Alexander Kazhdan
Alexander Kazhdan | |
---|---|
PhD) | |
Thesis | Agrarnye otnosheniya v Vizantii XIII-XIV vv. (1952) |
Influences | Eugene Kosminsky |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Byzantine studies |
Institutions |
|
Alexander Petrovich Kazhdan (
Early life and education
Born in
Academic career
Soviet Union
Kazhdan was a prolific scholar throughout his career in the Soviet Union, publishing well over 500 books, articles, and reviews, and his publications contributed to the growing international prestige of Soviet Byzantine studies.
United States
In 1975, Kazhdan's son, the mathematician David Kazhdan, emigrated to the United States, where he accepted a position at Harvard University. This produced an immediate change in Kazhdan's situation in the Soviet Union;[1] his wife, Musja, was fired from her position at a Moscow publishing house and censorship of his work by his superiors in the Soviet academic establishment increased. In October 1978 Alexander and Musja left the Soviet Union, having received a visa for immigration to Israel, coming to the United States three years afterward. In February 1979 they arrived at Dumbarton Oaks, a center for Byzantine studies in Washington, D.C., where Kazhdan held the position of senior research associate until his death.[2]
Kazhdan's first major publications in English were collaborative: People and Power in Byzantium (1982), a broad ranging study of Byzantine society, was written with Giles Constable; Studies in Byzantine literature (1984) with Simon Franklin; and Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (1985) with Ann Wharton Epstein. His greatest English-language project was likewise a massive collaborative effort: the three-volume Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (1991), edited by Kazhdan, was the first reference work of the sort ever to be published, and remains an indispensable point of departure for all areas of Byzantine studies. He wrote approximately 20%, or about 1,000, of the entries in the Dictionary, which are signed with his initials A.K.[2]
As Kazhdan became more comfortable with English, his pace of publication once again matched that of his Russian years. His later scholarship is above all marked with a growing concern with Byzantine literature, particularly hagiography.
Kazhdan died in Washington, D.C., in 1997. His death cut short his work on a monumental History of Byzantine Literature; however, the first volume of this work, covering the period from 650 to 850, was published in 1999.
Selected works
- Kazhdan, Alexander, ed. (1991). The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. New York: Oxford University Press. Volume=1. Volume=2. Volume=3.
Notes
- ^ a b c Bryer, Anthony. "Obituary: Alexander Kazhdan." The Independent. 5 June 1997. Retrieved August 28, 2010.
- ^ a b c d Laiou, Angeliki E.; Alice-Mary Talbot (1997). "Alexander Petrovich Kazhdan, 1922-1997." Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Vol. 51, (1997), pp. xii-xvii.
- Armenian Academy of Sciences, 1975.