Columbia University in the City of New York
Edward A. Allworth (1920-2016)
Professor Emeritus of Turco-Soviet Studies Columbia University
A member of the Harriman Institute faculty for over a half-century, Professor Allworth was founding director at Columbia of both the Program on Soviet Nationality Problems (1970) and the Center for the Study of Central Asia (1984). The Central Eurasia Studies Society honored Edward Allworth posthumously at their conference in November with the CESS Lifetime Service to the Field Award. A groundbreaking researcher and connector of scholars, Allworth made his first tour of Soviet Central Asia and Russia in 1957 as one of the early unsponsored American visitors. As a faculty member of Columbia University’s Department of Middle East Languages and Cultures, Professor Allworth headed a series of official exchanges between American and Soviet scholars to the Soviet Union in 1983 and 1985. Later he was invited to the region by the Academy of Sciences in the USSR and the Uzbek and Kazakh Academies to study a variety of subjects in the region, ranging from Central Asian firearms to Uzbek and Kazak theater and drama. His own papers (now in the New York Public Library) include extensive and rare collections on Soviet Afghanistan, the Crimean Tatars, Tajikistan and the “Uzbek Intelligentsia Project.” Visit the Allworth Memorial Page >

A member of the Harriman Institute faculty for over a half-century, Professor Allworth was founding director at Columbia of both the Program on Soviet Nationality Problems (1970) and the Center for the Study of Central Asia (1984). The Central Eurasia Studies Society honored Edward Allworth posthumously at their conference in November with the CESS Lifetime Service to the Field Award.

A groundbreaking researcher and connector of scholars, Allworth made his first tour of Soviet Central Asia and Russia in 1957 as one of the early unsponsored American visitors. As a faculty member of Columbia University’s Department of Middle East Languages and Cultures, Professor Allworth headed a series of official exchanges between American and Soviet scholars to the Soviet Union in 1983 and 1985. Later he was invited to the region by the Academy of Sciences in the USSR and the Uzbek and Kazakh Academies to study a variety of subjects in the region, ranging from Central Asian firearms to Uzbek and Kazak theater and drama. His own papers (now in the New York Public Library) include extensive and rare collections on Soviet Afghanistan, the Crimean Tatars, Tajikistan and the “Uzbek Intelligentsia Project.”

Visit the Allworth Memorial Page >

Headshot of Edward Allworth.
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