Ehsan Yarshater

Ehsan Yarshater (1920–2018) was an Iranian researcher, Iranologist, and university professor who played an important role in introducing Persian culture, history, and language to the world. He was born in Hamadan and continued his education in Iran and later at European universities. He specialized in linguistics and Persian literature and conducted research on Iran’s cultural history.

Yarshater was a professor at the University of Tehran and later Columbia University in New York, where he contributed significantly to the development of academic Iranology. His greatest scholarly achievement was founding and directing Encyclopaedia Iranica, a reference work that examines various aspects of Iranian civilization, history, language, literature, and culture with the collaboration of leading international scholars.

His scholarly activities included research on Persian literature, the history of the Persian language, and studies of the peoples and cultures of Iran. He also directed the project History of Persian Literature with a group of distinguished scholars, which became an important resource in Persian literary studies.

Yarshater’s intellectual legacy emphasized the importance of a scholarly and global understanding of Iranian culture. He sought to move Iranology beyond limited national frameworks and transform it into an international academic field.