes between American and Soviet fishing vessels, industrial-scale destruction of the world’s fisheries.