Roberta T. Manning

1940 - 2018

Roberta T. Manning, age 77 of Newton, MA, passed away peacefully in her sleep on Wednesday January 3, 2018. She was born in Austin, TX to Robert B. Rab Thompson and Lucille Boogie Luby Thompson. S he is survived by her daughters Innessa Anne Manning, of Lexington, MA and Rebecca Emily Manning (a.k.a Rebecca Emily Darling), of Los Angeles, CA; three grandsons, Maxwell, Henry, and Jack Ramanathan; and her brothers Robert and Charles Thompson, of Texas, and their families. Roberta was a noted academic who was a Professor of History at Boston College for over 30 years. She was awarded the American Historical Associations prestigious Herbert Baxter Adams Prize in 1983 and was granted a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1989 for her research into the former USSR during the Stalin era. She appeared on several T.V. news programs in the 1980s and 1990s where she provided a historical perspective on the ending of the cold war era and Boris Yeltsins presidency. During the 1990s, Roberta led a staff of 40 scholars from six nations | Russia, the US, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, and South Korea | in collecting, arranging, translating, and publishing a 5-volume set of books, The Tragedy of the Soviet Village: Documents and Materials Vol. 1-5, drawn from five major Moscow archives, including the KGB archives. Her efforts allowed these materials to be accessed and used by academics around the world. Additionally, she wrote and published The Crisis of the Old Order in Russia: Gentry and Government, and, with J. Arch Getty, Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives. Robertas work challenged the notion that the Stalinist Terror was solely the work of one man, but rather that the pattern of persecution was much more widespread. Her research has been catalogued and archived at Boston College and is available as a base for further study; her family hopes that future historians will take advantage of her remaining scholarship and that through their work, hers will live on. Roberta studied at Rice University in Texas and earned her PhD at Columbia University in 1975, during which time she worked closely with her esteemed advisor, Professor Leopold Haimson. Throughout her life she spent a significant amount of time in Russia as part of her studies, and was among the first outside historians to be granted access to previously sealed government archives. Roberta grew up in Corpus Christi, TX as part of a large family with deep ties to south Texas. She eventually moved to Newton, MA where she raised her two daughters and several adventuresome cats. Once she moved to Massachusetts, Roberta built a large network of close friends and colleagues who she often entertained in her beautiful Victorian home and garden where she lived for close to 40 years. She will be remembered for her keen intelligence and scholarship, her dedication to her students, her passionate spirit, and her boundless generosity to many. Roberta had an amazing mind and a huge heart; these things live on through her work, through the work of the many she mentored, and within the hearts of the many people all around the world who loved her. Roberta suffered from Alzheimers in her final years, but she remained gracious and smiling up until her final moments. Her daughters wish to extend a heartfelt thanks to all of those who cared for her during her last years at Sunrise Senior Livings memory care floor in Burlington, MA. Roberta will be honored in a memorial service to be scheduled in the Spring when the flowers she so loved are in full bloom. Additionally, her family is working on arranging a scholarship fund as a tribute to her academic accomplishments. Anyone interested in receiving further information may contact her daughters at: memoryofroberta@gmail.com.