{"id":1486,"date":"2020-05-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-11T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=1486"},"modified":"2020-06-12T14:54:15","modified_gmt":"2020-06-12T14:54:15","slug":"hari-vasudevan-historian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=1486","title":{"rendered":"Hari Vasudevan, historian"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Harishankar Vasudevan, a professional historian who was a specialist on Russian and European history, and Indo-Russian relations, died after contracting COVID-19 on May 10, 2020, at a private health facility in Kolkata, India. He was 68.\r<\/p>

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Son of an aeronautical engineer at the Defence Science Organisation (later Defence Research and Development Organisation) Methil Vasudevan and Sreekumari Menon, Professor Vasudevan \u2014 \u201cHari\u201d to all \u2014 grew up in many places in India, Europe and Africa. He had just finished a memoir, largely focussed on life of his mother, who passed away recently.\r<\/p>

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After completing studies at Cambridge University in the early 1970s, Prof. Vasudevan settled in Kolkata as a Reader in European History at Calcutta University. He set up the Central Asia programme at Jamia Millia Islamia, worked as the chief of the Textbook Development Committee for the Social Sciences at the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and, later, as the Director of the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies from 2007.\r<\/p>

\r<\/p>

He was involved in projects on Indo-Russian relations, and the Radiating Globalities project initiated by Gayatri Spivak of Columbia University. At the Observer Research Foundation, he was evaluating the overlap between the Look East and Look Far East policies of India, and the relationship between the Greater Eurasia ideas of the Russian establishment and the Chinese establishment.\r<\/p>

\r<\/p>

One of Prof. Vasudevan\u2019s latest engagements was to initiate a process so that a museum-cum-research centre could be developed at the spacious south Kolkata residence of another early 20th century historian Ramesh Chandra (R.C.) Majumdar. In an interview to this correspondent, hitherto unpublished, Prof. Vasudevan said it was a pity that when there is so much of discussion on India\u2019s policy to \u201clook east\u201d, no one \u201ceither in the Centre or the State is interested to look into a Bengal-pioneered process to study ancient India\u2019s roots in southeast Asia\u201d.\r<\/p>

\r<\/p>

\u201cThere were many scholars who, sitting in Kolkata, studied Indian connections and remains in southeast Asia. There was this Great India Society which has been explored but R.C.\u2019s work stands out among the scholars [in] exploring Indian roots and connections in [for example] ancient Champa [Vietnam],\u201d he had said.\r<\/p>

\r<\/p>

\u201cR.C.\u2019s books and studies on ancient Indonesia, Myanmar, Malayasia, Cambodia and perhaps the entire southeast Asia are pioneering works on ancient India in southeast but no one cares to restore those or bring all his works and collections together, in one place. I always felt, R.C.\u2019s south Kolkata house could be a great place to set it up as a museum as he was one champion of modern Indian history,\u201d the he had regretted last winter.\r<\/p>

\r<\/p>

Prof. Vasudevan has seminal works on Indo-Russian trade and military cooperation to his credit, and his works range from early European and 15th century Russian trader Afanasy Nikitin\u2019s journey in India to the recent, as yet unpublished memoir with his mother titled Memoirs of a Malabar Lady.\r<\/p>

\r<\/p>

Eminent city personalities, including Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar, condoled Prof. Vasudevan\u2019s untimely demise. Many regretted that they could not participate in paying him tribute in person as the family was in a quarantine and Prof. Vasudevan was taken on his last journey to the crematorium from the hospital.\r<\/p>

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<\/p>\n \n \n

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Harishankar Vasudevan, a professional historian who was a specialist on Russian and European history, and Indo-Russian relations, died after contracting COVID-19 on May 10, 2020, at a private health facility in Kolkata, India. He was 68. Son of an aeronautical engineer at the Defence Science Organisation (later Defence Research and Development Organisation) Methil Vasudevan and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[3,46,7019],"tags":[744],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/wp-content\/uploads\/imageholder\/uploads\/Hari_Vasudevan.jpg?fit=%2C&ssl=1","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3729,"url":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=3729","url_meta":{"origin":1486,"position":0},"title":"Michel Parisse, historian","date":"April 6, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Michel Parisse -- a French historian who specialized in medieval studies \u00a0 died on 5 April 2020 at the age of 83 due to COVID-19.\u00a0 He was a professor emeritus at the University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne. Parisse earned his agr\u00e9gation in history in 1959. He earned two doctoral degrees,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "France"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2339,"url":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=2339","url_meta":{"origin":1486,"position":1},"title":"William Henry Gerdts Jr., art historian","date":"April 15, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"William Henry Gerdts Jr. an American art historian and professor of Art History at the CUNY Graduate Center. Gerdts was the author of over twenty-five books on American art died of complications of the COVID-19 virus, aged 91, on April 14, 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Noteworthy"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3957,"url":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=3957","url_meta":{"origin":1486,"position":2},"title":"Jacques Le Brun, historian","date":"April 7, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Jacques Le Brun \u2011 a French historian who specialized in the study of Christianity in the 17th century \u2013 died on 6 April 2020 after suffering from coronavirus. Le Brun's first works were related to Jacques-B\u00e9nigne Bossuet. He was Director of Honorary Studies at the \u00c9cole pratique des hautes \u00e9tudes,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "France"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3329,"url":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=3329","url_meta":{"origin":1486,"position":3},"title":"Francis Rapp, historian","date":"March 30, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Francis Rapp \u2011 a French medievalist specializing in the history of Alsace and medieval Germany \u2013 succumbed to Covid-19 on 29 March 2020. \u00a0 An emeritus university professor, he was a member of the Acad\u00e9mie des inscriptions et belles-lettres since 1993. \u00a0 Born in Strasbourg, the son of lawyer L\u00e9on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "France"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3776,"url":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=3776","url_meta":{"origin":1486,"position":4},"title":"Henry Graff, historian","date":"April 8, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Henry Franklin Graff - an American historian who served on the faculty of Columbia University from 1946 to 1991, including a period as Chairman of the History Department \u2013 died on 7 April,2020 due to COVID-19. Graff specialized in the history of the Presidency of the United States and of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Noteworthy"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2495,"url":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=2495","url_meta":{"origin":1486,"position":5},"title":"Carlos Seco Serrano, historian","date":"April 13, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Carlos Seco Serrano \u2011 a Spanish historian who specialised in the contemporary era \u2013 passed away in Madrid on 12 April 2020 after contracting Covid-19. He was 96. \u00a0 Born in Toledo, Seco Serrano was elected to medalla n\u00ba 12 of the Real Academia de la Historia on 21 January\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Noteworthy"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1486"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1486"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6018,"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1486\/revisions\/6018"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}