Teaches Russian Life
As PARTNER TO Dr. Wing-tsit Chan, Visit. ing Lecturer in Chinese Culture, in the. teaching of the civilization and languages of America's Far Eastern allies, the College has named Dr. Dimitri von Mohrenschildt to the new post of Visiting Lecturer in Russian Civilization. Dr. von Mohrenschildt and Dr. Chan joined the Dartmouth faculty at the start of the fall semester, and each is offering two courses about his native land.
Dr. von Mohrenschildt, who is the founder of The Russian Review, is teaching an elementary course in the Russian language and is also giving "An Introduction to Russian Civilization," a survey course on Russia's social, political, economic and cultural development, with special emphasis on the interrelation of Russian and Western European culture.
Dr. Chan, who has come to Dartmouth from the University of Hawaii, is offering "Men and Ideas in 20th Century China" and a comparative literature course on "Chinese Ideals in Literature and Art." The former deals with the problems and personalities of modern China, stressing the social, economic, political and philosophical ideas which are transforming that nation. The latter is a course in the ideals of Chinese life, past and present, as expressed in literature arid art.
Dr. Chan's appointment to the College faculty was announced earlier in the summer, as part of Dartmouth's expanding program of wartime instruction. He is a native of Canton, and has been Professor of Chinese Philosophy and Institutions at the University of Hawaii since 1935. Before that he was Dean of the University and Professor of Philosophy at Lingnan University, which he attended as an undergraduate. He studied at Harvard University for five years and received his Doctor's degree there in 1929.
Dr. von Mohrenschildt was born in St. Petersburg in 1902 and is a member of a very old family of the Russian-Baltic nobility which has been in the service of Russia since the 17th century. He received his earlier education in Russia and in 1920 came to the United States, first working as a sailor in the U. S. Merchant Marine. By means of a scholarship he entered Yale and was graduated in 1926, the year in which he became a naturalized citizen of this country.
Dr. von Mohrenschildt undertook fur ther study at Yale and received his Master's degree in 1930. He continued his graduate work at Columbia, in the field of comparative literature, and earned his Doctor's degree in 1936. Meanwhile he had been teaching Russian and French and had been engaged in the writing of books and articles on various phases of Russian life. In addition to his editorial work on Th&Russian Review, which he will continue in Hanover, he has lectured widely and has appeared before many Foreign Policy Associations in this country.
