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Richard Nelson Frye

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Richard Nelson Frye (c. 1920) is an American scholar of Iranian and Central Asian Studies, and Aga Khan Professor Emeritus of Iranian at Harvard University. His professional areas of interest are Iranian philology, and the history of Iran and Central Asia before 1000 CE.

Born in Birmingham, Alabama to a family of immigrants from Sweden, "Freij" has four children, his second marriage being to an Assyrian scholar, Dr. Eden Naby, from Urmia who teaches at Columbia University. He speaks fluent Russian, German, Arabic, Persian, French, Pashto, Uzbek, and Turkish(Greater Iran), and has extensive knowledge of Avestan, Pahlavi, Sogdian, and other Central Asian languages and dialects, both extinct and current.(Greater Iran)

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[edit] Career

Frye first attended the University of Illinois, where he received an AB in history and philosophy in 1939. He received his MA from Harvard University in 1940 and his PhD from Harvard in 1946, in Asiatic history.

Frye served with the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. He was stationed in Afghanistan and traveled extensively in the Middle East, Central Asia, and South Asia.

He returned to Harvard to teach. He was a member of the Harvard faculty from 1948 until 1990. He is now a professor emeritus at Harvard. He has also served as faculty, guest lecturer, or visiting scholar at:

Professor Frye founded the Center for Middle Eastern Studies <ref>Center for Middle Eastern Studies website</ref> at Harvard, the first Iranian studies program in America. He also served as Director of the Asia Institute in Shiraz (1970-1975), was on the Board of Trustees of the Pahlavi University at Shiraz (1974-78), and Chairman, Committee on Inner Asian Studies, at Harvard (1983-89), and as Editor of the Bulletin of the Asia Institute (1970-1975 and 1987-99).

Frye giving a lecture in Tehran in 2004, after receiving a lifetime achievement award from the "Mahmoud Afshar Foundation".
Frye in debate with a cleric in Shiraz, 1992.
A young Frye and Roman Ghirshman, Susa, 1966.
Frye and prominent Iranian scholar Iraj Afshar in 2004 in Tehran.

Among Frye's students were Annemarie Schimmel (Greater Iran, p.193), Oleg Grabar[1], Frank Huddle (US Ambassador to Tajikistan), John Limbert, and Michael Crichton, whose Hollywood blockbuster The 13th Warrior is loosely based on Frye's translation of Ibn Fadlan's account of his travels up the river Volga. (Greater Iran, p.90, 150)

Frye was also directly responsible for inviting Iranian scholars as distinguished visiting fellows to Harvard University, under a fellowship program initiated by Henry Kissinger. Examples of such guests include Mehdi Haeri Yazdi (1923–1999), Sadegh Choubak, Jalal al Ahmad, and others. (Greater Iran, p.103,174)

[edit] Frye as proponent of Persian culture

House of Ghavam, where the famous Shiraz University Asia Institute was founded. Frye headed the institute from 1969 to 1974.

Frye felt that Persian civilization was under-appreciated by other Muslims, and Arab Muslims in particular. Frye wrote:

"Arabs no longer understand the role of Iran and the Persian language in the formation of Islamic culture. Perhaps they wish to forget the past, but in so doing they remove the bases of their own spiritual, moral and cultural being…without the heritage of the past and a healthy respect for it…there is little chance for stability and proper growth."
(R. N. Frye, The Golden Age of Persia, London: Butler & Tanner Ltd., 1989, page 236)

Iranians responded enthusiastically to his appreciation.

In August 1953, shortly before Mosaddegh's fall, the prominent Iranian linguist Ali Akbar Dehkhoda gave Frye the title (laqab): "Irandoost" (meaning "a friend of Iran").(Greater Iran, p.142)

A ceremony was held in Iran on June 27, 2004 to pay tribute to the six-decade endeavors of Professor Frye on his lifetime contribution to Iranology, research work on the Persian language, and the history and culture of Iran.

In his will, Professor Frye has expressed his wish to be buried next to Zayandeh-rud in Isfahan. Two other American Iranologists, Arthur Pope and Phyllis Ackerman, are already buried there.

[edit] Frye as public speaker

Frye is a popular public speaker at numerous Iran-related gatherings. In 2005, he spoke at UCLA, encouraging the Persians present to cherish their culture and identity [2], [3]. In 2004, he spoke at an architectural conference in Tehran, expressing his dismay at hasty modernization that ignores the beauties of traditional Persian architecture (see Architecture of Tehran).

[edit] Bibliography

  • The Near East and the Great Powers, Harvard University Press, 1951
  • Iran, George Allen and Unwin, London, 1960
  • The Heritage of Persia: The pre-Islamic History of One of the World's Great Civilizations, World Publishing Company, New York, 1963
  • Bukhara: The Medieval Achievement, University of Oklahoma Press, 1965
  • The Histories of Nishapur, Harvard University Press, 1965
  • Corpus Inscriptionum Iranicarum, vol. III, Dura-Europos, London, 1968
  • Persia (3rd edition) Allen and Unwin, London, 1969
  • The United States and Turkey and Iran, Archon Books, 1971
  • Sasanian Remains from Qasr-i Abu Nasr. Seals, Sealings, and Coins, Harvard University Press, 1973
  • Neue Methodologie in der Iranistik, Wiesbaden, 1974
  • The Golden Age Of Persia: The Arabs in the East, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1993
  • The heritage of Central Asia from antiquity to the Turkish expansion Markus Wiener, Princeton, 1996
  • Notes on the Early Coinage of Transoxania; Numismatic Notes, 113, American Numismatic Association, New York
  • Greater Iran, Mazda Publishers, 2005, ISBN 1-56859-177-2
  • Ibn Fadlan's Journey To Russia, 2005, Markus Wiener Publishe, ISBN 1-55876-366-X

[edit] Notes

<references/>

[edit] See also

Other notable Iranologists:

[edit] External links

fr:Richard Nelson Frye no:Richard Nelson Frye

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