Hugh McLean

1925 - 2017

Hugh McLean

February 5, 1925 – January 14, 2017

Hugh McLean died at home in Oakland of pancreatic cancer at the age of 91 with his three children by his side. Hugh was a professor of Russian literature in the University of California, Berkeley's Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures from 1968 to 1994 and continued to teach part-time as an emeritus professor for many years after his retirement.

Hugh was born in Denver, Colorado, the youngest of five children of Hugh McLean Sr. and Rosamond Denison. His grandfather, John Henry Denison, a lawyer and onetime Chief Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court, had received a plot of land as a fee for legal services rendered to Baron Walter von Richtofen, uncle of the famed Red Baron Manfred von Richtofen. Judge Denison built a house on the land; as Hugh's mother and her four daughters married and had children, additional houses and a tennis court were built on the property. Hugh grew up surrounded by extended family, and remained close to many of his nieces and nephews throughout his life.

Hugh graduated from the Taft School in 1942 and began college at Yale University that fall as an English major. In 1943 Yale entered a wartime mode and the students attended classes year-round, in uniform. Having enlisted in the U.S. Navy at 17, Hugh later graduated from midshipmen's school at Columbia University and was commissioned as an ensign. In 1944, Hugh entered a Russian language program at the navy language school in Boulder, Colorado. After the six-month course, he returned to New York for further intelligence training. But the war ended in September 1945 before he completed his course and Hugh celebrated in Times Square with thousands. Hugh was then sent by the Navy to Frankfurt and Vienna as part of the allied occupation forces to serve as a Russian translator and, as the Cold War descended, to gather intelligence on the Soviet military. On returning to Yale in 1946, he changed his major to Russian and graduated with the class of 1947 (known as 1945W).

Hugh then entered graduate school at Columbia University, where he met the scholar who was to become his mentor, renowned linguist Roman Jakobson. After completing his M.A., Hugh followed Jakobson to Harvard University, where he was a Junior Fellow and obtained his Ph.D. Hugh then began teaching at Harvard, during which time he met a graduate student in Art History, Katharine ("Kitty") Hoag. Hugh and Kitty married in 1957, spent a sabbatical year together in London, and settled in Chicago, where Hugh founded the University of Chicago's Slavic Department. In 1968, Hugh accepted a position at the University of California, Berkeley, where he served on the faculty and in the administration as Dean of Humanities and, later, Provost. As a scholar he published widely on Russian authors, including Tolstoy, Gogol, Chekov, and his specialty, Nikolai Leskov.

Hugh and Kitty had three children: Anna, born in 1961, Clara, born in 1965, and Gregory, born in 1969. Kitty was active in the Berkeley public schools, political campaigns, and environmental causes. Hugh and Kitty traveled widely throughout their married life, often taking their young children along—including to places well off the beaten path such as Nepal and the Middle East.

Hugh was preceded in death by Kitty in 2015. He is survived by daughter Anna McLean (Don Holland), a lawyer, daughter Clara McLean (Ari Lathuras), an English professor, son Gregory McLean (Katrina Tinti), a deputy probation officer, and three beloved grandchildren: Kate Holland and Nico and Gianna McLean Tinti.

A celebration of Hugh's life will be held at the Cal Alumni House on the U.C. Berkeley campus on Sunday, March 12 beginning at 3:00 PM (ceremony to begin at 3:30). All who knew Hugh are invited to attend.