Ehsan yarshater biography

About Ehsan Yarshater

Ehsan Yarshater

April 3, 1920 – September 2, 2018

Hagop Kevorkian Professor Emeritus of Iranian Studies, Columbia University

 

Ehsan Yarshater was born in Hamadan on April 3, 1920.  Growing up mostly in Tehran, he finished his secondary education at the top of his class, with this success earning him a scholarship to study at the Faculty of Literature and the Teacher’s College of the University of Tehran.  Upon graduation from the Teacher’s College in 1941, he joined the service of the Ministry of Education as a teacher at Elmieh High School in Tehran. By 1944, he was appointed Deputy Director of the Preparatory Educational College (Danesh-sara-ye Moqaddamati) in Tehran.  While working in the field of education, he studied at the Faculty of Law and earned his B.A. In addition, he pursued the study of Persian literature at the University of Tehran, receiving a Doctorate in 1947. He then continued his studies in England after receiving a scholarship from the British Council.  Under the tutelage of W.B. Henning, he studied Old and Middle Iranian

Ehsan Yarshater

Professor Ehsan Yarshater, a distinguished scholar of Persian language and literature, and the founder of Encyclopaedia Iranica was born in Hamedan, Iran in 1920. He received a Ph.D. in Persian language and literature from the University of Tehran in 1947. He then moved to England to pursue his studies with W. B. Henning at London University, where he received an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Old and Middle Iranian in 1960. He was invited by Columbia University in 1958 as a Visiting Associate Professor and was later appointed to the Kevorkian Chair in 1961. He founded the Center for Iranian Studies at Columbia University in 1968 and served as its Director until his retirement in 2016. The center was recently named Ehsan Yarshater Center for Iranian Studies.

Professor Yarshater founded the Encyclopædia Iranica in 1973 and remained its Editor-in-Chief until his retirement. Encyclopædia Iranica is arguably the most significant, extensive and comprehensive scholarly work dedicated to the study of Iranian civilization in the Middle East, the Caucasus, Central Asia a

Ehsan Yarshater

Iranian historian and linguist (1920–2018)

Ehsan Yarshater (Persian: احسان يارشاطر; April 3, 1920 – September 1, 2018)[2] was an Iranian historian and linguist who specialized in Iranology. He was the founder and director of the Center for Iranian Studies, and Hagop Kevorkian Professor Emeritus of Iranian Studies at Columbia University.

He was the first Persian full-time professor at a U.S. university since World War II.[3]

He was one of the 40 editors of the Encyclopædia Iranica,[4] with articles by 300 authors from various academic institutions. He also edited the third volume of The Cambridge History of Iran, comprising the history of the Seleucids, the Parthians, and the Sassanians, and a volume entitled Persian Literature. He was also an editor of a sixteen-volume series named History of Persian Literature.[5] He had won several international awards for scholarship, including a UNESCO award in 1959, and the Giorgio Levi Della Vida Medal for Achievement in Islamic Studies from UCLA in 1991.[6]

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