Swedish Iranologist Bo Utas elected as honorary member of Academy of Persian Language and Literature
Swedish Iranologist Bo Utas elected as honorary member of Academy of Persian Language and Literature
TEHRAN – The Academy of Persian Language and Literature in Iran has elected Bo Utas, a prominent Swedish Iranologist and Professor Emeritus of Iranian Languages at Uppsala University in Sweden, as an honorary member in recognition of his scholarly contributions.
Hojjatollah Faghani, the Ambassador of Iran to Sweden, visited Bo Utas’s home to convey the appreciation of the Iranian scientific and literary community for his services to the Persian language and literature, and officially presented him with the certificate of honorary membership in the Academy of Persian Language and Literature, Mehr reported on Sunday.
During the meeting, which was also attended by Mojtaba Norouzi, the Cultural Attaché of Iran in Sweden, Bo Utas described his honorary membership in the Academy and the Dr. Mahmoud Afshar Literary-Historical Award as a sign of Iranian gratitude toward his efforts and those of all who cherish Iranian culture.
Referring to the positive relations between Iran and Sweden, he stated, “We must not allow certain transient issues to affect the brilliant history of cultural and scientific relations between the two countries.”
The Iranologist emphasized that focusing on culture and paying attention to the cultural community is the key to maintaining friendly bilateral relations between Iran and Sweden.
Bo Utas, 88, is a scholar on Persian historical linguistics and classical Persian literature. He got acquainted with Persian literature in secondary school. In 1959, he started to study Persian at Uppsala University under his mentor Henrik Samuel Nyberg and defended his PhD thesis in 1973.
Utas travelled extensively in Iran and Afghanistan in the 1960s and 1970s. From 1988, he became the first professor in Iranian languages at Uppsala University, a chair that he held until he retired in 2003. Under his supervision, no less than eight PhD candidates defended their theses successfully.
He is a member of several learned societies, including the Royal Danish Academy of Science and Letters, Societas Iranologica Europaea, and the Royal Society for the Humanities in Uppsala.
Bo Utas knows several languages, including Avestan, Old Persian, Middle Persian, Sanskrit, Chinese, Russian, Greek, Latin, Turkish, Hebrew and Arabic.
A full list of his publications shows his broad and diverse scholarship on Middle Persian and New Persian language and literature, manuscript tradition and text edition, culture and religion in Greater Iran.
He has translated several Persian classical and modern literary works into Swedish, including “Blind Owl” by Sadeq Hedayat.
Photo: Swedish Iranologist Bo Utas (R) and the Ambassador of Iran to Sweden Hojjatollah Faghani
SS/SAB
source: tehrantimes.com