Susobhan Sarkar

Susobhan Chandra Sarkar (1900-1982) was an Indian historian.

Susobhan Chandra Sarkar
Born19 August 1900
Dhaka
Died26 August 1982 (aged 82)
Calcutta
Alma materPresidency College, Calcutta, Jesus College, Oxford
OccupationHistorian

Background and education

Sarkar, son of Suresh Chandra Sarkar, was born into a Brahmo family of Dhaka. He attended Dhaka Collegiate School, studied history at Presidency College, Calcutta and continued his higher education at Jesus College, Oxford from 1923 to 1925. His daughter Sipra Sarkar was a professor of history at Jadavpur University, Calcutta and Sumit Sarkar was professor of history at Delhi University.

Career

He returned to India as a Lecturer in History at Calcutta University before being appointed Reader in History at Dhaka University in 1927. Through the 1920s he was involved in the administration of Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, still under the active tutelage of its founder, Rabindranath Tagore. In 1932, he was appointed Professor of History at Presidency College, Calcutta. He will be remembered as a long serving professor of the college who inspired generations of students from both science and arts streams.[1]

He moved to Jadavpur University as Professor in 1956. He returned to Calcutta University for his final academic post from 1961 to 1967.

Sarkar, whose work was influenced by his Marxist and Gramscian ideas, taught the history of modern Europe, particularly the development of constitutional history in Britain and political thought in Western Europe. He also wrote from the 1930s about the Bengal Renaissance. His Notes on Bengal Renaissance sparked an interest in nationalist Indian historiography.[2] He also wrote the manifesto of the CPI.

Legacy

The Paschimbanga Itihas Samsad (Bengali পশ্চিমবঙ্গ ইতিহাস সংসদ), in collaboration with Presidency University, Kolkata (erstwhile Presidency College), has been organizing a lecture series in Sarkar's memory since 1994.[3].

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References
  1. Amartya Sen, Autobiography (The Nobel Foundation, 1998)
  2. De, Barun (February 1983). "Susobhan Sarkar (1900–1982): A Personal Memoir". Social Scientist. Social Scientist. 11 (2): 3–15. JSTOR 3517030.
  3. Noted scholars, such as Ashin Das Gupta, B.N. Mukherjee, Goutam Chattopadhyay, Gautam Bhadra, Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, Partha Chatterjee, Sukanta Chaudhuri, D.N. Jha, Jasodhara Bagchi, Rajat Kanta Ray, and Sugata Bose, have delivered this lecture. The Itihas Samsad brought out a collection of these lectures, from 1996-2016, in a volume (edited by Ramkrishna Chatterjee) entitled Sahitya Samaj Itihas (Bengali সাহিত্য সমাজ ইতিহাস). This volume was released by Sarkar's son, Sumit Sarkar, on 24 January 2018 at the venue of the 34th annual conference of the Itihas Samsad, held at the School of Women's Studies, Jadavpur University. The volume also includes a translation, in to Bengali, of the obituary written by Barun De, which was published in the 'Social Scientist', as well as a report of the proceedings of the first seminar held in Sarkar's memory at Presidency College in 1994

Notes on the Bengal Renaissance (1946) People's Publishing House, Bombay.


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