Nicholas Valentine Riasanovsky (born Nicolai Valentinovitch Riasanovskiy;. (December 21, 1923 – May 14, 2011) was a professor at the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
and the author of numerous books on
Russian history
The history of Russia begins with the histories of the East Slavs. The traditional start date of specifically Russian history is the establishment of the Rus' people, Rus' state in the north in the year 862, ruled by Varangians. In 882, Prin ...
and
European intellectual history.
Biography
Nicolai Valentinovitch Riasanovskiy was born on 21 December 1923 in
Harbin
Harbin, ; zh, , s=哈尔滨, t=哈爾濱, p=Hā'ěrbīn; IPA: . is the capital of Heilongjiang, China. It is the largest city of Heilongjiang, as well as being the city with the second-largest urban area, urban population (after Shenyang, Lia ...
(then in the
Republic of China), the son of lawyer Valentin A. Riasanovsky and
Antonina Riasanovsky, a novelist. His father, Valentin, was a Russian professor, who had taught at
Moscow University
Moscow State University (MSU), officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,. is a public research university in Moscow, Russia. The university includes 15 research institutes, 43 faculties, more than 300 departments, and six branches. Al ...
,
Yaroslavl
Yaroslavl (; , ) is a city and the administrative center of Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, located northeast of Moscow. The historic part of the city is a World Heritage Site, and is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Kotorosl rivers. ...
,
Tomsk
Tomsk (, ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Tomsk Oblast in Russia, on the Tom (river), Tom River. Population:
Founded in 1604, Tomsk is one of the oldest cities in Siberia. It has six univers ...
and
Irkutsk
Irkutsk ( ; rus, Иркутск, p=ɪrˈkutsk; Buryat language, Buryat and , ''Erhüü'', ) is the largest city and administrative center of Irkutsk Oblast, Russia. With a population of 587,891 Irkutsk is the List of cities and towns in Russ ...
and from 1922 to 1934 was teaching at
Harbin Normal University (China). His mother, Antonia, was a teacher and novelist who wrote under the pen name Nina Fedorova. In 1938 the family moved to the United States of America, where his father taught at the
University of Oregon
The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a Public university, public research university in Eugene, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1876, the university is organized into nine colleges and schools and offers 420 undergraduate and gra ...
, and his mother's work ''The Family'', about the life of a Russian community in a Chinese city, received The Atlantic Monthly Prize for fiction in 1940. Nicholas Riasanovsky graduated from the University of Oregon in 1942. During World War II, he trained in Army intelligence at
Camp Ritchie
Fort Ritchie in Cascade, Maryland was a military installation southwest of Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania and southeast of Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, Waynesboro in the area of South Mountain (Maryland and Pennsylvania), South Mountain. Followin ...
and he is considered one of the
Ritchie Boys
The Ritchie Boys, part of the U.S. Military Intelligence Service (MIS) at the War Department, were an organization of soldiers in World War II with sizable numbers of German and Austrian recruits who were used primarily for interrogation of pri ...
. He received a master's degree from
Harvard University
Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
in 1947, and a
DPhil. from
St. John's College,
Oxford
Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town.
The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...
in 1949 on a
Rhodes Scholarship
The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford in Oxford, United Kingdom. The scholarship is open to people from all backgrounds around the world.
Established in 1902, it is ...
.
From 1949 to 1957 Riasanovsky taught at the
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa (U of I, UIowa, or Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized int ...
. During this time he published ''Russia in the West in the Teaching of the Slavophiles'' (1952), and spent a year in Finland as a
Fulbright Scholar
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the peopl ...
at the University of Helsinki (1954–1955).
From 1957 until his retirement in 1997 he taught at the University of California, Berkeley, and published ''Nicholas I and Official Nationality in Russia'' (1959) and his best-selling ''A History of Russia'' (1963). The latter was in its eighth edition in 2010 (now co-authored with
Mark D. Steinberg, a former student of Riasanovsky's) and has been acclaimed for its continued comprehensiveness.
''Times Book Review'' at Oxford University Press
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Riasanovsky died in Oakland
Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major West Coast port, Oakland is ...
, California, USA, on May 14, 2011, at the age of 87.
Bibliography
* ''Nicholas I and Official Nationality in Russia, 1825-1855'' (1959
online no charge borrow
* '' A History of Russia'' 1st ed 1963
** 2nd ed 1968
*
3rd ed
*
4th ed
** 5th ed
**
** 7th ed
** 8th ed 2010
*
9th ed 2018
* "Oral history transcript" (1998)
online
Footnotes
Notes
References
*Daly, Jonathan, “The Pleiade: Five Scholars Who Founded Russian Historical Studies in America,” ''Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History'' 18, no. 4 (Fall 2017): 785–826.
Faculty profile at UC Berkeley
Oral History: ''Professor of Russian and European Intellectual History, University of California, Berkeley, 1957-1997''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Riasanovsky, Nicholas V.
1923 births
2011 deaths
Historians of Russia
University of Oregon alumni
Harvard University alumni
Alumni of St John's College, Oxford
American Rhodes Scholars
University of California, Berkeley faculty
Russian Orthodox Christians from the United States
American people of Russian descent
Chinese emigrants to the United States
Ritchie Boys