Mazour, Anatole Gregory, 1900-1982

Born in a village near Kiev, Ukraine, on 24 May 1900, Anatole G. Mazour. He and his parents, Gregori and Sophia Mazurenko, lived in a time of political upheaval. After finishing school in 1916, he served in the Tsar's army until the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. During the civil war he fought with the anti-Communist White Guards and later took part in the Russo-Polish campaign of 1921 aimed at preventing a Polish occupation of the Ukraine. At the end of the civil war, fear of reprisal from the victorious Bolsheviks caused Mazour to flee the Ukraine for Germany. He managed to reach Berlin in 1921, where he dedicated himself to studying German.

Berlin offered few opportunities for émigrés and Mazour moved to the United States in 1923. He attended Columbia University in New York. One of Mazour's history professors at Columbia suggested that Mazour might learn English more quickly if he left New York and broke ties with the local Russian émigré colony. Taking this advice, Mazour enrolled at the University of Nebraska under the tutelage of Professor Fred Morrow Fling. He graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1929 with an A. B. degree in History. Encouraged to pursue graduate work, he enrolled at Yale in 1929 and graduated with an A. M. degree in History in 1931. He went on to obtain a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1934. Soon after moving to Berkeley, Mazour married Lucile Jackson. The marriage lasted until 1944.

Mazour served as an instructor at Berkeley from 1935 to 1936. He then held an appointment as assistant professor from 1936 to 1937 at the University of Miami, Ohio. He received a research fellowship from the Social Science Research Council in 1937, and in 1938, he accepted a position as assistant professor at the University of Nevada. At the University of Nevada, Mazour advanced to associate professor in 1941 and professor in 1946. He went to Stanford University in 1945 as a visiting associate professor of Slavic Languages. In 1946, he became a visiting associate professor of Russian Civilization and History. Mazour joined the Stanford University history department as an associate professor in 1947. He advanced to the rank of professor in 1952 and became professor emeritus in 1965.

Mazour was a member of the American Historical Association, the American Association of University Professors, the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, and the Commonwealth Club of California, and he was on the Board of Directors of The California Institute of International Studies. He received numerous fellowships, grants, and awards during his career. He delivered the Hill Foundation Lectures at Carleton College in 1956 and received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Nebraska in 1963.

Mazour was a highly respected scholar of Russian history. He published a number of works on Russian history and politics. Some of his more widely read works include The First Russian Revolution, 1825, Modern Russian Historiography, and The Writing of History in the Soviet Union. Other, less widely read works include Rise and Fall of the Romanovs, Soviet Economic Development, and Finland Between East and West.

Mazour married again shortly after the end of his first marriage to Lucile Jackson. In 1944 he met and married Josephine Lurie. They had two children, Alexander and Natasha. Anatole and Josephine remained together until his death in 1982. Anatole Gregory Mazour died on 26 January 1982 at the age of 81.

From the guide to the Anatole G. Mazour, Papers, 1936-1979