Robert L. Belknap

[Alan H Timberlake]

[posted on behalf of Liza Knapp, Chair of the Slavic Department at Columbia]



Robert L. Belknap, Professor Emeritus of Russian in the Department of
Slavic Languages, died on March 17.  Professor Belknap was a magisterial
teacher of literature in true Columbia tradition, a guiding intellect and
scholar in the field of Russian literature, a committed educator who
devoted his energy and vision to making Columbia an institution to be proud
of.  From start to finish, he was a man of integrity, wit, wisdom, and good
will.  He will be sorely missed and fondly remembered by all who have had
the honor of knowing him and learning from him.



A native New Yorker, Robert Belknap was educated at Princeton University,
the University of Paris, Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) State University,
and Columbia University (Ph.D. in Slavic Languages and Literatures, 1960).



Robert Belknap was known the world over as an expert on Russian literature,
on Dostoevsky, in particular.  He was the author of two major studies on
Dostoevsky's masterpiece, *The Brothers Karamazov*:  *The Structure of The
Brothers Karamazov *(1967, reprinted 1989) and *The Genesis of the Brothers
Karamazov *(1992), which both appeared in Russian translation.  *Literary
Plots*, based on the Leonard Hastings Schoff Memorial Lectures that
Professor Belknap delivered in 2011, is forthcoming from Columbia
University Press.  Together with Columbia colleague Richard Kuhns, Robert
Belknap wrote *Tradition and Innovation: General Education and the
Reintegration of the University *(1977), which reminds us that
interdisciplinary understanding, tolerance, and humility are central to a
whole--or, as they put it, reintegrated--university.  Indeed, one of Robert
Belknap's great talents was his ability to draw people from different
disciplines together in a common intellectual enterprise.



The intellectual excitement that Robert Belknap generated in his classrooms
is legendary.  His repertory ranged over the canon of Russian literature.  He
taught Literature Humanities in the Columbia Core curriculum for over fifty
years.  Students chose him for the Van Doren Great Teacher Award in 1980
and alumni chose him for the Society of Columbia Graduates Great Teacher
Award in 2010.  He is widely known for the lasting impact he had on
students--from first-year undergraduates in Literature Humanities to
dissertation advisees.



Over the course of his career, Professor Belknap assumed leadership roles
in a number of realms at Columbia: he served as the Chair of the Slavic
Department, the Director of the Russian (now Harriman) Institute, the
Acting Dean of Columbia College, the Chair of Literature Humanities, the
Director of the University Seminars.  As an administrator, he had a talent
for getting the job done well and for creating a spirit of cooperation.



He is survived by his wife, Cynthia Whittaker, a Russian historian, and
other family members.



A memorial service will be held at Columbia in the early fall.

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