Ehsan Yarshater, Founder of the Encyclopedia Iranica, Passes Away

Ehsan Yarshater, the founder of the Center for Iranian Studies and a retired professor of Iranian studies at Columbia University, passed away on Saturday, September 1, at the age of 98 in California. He was renowned for writing 16 volumes of the history of Persian literature and was the founder and editor of the Encyclopedia Iranica, which has been published since the 1970s with the collaboration of numerous researchers and editors in New York. The Encyclopedia Iranica is an Iranian studies project initiated by Ehsan Yarshater in the mid-1970s about the culture and history of Iran in English, which began in Iran and was later established in the Iranian Studies department at Columbia University after the 1979 revolution. Other contributions by Ehsan Yarshater include the preparation of the Encyclopedia of Iran and Islam (which was halted at the tenth volume due to the 1979 revolution), the collection of Iranian heritage (forty-five volumes of translations of classical Persian texts into Western languages), and facilitating the English translation of Tabari's History. Ehsan Yarshater was born in 1920 in Hamadan, graduated with a PhD in Persian language and literature from Tehran University and a PhD in Iranian linguistics from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. He was born into a family of the Baha'i faith and lost both parents in childhood, being raised by relatives. In his memoirs, he stated, 'I was never optimistic about life. I even tried to end my life twice by consuming opium, but my friends noticed and saved me.' Ehsan Yarshater studied at the Teacher Training College and later at the Higher Teacher Training College in Tehran, graduating with a PhD in Persian language and literature from Tehran University.