Nicholas V. Riasanovsky

Nicholas V. Riasanovsky
Personal details
Born	21 December 1923 Harbin (then, Indiana
Died	14 May 2011 Oakland, California
Nativity	China
Religion	Greek Orthodox
Military service
Allegiance	United States
Branch	United States Army
ASN	39329056
Rank	Private
Camp Ritchie	Class 10 (23 July – 20 September 1943)
Section	7D
Enlisted	Raymond, Mississippi

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Nicholas Valentine Riasanovsky (born Nicolai Valentinovitch Riasanovskiy; (December 21, 1923 – May 14, 2011) was a professor at the University of California, Berkeley and the author of numerous books on Russian history and European intellectual history.

Biography

Nicholas Valentine Riasanovsky (born Nicolai Valentinovitch Riasanovskiy; (December 21, 1923 – May 14, 2011) was a professor at the University of California, Berkeley and the author of numerous books on Russian history and European intellectual history.

Nicolai Valentinovitch Riasanovskiy was born on 21 December 1923 in Harbin (then in the Republic of China), the son of lawyer Valentin A. Riasanovsky and Antonina Riasanovsky, a novelist. His father, Valentin, was a Russian professor, who had taught at Moscow University, Yaroslavl, Tomsk and Irkutsk and from 1922 to 1934 was teaching at Harbin Normal University (China). His mother, Antonia, was a teacher and novelist who wrote under the pen name Nina Fedorova. In 1938 the family moved to the United States of America, where his father taught at the University of Oregon, and his mother's work The Family, about the life of a Russian community in a Chinese city, received The Atlantic Monthly Prize for fiction in 1940. Nicholas Riasanovsky graduated from the University of Oregon in 1942. During World War II, he trained in Army intelligence at Camp Ritchie and he is considered one of the Ritchie Boys. 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.

From 1949 to 1957 Riasanovsky taught at the University of Iowa. During this time he published Russia in the West in the Teaching of the Slavophiles (1952), and spent a year in Finland as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Helsinki (1954–1955).

From 1957 until his retirement in 1997 he taught at the University of California, Berkeley, and published Nicholas I and Official Nationality in Russia (1959) and his best-selling A History of Russia (1963). The latter was in its eighth edition in 2010 (now co-authored with Mark D. Steinberg, a former student of Riasanovsky's) and has been acclaimed for its continued comprehensiveness.

Riasanovsky died in Oakland, California, USA, on May 14, 2011, at the age of 87.

Research notes

• Also PG Class 10 GerOB
• OB 20

Gallery

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Technical record

Field	Imported value
Approx Age at Death	88
Nara ASN	39329056
Nara Name	RIASANOVSKY NICHOLAS V
Nara State	95
Nara County	34
Nara POE	4580
Nara DOE	120343
Nara Grade Alpha	PVT
Nara Grade Code	8
Nara Branch Alpha	NO
Nara Branch Code	2
Branch	No branch assignment
Nara Term or Enlistment	0
Term of enlistment	Unknown
Defer. Date	0
Nara Source	0
Nara Nativity	P8
Nara Year of Birth	23
Nara Race	J
Nara Race Description	White not yet a citizen
Nara Education	8
Nara Civilian Occupation	32
Nara Marital Status	6
Nara Height (inches)	22
Nara Weight (lbs)	145
Class_ASN	39329056
Class_Name	RIASANOVSKY, Nicholas V.
match_method	asn_exact_name_exact
row_source	both

Sources

• Wikipedia: Nicholas V. Riasanovsky
• Camp Ritchie Museum, Inc. (The Ritchie History Museum), Classes 1–31 roster data
• Dan Gross research spreadsheets, including original Excel timeline/roster work, combined with other research and records
• NARA World War II Army enlistment records (where a NARA ASN is present)
• 1940 U.S. Census (where a census match is present)