Susobhan Chandra Sarkar (1900–1982) was an Indian historian.

Background and education

Sarkar, son of Suresh Chandra Sarkar, was born into a Brahmo family of Dhaka. He attended Dhaka Collegiate School, studied history at

Presidency College, Calcutta Presidency University, formerly Presidency College, is a public state university located in College Street, Kolkata. Established in 1817 as the ''Hindoo College'', it was later renamed ''Presidency College'' in 1855 and functioned as a leadi ...

and continued his higher education at

Jesus College, Oxford Jesus College (in full: Jesus College in the University of Oxford of Queen Elizabeth's Foundation) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It is in the centre of the city, on a site between Turl Street, Ship ...

, from 1923 to 1925. His daughter Sipra Sarkar was a professor of history at

Jadavpur University Jadavpur University ( abbr. JU) is a public state funded research university with its main campus located at Jadavpur, Kolkata, West Bengal, India. It was established on 25 July in 1906 as ''Bengal Technical Institute'' and was converted into ...

, Calcutta and

Sumit Sarkar Sumit Sarkar (born 1939) is one of the foremost historians of modern India. He is a Marxist historian. He is the author of ''Swadeshi Movement'' ''in Bengal, 1903-1908'' (1973), ''Modern India'' (1989), and ''Writing Social History'' (1998), a ...

was professor of history at

Delhi University The Delhi University (DU, ISO 15919, ISO: ), also and officially known as the University of Delhi, is a collegiate university, collegiate research university, research Central university (India), central university located in Delhi, India. It ...

Career

He returned to India as a

Lecturer Lecturer is an academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. They may also conduct re ...

in History at

Calcutta University The University of Calcutta, informally known as Calcutta University (), is a Public university, public State university (India), state university located in Kolkata, Calcutta (Kolkata), West Bengal, India. It has 151 affiliated undergraduate c ...

before being appointed Reader in History at

Dhaka University The University of Dhaka (), also known as Dhaka University (DU), is a public research university located in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Established in 1921, it is the oldest active university in the country. The University of Dhaka was founded in 1921 ...

in 1927. Through the 1920s he was involved in the administration of

Visva-Bharati Visva-Bharati (IAST: ''Viśva-Bhāratī''), () is a public central university and an Institute of National Importance located in Shantiniketan, West Bengal, India. It was founded by Rabindranath Tagore who called it ''Visva-Bharati'', which ...

Santiniketan Shantiniketan (IPA: Help:IPA/Bengali, �antiniketɔn is a neighbourhood of Bolpur town in the Bolpur subdivision of Birbhum district in West Bengal, India, approximately 152 km north of Kolkata. It was established by Maharshi Devendra ...

, still under the active tutelage of its founder,

Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Thakur (; anglicised as Rabindranath Tagore ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengalis, Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter of the Bengal Renai ...

. In 1932, he was appointed

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

of History at Presidency College, Calcutta. He will be remembered as a long serving professor of the college who inspired generations of students from both science and arts streams.Amartya Sen, ''Autobiography'' (The Nobel Foundation, 1998)
/ref> He moved to

as Professor in 1956. He returned to

for his final academic post from 1961 to 1967. Sarkar, whose work was influenced by his

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

and

Gramscian Antonio Francesco Gramsci ( , ; ; 22 January 1891 – 27 April 1937) was an Italian Marxist philosopher, linguist, journalist, writer, and politician. He wrote on philosophy, political theory, sociology, history, and linguistics. He was a foun ...

ideas, taught the history of modern Europe, particularly the development of constitutional history in Britain and political thought in Western Europe. He also wrote from the 1930s about the

Bengal Renaissance The Bengal Renaissance (), also known as the Bengali Renaissance, was a cultural, social, intellectual, and artistic movement that took place in the Bengal region of the British Raj, from the late 18th century to the early 20th century. Histo ...

. His ''Notes on Bengal Renaissance'' sparked an interest in nationalist Indian historiography. He also wrote the manifesto of the CPI.

Legacy

The Paschimbanga Itihas Samsad, in collaboration with Presidency University,

Kolkata Kolkata, also known as Calcutta ( its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary ...

(erstwhile Presidency College), has been organizing a lecture series in Sarkar's memory since 1994.Noted scholars, such as Ashin Das Gupta, B.N. Mukherjee, Goutam Chattopadhyay, Gautam Bhadra, Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, Partha Chatterjee,

Sukanta Chaudhuri Sukanta Chaudhuri (born 1950) is an Indian people, Indian literary scholar, now Professor Emeritus at Jadavpur University, Kolkata. He was educated at Presidency College, Kolkata and the University of Oxford. He taught at Presidency College fr ...

, D.N. Jha, Jasodhara Bagchi,

Rajat Kanta Ray Rajat Kanta Ray () is a historian of South Asian history, specializing in Modern Indian history. Background He is the son of Kumud Kanta Ray, Indian Civil Service, ICS who was a Home Secretary of West Bengal in the 1960s. His grandfather, Kam ...

, and

Sugata Bose Sugata Bose (born 7 September 1956) is an Indian historian and politician who has taught and worked in the United States since the mid-1980s. His fields of study are South Asian and Indian Ocean history. Bose taught at Tufts University until 2 ...

, have delivered this lecture. The Itihas Samsad brought out a collection of these lectures, from 1996-2016, in a volume (edited by Ramkrishna Chatterjee) entitled Sahitya Samaj Itihas (Bengali সাহিত্য সমাজ ইতিহাস). This volume was released by Sarkar's son,

, on 24 January 2018 at the venue of the 34th annual conference of the Itihas Samsad, held at the School of Women's Studies,

. The volume also includes a translation, in to Bengali, of the obituary written by

Barun De Barun De (30 October 1932 – 16 July 2013) was an Indian historian. He served as the first professor of social and economic history of the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, founder-director of the Centre for Studies in Social Sc ...

, which was published in the 'Social Scientist', as well as a report of the proceedings of the first seminar held in Sarkar's memory at Presidency College in 1994

References

External links

Notes on the Bengal Renaissance
(1946) People's Publishing House, Bombay. {{DEFAULTSORT:Sarkar, Susobhan 1900 births 1982 deaths 20th-century Bengalis Bengali Hindus Bengali-language writers Presidency University, Kolkata alumni University of Calcutta alumni Alumni of Jesus College, Oxford Bengali historians Indian lecturers 20th-century Indian writers 20th-century Indian male writers 20th-century Indian historians Brahmos Academic staff of Presidency University, Kolkata Academic staff of the University of Calcutta Historians of India Indian Marxist historians Indian political writers People associated with Santiniketan People from West Bengal Scholars from West Bengal People from Dhaka