Yale Bulletin and Calendar

March 29-April 5, 1999

Volume 27, Number 26

Vladimir Petrov dies -- taught Russian at Yale

Vladimir N. Petrov, who taught Russian at Yale for 18 years, died at his home in Kensington, Maryland, on March 17 after a brief illness. He was 83 years old.

At the time of his death, Mr. Petrov was professor emeritus of history and international affairs at George Washington University.

Born in Odessa, on Russia's Black Sea coast, Professor Petrov was educated at the Moscow College of Civil Engineering and the Institute of Communication in Leningrad. He was arrested in 1937 on charges of distributing anti-Soviet propaganda and was sentenced to five years of hard labor in the Russian Far East.

After being released from the labor camp, he settled in Krasnodar in the northern Caucasus, which was overrun by the German army in World War II. Using the German retreat as a way of escaping from the Soviet Union, Professor Petrov reached the American zone of occupation and eventually emigrated to the United States.

From 1947 until 1965, Professor Petrov taught Russian at Yale. He brought into his teaching the lore of the Soviet Union and stories of his own personal adventures of survival in the Stalinist era. His memories of that period served as material for his first books, "Soviet Gold" and "My Retreat from Russia" (Yale University Press, 1950). He also introduced into the University's Russian curriculum a course in "Readings of Soviet Press," where he taught students how to read between the lines -- or, as he called it, "all the news that's not fit to print."

Mr. Petrov received his Ph.D. from Yale in 1965. He also is the author of "A Study in Diplomacy: The Story of Arthur Bliss Lane" (1971), which was based on the papers of the former American ambassador to Japan and Poland, which were in Sterling Memorial Library's Manuscripts and Archives collection.

During his tenure at George Washington University, Professor Petrov focused his research and teaching on relations among the United States, the Soviet Union and China.

He is survived by his wife, Jean McNab, nine children and six grandchildren.

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