Edward Wasiolek, renowned scholar of Russian literature, 1924–2018
In his 40-plus-year career at the University of Chicago, Edward Wasiolek became a renowned scholar of Slavic and comparative literature, and particularly of Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky.
Wasiolek edited five volumes devoted to the notebooks for Dostoevsky’s novels, translated and edited volumes on Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, and wrote the widely acclaimed Dostoevsky: The Major Fiction (1964). He also wrote Tolstoy’s Major Fiction (1978) and gave a distinguished presentation on Tolstoy to the United Nations in 1988.
Wasiolek, who passed away on May 3 at age 92, taught from 1955 to 1996 at UChicago, where he was the Avalon Foundation Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Comparative Literature, and the College. He also served as the chair of the Comparative Literature Program and of the Department Slavic Languages and Literatures.
