Ehsan Yarshater

Ehsan Yarshater ( born April 3, 1920 in Hamedan, Iran) is the director of the Center for Iranian Studies and Professor Emeritus of Iranian Studies at Columbia University, New York.

He is best known as co-founder and publisher of the Encyclopedia Iranica, to their achievement 40 more publishers and 300 authors from institutions in the United States, Europe and Asia are involved. He is also editor of the third volume of the Cambridge History of Iran, which covers the history of the Seleucids, the Parthians and Sassanid. Another project initiated by Yarshater is now twenty -volume History of Persian Literature.

Ehsan Yarshater studied Persian philology at the University of Tehran and Iranian philology ( Old and Middle - Iranian ) in WB Henning at the School of Oriental and African Studies ( SOAS ) in London.

His doctoral dissertation at the University of Tehran treated the Persian poetry under the Timurids Schahrukh (15th century). His doctoral thesis at London University was later expanded as A Grammar of Southern Tati Dialects ( Mouton, 1969) and edited. It describes a series of Tati dialects that are spoken in the southwest Qazvins.

He published a series of articles on the modern western Iranian dialects Tati and Taleshi to the Jewish dialects of Persian ( as zBdem Lotara ) and the Persian mythology. Yarshater won several international awards including an UNESCO award in 1959.

The Yarshater Lectureship price today is the most prestigious award in the field of Iranian Studies.

In his native Iran his articles are censored, the Encyclopædia Iranica is partially prohibited.

Publications (selection)

  • Legends of the Epic of Kings ( Shahnama -ye Dastanha ), Tehran 1957ff. ; 2nd ed 1974 ( UNESCO Prize 1959) 1982.
  • Selected Stories from the Shahnama ( Bargozida -ye -ye dastanha Shahnama ), Vol I, Tehran, 1974 ( ND Washington, DC 1982).
  • Cambridge History of Iran, Vol III: Seleucid, Parthian and Sassanian Periods, Cambridge 1983 ( ed. and as some contributors ).
  • Encyclopaedia Iranica, Costa Mesa 1985ff
  • Persian Literature, New York 1988.
Seleucid Empire SOAS, University of London Timurid dynasty University of London Talysh language Integrated Authority File
298122
de