In Memoriam

Ehsan Yarshater (1920–2018)

he passing of Ehsan Yarshater, the Tehran, and the Faculty of Law at the Hagop Kevorkian Professor Emeritus University of Tehran. He received a of Iranian Studies at Columbia D.Litt. degree in 1947 with a dissertation TUniversity, on 2 September 2018 in Fresno, on Timurid poetry (published in 1955). California, was a tremendous loss not just Yarshater received a fellowship from the for Iranian studies but for the scholarly British Council in 1948 to study educational world. methods, but after arriving in London he Yarshater was born in Hamadan, Iran, became a student of Iranian philology with on 3 April 1920. Orphaned at a young Walter Bruno Henning at the School of age, he moved to Tehran to live with a Oriental and African Studies. maternal uncle. He resumed his education Upon his return to Iran in 1953 to in 1934 after obtaining a scholarship to conduct research for his dissertation on attend the newly opened Danesh-sara-ye southern Tati dialects, which conclusively Moqaddamati high school, graduating demonstrated their connections to at the top of his class. He went on to Median, he taught ancient Iranian attend the Teachers Training College languages at the University of Tehran and (Danesh-sara-ye ʿali), later part of the founded or helped found the Institute for Faculty of Letters at the University of the Translation and Publication of Books

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(Bongah-e Tarjoma va Nashr-e Ketab), for publication he had shown in Iran the Book Society (Anjoman-e Ketab), and while at Columbia, even establishing for a the journal Rahnema-ye Ketab. With the while his own press (Bibliotheca Persica). recommendation and support of Henning, Under his direction, the Columbia Center Yarshater received a visiting position at sponsored six series of publications, Columbia University in 1958, and, in 1961, producing over a hundred titles including was appointed to the new Kevorkian chair translations of Persian classics, scholarly in Iranian studies there, which he held monographs in Iranian studies, editions of until his retirement in 1999. In addition texts (including a new edition of the Shah- to chairing the Middle East Studies nama), and illustrated works on Persian art department for several years, Yarshater and architecture as well as publication of also revived the Center for Iranian Studies lecture series he had helped found at SOAS, at Columbia in 1968 and served as its Harvard, UCLA, and the Collège de France. director until 2016. In recognition of his Yarshater tirelessly promoted the work of many years of contributions to academic other scholars by organizing conferences life at Columbia, the center was endowed and symposia, compiling editing volumes, and renamed the Ehsan Yarshater Center and sponsoring monographs. Moreover, for Iranian Studies in August 2018. he was responsible for creating and Yarshater’s scholarly interests were raising funds for two private foundations every bit as diverse and accomplished as dedicated to the promotion of Iranian his life story would suggest. His own books studies and culture, the Persian Heritage and articles included studies not only on Foundation and the Encyclopaedia Iranica linguistics, dialectology, and many periods Foundation, that have the means to carry of Persian literature but philosophy, on his work indefinitely. There are few painting, history, religion, ethnology, scholars in the field who are not in his music, and other topics. Among them debt directly or indirectly for help with are many works of significance for the publication, letters of recommendation, membership of Middle East Medievalists, financial support for projects, and the like. notably his edition of volume III of the Finally, one must make a special Cambridge History of Iran (including his acknowledgement of what Mary Boyce own important entries on Mazdakism, called Yarshater’s “genius in envisaging the “Iranian World View,” and “Iranian ends and securing means,” as it applies National History”) and thought-provoking to conceiving, organizing, and producing and seminal articles such as “Theme of major collaborative scholarly projects. Wine-Drinking and the Concept of the Yarshater was not only the principal Beloved in Early Persian Poetry,” “Textual investigator and general editor for the Aspects of the Andarznama,” “Were the longest continually funded NEH project, Sasanians Heirs to the Achaemenids?,” but also the only scholar to supervise three and “The Persian Presence in the Islamic major NEH projects simultaneously, all of World.” them of particular interest for members of Yarshater’s contributions, however, MEM: the forty volume Tabari translation go well beyond his own monographs. He (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1985–2007); the continued the love of books and talent three volume translation of Bayhaqi’s

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History (ILEX/Harvard University Press, as does another major project, The History 2011), and the Encyclopaedia Iranica of Persian Literature series, but thanks to (ongoing, London: I.B. Tauris, 2008- ). The Yarshater’s foresight and planning, they Encyclopaedia Iranica remains unfinished, can continue to progress. — Elton L. Daniel University of Hawaii ([email protected])

Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 26 (2018)