In memoriam Milton Ehre (1933-2009)

[Slavic Department]

Milton Ehre, long-time Professor of Russian literature in the Department of
Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago, passed away
at his home in River Forest, Illinois, on 30 June 2009. Born in 1933, Milt
received his BA from the City College of New York in 1955 and embarked on a
career as a school teacher. In 1966 he received an MA in Russian at Columbia
University and continued on to receive his Ph.D. from Columbia in 1970. By
this time he had already spent three years on the faculty of the University
of Chicago, where he earned promotion to Associate Professor in 1972 and
Professor in 1981. He retired from the University in 1992. In 1973 Milt also
published his first book *Oblomov and His Creator: The Life and Art of Ivan
Goncharov*, for which V. S. Pritchett (writing in the *New York Review of
Books*) praised Milt’s “close knowledge of Russian critical writing and his
observation of the detail of Goncharov’s impulses and methods as a
novelist.” Milt’s second book, published in 1986, was *Isaac Babel*. In
addition to these two books and a score of major essays, Milt was also an
accomplished translator, publishing many translations of Russian poetry in
addition to his 1980 book *The Theater of Nikolay Gogol *(co-translated with
Fruma Gottschalk) and the 1992 volume *Chekhov for the Stage*. Throughout
his illustrious career Milt held two Fulbright-Hays fellowships and grants
from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Philosophical Society,
the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Guggenheim Foundation. He
was a member of the editorial board of the *Slavic and East European Journal
*.* *An avid participant in the humanities core curriculum, in 1999 Milt was
awarded the Llewellyn John and Harriet Manchester Quantrell Award for
Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.



Milt is survived by his wife Roberta, his daughters Joelle and Julieanne,
their husbands Peter Henderson and Hans Detweiller, and his grandchildren
Milo Henderson and Esther and Avi Detweiler. Services will be held at noon
on Friday, 3 July, at Oak Park Temple at 1235 N. Harlem, Oak Park, IL 60302.

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