TADEUSZ SWIETOCHOWSKI

SWIETOCHOWSKI--Tadeusz Tad, Professor of Russian and Middle Eastern History, expert in the Caucasus and Azerbaijan, died on February 15, 2017 at the age of 84 in New York. Tad was born in Lille, France, to a Polish gentry family of Stanislawa (Olek) and Stanislaw Swietochowski, a Polish Olympian, diplomat and Consul, murdered by the NKVD in Moscow. With his mother and brother Jan, Tad grew up in Nazi-occupied Warsaw, Poland. He received his MA degree in Turkish Studies from the University of Warsaw. He fled communist Poland through London to Beirut where he earned his MA in Arab Studies at the American University, and later studied Arab History at the University of Cairo. He met his wife Mimi Lukens in Istanbul. They moved to New York in 1965 where he received his Ph.D. in History from NYU. He was a professor of Russian and Middle Eastern History at Monmouth College, NJ. He was a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a Senior Fellow at the Harriman Institute, Columbia University, an Honorary Member of the Central Eurasian Studies Society, a Fulbright Professor at the University of Heidelberg and at the University of Warsaw, where he was also a visiting Professor at the School of Eastern Studies until 2016. He was a pioneer in post-Soviet Muslim studies. His scholarly publications, anthologies and monographs were published in Persian, Turkish, Russian, Azeri, Polish and English. A highly recognized and respected scholar in Azerbaijan, he was awarded honorary degrees by the Baku State University and the Khazar University. He was a true humanist, an athlete and avid swimmer, a polyglot and a people person. He will rest with his beloved wife Marie (Mimi) Lukens-Swietochowski (1928-2011) at the St. Thomas Whitemarsh cemetery in Fort Washington, PA. The service will be held on February 25, at 2:30pm followed with a graveside service and a reception.