Sergei Vasilievich Utechin, professor emeritus of Russian history,
died July
11 at the age of 82.
Utechin was born in Kazan, Russia, and studied for two years at Moscow State
University. The end of World War II found him in a camp in Germany. He
resumed his studies at Kiel University in Germany and received a doctor of
philosophy in 1949. He received a scholarship to Oxford University and
earned a bachelor of literature degree in 1953. After an interlude with the BBC, he began teaching at St. Antony's College of Oxford. He came to Penn
State as a distinguished visiting professor in 1969 and remained as a
regular faculty member until 1984.
His teaching experience included the London School of Economics, Glasgow
University, Indiana University and the University of Kansas. After the
defeat of communism in Russia, he returned to Moscow for extended visits and
lectured at a number of institutions of higher learning. In recent years,
too infirm to travel, he played a leading role in a virtual university that
exists on the Russian Internet, serving for a time as rector (president),
then as dean of the history faculty.
He conducted a virtual seminar on the history of Russian political thought
on the Internet, which attracted a number of gifted Russian students.
Utechin's numerous writings touched on all periods of Russian history and
cut across a number of disciplines.
