Richard Stites (December 2, 1931 – March 7, 2010) was a historian of Russian culture and professor of history at Georgetown University, famed for "landmark work on the Russian women’s movement and in numerous articles and books on Russian and Soviet mass culture."
Background
Richard Thomas Stites was born on December 2, 1931, in Philadelphia, PA. He earned a BA in History from the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...
in 1956, and MA in European history from
George Washington University
The George Washington University (GW or GWU) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally-chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Originally named Columbian College, it was chartered in 1821 by ...
in 1959, and a doctorate in Russian History in 1968 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 ...
under
Nicholas V. Riasanovsky and
Richard Pipes.
Career
In the early 1960s, Stites taught at
Lycoming College
Lycoming College is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1812, Lycoming College is affiliated with the United Methodist Church but operates as an ind ...
before he entered Harvard. He taught at
Brown University
Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ...
and the
Ohio State University at Lima
The Ohio State University at Lima (Ohio State Lima) is a regional campus of Ohio State University in Lima, Ohio. It offers over 140 courses and 9 bachelor degree programs in science and liberal arts. Nine of eleven programs are four-year progra ...
and then joined Georgetown University in 1977, where he taught until he died.
He was selected for numerous IREX exchanges with Russia, he taught for a time at the U.S. Army Russian Institute in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, and he was Fulbright Professor at the University of Helsinki in 1995.
Personal life and death
Stites married and divorced three times (Dorothy Jones, Tatyana Tereshchenko, and Elena Stites) and had a daughter and three sons.
Stites spoke or wrote in ten languages. He had a second home in Helsinki.
Richard Stites died age 78 on March 7, 2010, in
Helsinki, Finland
Helsinki () is the capital and most populous city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipality, with million in the capital region and ...
from complications of esophageal cancer.
Awards and fellowships
* Russian Research Center at Harvard University
* Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies
* Guggenheim Foundation
* Harriman Institute for the Advanced Study of the Soviet Union
* National Endowment for the Humanities
* Honorary doctorate from the University of Helsinki (2003)
* Career Research Achievement Award from the Georgetown University Graduate School (2001)
* School of Foreign Service Board of Visitors Distinguished Professor in International Studies at Georgetown University (2007)
Legacy
Colleagues praised him when he died. David M. Goldfrank, called him "absolutely one of the more important Russian historians of recent times'," reported the ''Washington Post''. Aviel Roshwald called him a "giant in his scholarly field."
In 2013, Georgetown's Department of History established a Richard Stites Memorial Lecture Series because "Richard Stites’ many works in the Russian field swept across the imperial and the Soviet periods and innovated ways of linking cultural explorations to their political, social, and international contexts."
Works
In 1978, Stites published ''The Women's Liberation Movement in Russia: Feminism, Nihilism and Bolshevism, 1860-1930'', " a book that virtually created a subdiscipline, he turned his attention to mass entertainment." In 1984, he wrote the introductory essay for an English translations of
Alexander Bogdanov
Alexander Aleksandrovich Bogdanov (; – 7 April 1928), born Alexander Malinovsky, was a Russian and later Soviet physician, philosopher, science fiction writer and Bolshevik revolutionary. He was a polymath who pioneered blood transfusion, a ...
's science fiction novel ''
Red Star
A red star, five-pointed and filled, is a symbol that has often historically been associated with communist ideology, particularly in combination with the hammer and sickle, but is also used as a purely socialist symbol in the 21st century. ...
''. In 1989 he published ''Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution''. He also edited several books on Russian popular culture, notably ''Bolshevik Culture'' (1985), ''Mass Culture in Soviet Russia'' and ''Culture and Entertainment in Wartime Russia'' (both in 1995). He left unfinished a last book, ''The Four Horsemen: Revolution and the Counter-Revolution in Post-Napoleonic Europe''.
;Books
* ''Women's liberation movement in Russia: feminism, nihilism, and bolshevism, 1860-1930'' (1978)
* ''Iconoclasm in the Russian Revolution: destroying and preserving the past'' (1981)
* ''Utopia and experiment in the Russian Revolution: some preliminary thoughts'' (1981)
* ''Equality, freedom & justice: women & men in the Russian revolution, 1917-1930'' (1988)
* ''Revolutionary dreams: utopian vision and experimental life in the Russian Revolution'' (1989)
* ''Russian popular culture: entertainment and society since 1900'' (1992)
* ''Serfdom, society, and the arts in imperial Russia: the pleasure and the power'' (2005)
* ''Four horsemen : riding to liberty in post-Napoleonic Europe'' (2014)
;Other
* Pavel Nikolaevich Mili︠u︡kov, ''Russian Revolution'' co-translated by Tatyana Stites, edited and co-translated by Richard Stites (1978)
*
Alexander Bogdanov
Alexander Aleksandrovich Bogdanov (; – 7 April 1928), born Alexander Malinovsky, was a Russian and later Soviet physician, philosopher, science fiction writer and Bolshevik revolutionary. He was a polymath who pioneered blood transfusion, a ...
, ''Red star: the first Bolshevik utopia'', edited by Loren R. Graham and Richard Stites, translated by Charles Rougle (1984)
* ''Bolshevik culture: experiment and order in the Russian Revolution'', edited by Abbott Gleason, Peter Kenez, Richard Stites (1985)
* ''Russia in the era of NEP: explorations in Soviet society and culture'', edited by Sheila Fitzpatrick, Alexander Rabinowitch, Richard Stites (1991)
* ''Culture and entertainment in wartime Russia'', edited by Richard Stites (1995)
* ''Mass culture in Soviet Russia: tales, poems, songs, movies, plays, and folklore, 1917-1953'', edited by James von Geldern and Richard Stites (1995)
* ''European culture in the Great War: the arts, entertainment, and propaganda, 1914-1918'', edited by Aviel Roshwald and Richard Stites (1999)
;Recordings
* ''Mass culture in Soviet Russia: tales, poems, songs, movies, plays, and folklore, 1917-1953'', edited by James von Geldern and Richard Stites (1995)
References
Works cited
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Stites, Richard
1931 births
2010 deaths
Historians from Pennsylvania
Historians of Russia
Writers from Philadelphia
Harvard University alumni
20th-century American historians
20th-century American male writers
American male non-fiction writers
Georgetown University faculty
21st-century American historians
Deaths from esophageal cancer in Finland