Nevertheless, almost anyone
else would have given up at this point, yielding to the force of large and
unforeseen events. But for Ehsan Yarshater great odds seem only a
challenge to still greater endeavour, when the cause is a worthy one; and
he resolved to continue in the hope that he could raise new funding
somehow. In this he was successful, thanks to his own qualities and
achievements, and tenacity of purpose. But it is a continuing struggle,
which swallows up all too much of his time and energy at the expense of
purely scholarly pursuits.
From then on the complex and arduous work of compiling and producing the
Encyclopaedia has been carried on at the Center for Iranian Studies,
Columbia University chiefly with the continued support of the National
Endowment for the Humanities. The first fascicles were published in 1982,
and by the end of 1989 three bound volumes had come out, with ten more
planned to follow over the years. The undertaking has benefited from
unremitting labours of a succession of assistant editors, notably among
them M. Kasheff, who began working on the "Encyclopaedia of Iran and
Islam", transferring without break to the Encyclopaedia Iranica; and
latterly P.O. Skjaervø; but the driving force and inspiration continues to
be Ehsan Yarshater, who oversees its every aspect. For this, long
experience has uniquely qualified him, both on the practical and scholarly
sides; and his extraordinary width of knowledge is invaluable for the
choice of rubrics and invitation of contributors. There are few Persian
writers and men of learning of the twentieth century whom he has not
known, few Iranists whose work he has not read and remembered, perhaps no
aspect of Iranian history and culture to which he has not devoted some
attention. The usefulness of the Encyclopaedia is generally recognized;
and it is proving not only an indispensable source of knowledge, but is
itself a stimulus to research and fresh thinking on the part of scholars
who are invited to contribute, and who respond to the opportunities which
it provides. The heavy burdens which it lays on its chief editor have
unfortunately kept his own contributions relatively few; but they have
ranged characteristically widely, with a number of entries on Iranian
dialects, a vivid and sympathetic account of the village of Abyana, and a
meticulously documented article on Afrasiyab. He has made moreover
striking contributions from his own unique knowledge to articles by
others, for example to that on the great modern Persian singer Banan.
Since all his labours on the Encyclopaedia have been in addition to his
full-time professional work at Columbia Univesity, it seems incredible
that even Ehsan Yarshater should have been engaged at the same time on
another major task; but since the early 1970s he had been preparing, as
general editor and contributor, the third volume of the Cambridge History
of Iran, devoted to the Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian periods. This
massive work, in two parts, was planned to compass "every aspect of
Iranian civilisation from the death of Alexander in 323 B.C. to the advent
of Islam in the seventh century A.D."
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