April 29, 2004

Obituary: Leften Stavros Stavrianos

Leften Stavros Stavrianos, 91, a distinguished world historian who was a professor of history at Northwestern from 1946 to 1973, died March 23 in La Jolla, Calif.

He was a former professor and long-time adjunct faculty member in the history department at the University of California, San Diego.

Mr. Stavrianos began his career at Queens University, Kingston, Ontario and Smith College, Northampton, Mass. At Northwestern, George McGovern was one of his students and he became a lifetime friend and supporter of the South Dakota Democrat.

After his retirement from Northwestern in 1973, Mr. Stavrianos join UCSD as an adjunct faculty member and remained an active member of the university until 1992.

Born in Vancouver, Canada in 1913, Mr. Stavrianos was considered one of the founders of the field of world history and an authority on the modern history of Greece and the Balkans. He received a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, and master’s and doctoral degrees from Clark University. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Clark.

The author of 18 books and monographs, he wrote “Lifelines from Our Past,” a non-standard historiography that represented a new approach to the study of human history.

Mr. Stavrianos was preceded in death by his wife of 47 years, Bertha Kelso, who died in 1987. He is survived by his second wife, Agustina; a brother Nick; a son Peter; a daughter Marjorie; three grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.