Alexander Sergeevich Kan (1925—2017): from Soviet Scandinavist to Scandinavian Historian

The present article is devoted to aspects of the life of Professor Alexander Sergeevich Kan (1925—2017), one of the founding fathers of Scandinavian studies in the USSR. This year, 2025, we mark the centenary of his birth. His development as a scholar was significantly shaped by his father, likewise a historian, and by colleagues at Lomonosov Moscow State University and the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union. Kan became one of the principal figures in the organisation of Scandinavian studies in the Soviet Union, and was both author and editor of a series of volumes on the history of the Scandinavian countries. He also played an active role in organizing All-Union conferences on the history, economy, language and literature of the Scandinavian countries and Finland, as well as symposia involving Soviet and Finnish historians. These scholarly gatherings were generally held on a biannual basis from the late 1960s until the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The inaugural Soviet–Swedish symposium was organized in 1976. These scholarly meetings survived the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and were renamed Russian–Finnish and Russian–Swedish symposia respectively. After relocating to Sweden in 1987, Kan held academic posts at the universities of Uppsala (Sweden) and Oslo (Norway), where he continued to research and publish extensively on Soviet–Scandinavian relations. He also played an active part in supporting centres for Scandinavian studies in post-Soviet Russia, especially in the Russian North. In the latter years of his life, Kan became an important figure in fostering dialogue across borders, serving as a vital bridge between Russian, Swedish, and Norwegian historians.