Alexandre Bennigsen

Background

Bennigsen was born in Street St. Petersburg in 1913.

Education

After the Bolshevik Revolution, his family left Russia for Estonia in 1919 and settled in Paris in 1924, where he studied at the Ecole des Langues Orientales.

Career

Bennigsen also taught at various American universities, including the University of Chicago and the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Bennigsen proved prescient when the Soviet Union began to crumble, and especially in its aftermath. Bennigsen, who died in 1988, is generally considered the "father" of a school of students of nationality issues in the former Soviet Union and in the states formed in its aftermath.

Achievements

• These included, prominently, S. Enders Wimbush and Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay, with whom Bennigsen wrote many books and articles, and Paul A. Goble, the founder and editor of Window on Eurasia.