Nicholas V. Riasanovsky

Nicholas Valentine Riasanovsky (December 21, 1923 - May 14, 2011^[1]) was a professor at the University of California, Berkeley and the author of numerous books on Russian history. He was born in Harbin, China to lawyer Valentin A. Riasanovskii and Antonia Riasanovskii, a novelist. Valentin was a Russian professor who taught at Moscow University, Harbin Normal University (China), and the University of Oregon,^[2] Antonia, a teacher and novelist who wrote under the pen name Antonia Fedorovna, was acclaimed for her work “The Family,” about the life of a Russian community in a Chinese city. It received The Atlantic Monthly Prize for fiction in 1940.^[3]

Nicholas Riasanovsky graduated from the University of Oregon in 1942. He received a Master's degree from Harvard University in 1947, and a DPhil. from St. John's College, Oxford in 1949 on a Rhodes Scholarship. He taught at the University of Iowa from 1949 to 1957, then at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1957 until his retirement in 1997. He specialized in the reign of Emperor Nicholas I (1825 to 1855).

Riasanovsky is best known for the best-selling textbook A History of Russia, first published in 1963. It is currently in its eighth edition (2010) (now co-authored with Mark D. Steinberg, a former student of Riasanovsky's) and has been acclaimed for its continued comprehensiveness.^[4]

Riasanovsky died on May 14, 2011 at the age of 87.

Notes

1. ^ "Obituary: Riasanovsky, Nicholas". San Francisco Chronicle: p. Z99. May 18, 2011. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/18/MNRIASANOV25.DTL. 
2. ^ Kotkin, Stephen and Elleman, Bruce A. Mongolia in the 20th Century: Landlocked Cosmopolitan. New York: M. E. Sharpe, Inc., 1999. ISBN 0-7656-0536-8 p. 21
3. ^ Paul Vitello (May 28, 2011). "Nicholas V. Riasanovsky Dies at 87; Set Standard for Russian History". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/world/europe/29riasanovsky.html?ref=deathsobituaries. 
4. ^ Times Book Review at Oxford University Press

References

• New York Times obituary</ref>
• Faculty profile at UC Berkeley
• Oral History: Professor of Russian and European Intellectual History, University of California, Berkeley, 1957-1997

Persondata
Name	Riasanovsky, Nicholas V.
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	December 21, 1923
Place of birth	Harbin, China
Date of death	May 14, 2011
Place of death	Oakland, California