Hongor D. Oulanoff

Hongor D. Oulanoff Professor of Russian and post 1917 Literature, passed away on February 3, 2010 at home in Worthington, Ohio after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. He was 80. In the 1950s he helped his father Badma Badmanovich successfully petition the Eisenhower Administration to accept the Kalmyk refugees living in Western Europe, a people who had been purged and deported to Siberia under the Stalin era. As a result, many of the Kalmyks settled in the New York and New Jersey area. In 1990 Professor Oulanoff was honored at the 550th Year of Djangar Commemorative Festival in Elista, capital of the Autonomous Republik of Kalmykia, in Russia. There he presented the University in Elista with his compiled work of B. Kotvich’s linguistic study of the Kalmyk language, the only existing study at the time. Professor Oulanoff inspired many students during his time of teaching with his love of Russian Literature. His books “The Serapion Brothers-Theory and Practice” (1966), and “The Prose Fiction of Veniamin A. Kaverin” (1976), became required readings in many University Slavic Departments. Born in Prague, Czechoslovakia he spent his teenage and college years in Paris, France. He attended the University of Paris were he graduated with a Diplome de Licencie es Lettres in Arabic language and literature. He spent two post graduate years at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium. He was accepted into the University of Paris Sorbonne section Doctorial Program but chose Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. There he received his PhD in Russian Literature in 1960. After a short teaching position at Harvard he taught at Vanderbilt University from 1961-1963 and then from 1963-1991 in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at The Ohio State University were he became one of the youngest Full Professors. Among his many distinctions, he received an Honorary Captain’s Gold Shield from the New York City Police Department. He is survived by his wife Constance-Alexa; sons, Hongor J. and Hendrik N.; daughters-in-law, Alexandra Sarah Ash, Carolyn T. Pleasants and three grandchildren, Charlotte Ann, Hendrik Alexander, and Nicklaus Constantine Oulanoff.