Obituaries
Dean Stoddard Worth
Dean Stoddard Worth, a resident of Moravian Manor, has died after a long illness. Dr. Worth moved to Lititz in 2012, after retiring from UCLA, where he was a Professor of Slavic Languages for many years. Born in Brooklyn in 1927, he spent most of his early life in New England, attending the Phillips Exeter Academy, Dartmouth College (B.A. 1949), and Harvard University (Ph.D. 1957). He also earned a certificate from the School of Oriental Languages of the Sorbonne, where he began his study of Russian. Best known for his scholarship in areas related to the Russian language, including its structure, history, and literary tradition, his earliest publications also presented ground-breaking research on one of the indigenous languages of northeastern Siberia. In addition to publishing several hundred original scholarly articles, he also promoted colleagues’ work as a journal editor and through conferences. He was one of the earliest American scholars to visit Russia during the post-Stalin era and he promoted international scholarly exchange, both by inviting Russian visitors to his department at UCLA and into his home, and through his chairmanship of the International Committee of Slavists. He developed warm relationships especially with Czech scholars, some of whom he aided in various ways after the Soviet invasion of 1968. He was respected by his students and won many fellowships and awards both for his scholarship and also for his extensive service to his university and profession. He was known for his hospitality, his resourcefulness, and his unfailing courtesy, generosity, decency, and fairness. He loved the outdoors and enjoyed introducing foreign visitors to the wonders of the California deserts and mountains. He is survived by his wife Emily, his niece Christine, two nephews, Bruce and Gregory, and their spouses. As he wished, his cremated remains will be interred in his family burial plot in Plymouth, Massachusetts, at the convenience of his family.
Leave a condolence on this Memorial Page
Condolences to the Family
April 04, 2016
Dear Emily,
My sincere condolences to you and the family on Dean’s passing. He was part of my entire academic career at UCLA, from undergraduate studies in the 1960s to the PhD, and I’ll always be grateful for his inspiration and guidance.
With best wishes,
Leon Ferder
April 04, 2016
Dear Emily,
I would like to add my condolences to those of the many others whose lives were enriched by their contacts with Dean. I am probably the oldest friend to write on this page. My friendship with Dean goes back to our graduate student days at Harvard in the 1950s, both of us pupils of the inimitable Roman Jakobson. We both ended our careers as professors at the University of California, though at different branches thereof. I regret that the University-wide annual Slavic meetings that were so delightful and inspiring in those early days, when I especially enjoyed reuning with Dean, fell vicitm to the drastic budget cuts that have afflcited the University so painfully in more recent years. But my memories of Dean are as warm and treasured as ever.
Hugh McLean
April 04, 2016
Dear Emily,
please accept my sincere condolences on Dean’s passing. Dean was my friend and I shall never forget him. His contribution to Slavic philology is immense, I see his books and articles quoted again and again.
Seine, Eure Gastfreundschaft, Liebenswürdigkeit und Hilfsbereitschaft sind uns in schönster Erinnerung, obwohl jetzt fast 25 Jahre seit unserem Sabbatical am UCLA vergangen sind. Aber auch Dean’s trockener Humor und kluger Witz, mit denen er seine große Gelehrsamkeit so besonders menschlich machen konnte, bleiben in unserem Gedächtnis. Ein großer mensch.
Peter & Petra Rehder, München
April 04, 2016
Emily, please accept sincerest condolences from me and Vlad. Dean (and you) were the first to host me when I came to UCLA for my job interview; then it was Dean and you who insisted we celebrate my tenure (at La Couchette). Dean’s graciousness, kindness, humor, and generosity became for me an integral part of my experience in the department. I will never forget one day in the old Kinsey office as he was heading off home, while you, it seems, had to remain behind for a while. I overheard him turn to you and ask in that playful/serious voice of his with reference, I presumed, to that evening’s meal, “A little stir-fry, then, Emily?” There were was so much love in those few words that they subsequently became shorthand for expressing that emotion between myself and Vlad. You are a lucky woman, Emily, to have had Dean as your companion in life, just as we have been to have had him among us.
Вічна йому пам’ять!
RK & VS
April 03, 2016
Dear Emily,
my life. too, was touched by Dean’s incredible generosity, courtsey and wit. I have vivid and warm memories of the hospitality of your home on the hill. Dean was a paragon of an American gentleman for me — an important influence in the first years of my life in America. I feel grateful that he dedicated his life to Russian language and Slavic studies. It has been a privilege to know him.
Please accept my sincere and warm condolences.
Yours, Irina Paperno
April 02, 2016
Dear Emily,
This is a sad moment. I remember Dean so well back in 1981 when I first got to UCLA. It’s a lot of years and a lot of memories…
Please accept my condolences.
Olga
Olga Kagan
April 02, 2016
Dear Emily and Family,
Please accept our sincere condolences on Dean’s passing. Our thoughts go back to our first meeting in California twenty six years ago, how you and Dean did everything to make us welcome when we moved to UCLA and your continuing hospitality over the course of the many years we worked together.
Ron Vroon, Gail Lenhoff
April 02, 2016
To me Dean Worth is still an important part of our remembering first meetings with the American linguistic and poetic sciences of the early post-war period. Dean was an excellent companion. We spent together happy holydays in Moscow of 1960-ies and 1970-ies. Among scholarly contributiond by Dean I remember his elegant talk on the Russian rhyme of the XVI I I century pronounced and diccussed at the philological session at the MGU Department of Structural and Applied linguistics. During the large International congress of Slavic specialists in Kiev in the beginning of 1980-ies Dean was Head of the International committee of Slavic scholars. He had different scholarly and human merits that were necessary to fulfil these difficuly obligations. Our friendship continued inspite of the changes in the linguistic environment. Dean was among those American friends who had helped us to start a completely new life in California. I will always remember his generosity, the wonderful circle of those friends who had met in his house and the friendly help of Emily. Our sorrow is great.
Vyacheslav Ivanov, UCLA Professor Emeritus; Director, Institute of the World culture of the Moscow Lomonosov State University (MGU); Director, Russian Anthropological School of the State Russian Univerity of humanities (RGGU).
April 02, 2016
Dear Emily,
Please accept my condolences for Dean’s passing. He was a longtime friend, a fine scholar, and an impressive presence. A lot in my life was connected with him. It is a pity we haven’t seen much of you two in recent years. Lada and I remember him fondly.
Yours,
Alik (Alexander Zholkovsky, USC, Los Angeles)
April 02, 2016
Thank you, Dean, for everything you taught me.
Emily, my thoughts are with you.
Вічная пам’ять.
Robert Romanchuk, FSU
