Serge Alexandrovich Zenkovsky

Serge Alexandrovich Zenkowski ( Russian Сергей Александрович Зеньковский ; published as Serge A. Zenkovsky ; born June 3 ^jul. / 16th June  1907 ^greg. In Kiev , Russian Empire , † 31 March 1990 ) was a Russian historian who since 1949 the USA lived. He worked particularly on Eastern European, Central Asian and economic history.

Life

Europe

Zenkowski's father Alexander (1878–1966) was a professor of economics, his mother Elena (1884–1954) the daughter of a doctor and professor of surgery; he also had a sister, Nadezhda. After the October Revolution , the family fled first to Constantinople , then to Berlin and Prague , where Zenkowski graduated in economic history. He left his family in Prague and went to Paris, where his uncle Wasili Wasiliewitsch Zenkowski lived. There he completed a degree in Eastern European and Modern History; he also began to learn English. From 1930 to 1939 he worked in Paris as a manager.

In 1938, already with the documents for entry to the United States, Zenkowski visited his family one last time in Prague, where he was surprised by the destruction of the rest of the Czech Republic . Since it was no longer possible for him to leave Prague, he continued his studies at Charles University . He wrote his dissertation in Russian and modern history on Russian politics in Sinkiang between 1856 and 1914. After their escape from the Prague operation , Zenkowski and his parents reached the American zone of occupation in Germany , where he taught at the Polytechnic School of the International Refugee Organization until the Family left for America in 1949.

America

Zenkowski worked in the catering field for a year until he was hired as a teacher for various courses on Slavic topics at Indiana University . In 1952 he married Beaty Jean Rubbers, who was studying there for her MA in Russian. Two years later he was invited to Harvard University as a visiting professor for the Russian Research Center while his wife was completing her dissertation at Radcliffe College .

The couple then moved to Stetson University , where Beaty Jean was also employed as a Russian teacher. This began a period of constant relocations - to the University of Colorado Boulder in 1960 , and back to Stanton in 1962. It was there that Zenkowski founded the university's Russian Institute, which provoked angry reactions from local residents who feared possible communist influences. In 1964 Zenkowski received a Guggenheim grant . The Zenkowskis moved to Vanderbilt University in 1967 , where they stayed until they retired in Florida in 1977. Even after that, however, they remained active with a new edition and translation of the Nikon chronicle . From 1986 onwards, Zenkowski fought against various diseases, but continued with his wife as the editor of The Nikon Chronicle . The project was completed in time for the thousandth anniversary of the Christianization of the Rus in 1988. Zenkowski died on March 31, 1990.

Works (selection)

When he died, Zenkowski had published more than two hundred articles and books.

• Pan-Turkism & Islam in Russia , Cambridge 1960.
• Medieval Russia's Epics, Chronicles and Tales , New York 1963.
• Russia's Old Believers , Munich 1970.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Ralph T. Fisher: Obituary. Serge A. Zenkovsky (1907–1990) , in: The Russian Review (1991, No. 1), pp. 121–123.
2. ↑ sprees Celebrates 60 years of Russian Studies at Stetson