Sergei Borisovich Kan

Born July 17 (29), 1896, in Terioki (present-day Zelenogorsk); died Mar. 7, 1960, in Moscow. Soviet historian, specialist in modern history; he became a professor and a doctor of historical sciences in 1940.

Kan was a teacher from 1924 to 1959—in the department of history of Moscow State University from 1934 to 1937 and in 1946–47, at the V. I. Lenin Pedagogical Institute from 1938 to 1941 and from 1943 to 1946, at the V. P. Potemkin Pedagogical Institute from 1955 to 1959, and at the Higher Diplomatic School from 1946 to 1949. Kan was a senior research associate at the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR from 1944 to 1952. He was involved in many collective works, including The Revolution of1848–1849 (vols. 1–2, 1952), The Paris Commune of 1871 (vol. 1, 1961), The History of Diplomacy (vol. 1, 1959), and Modern History (vol. 1, 1963). In his book on the Silesian weavers’ uprising, Kan analyzed the manufacturing stage of capitalism in Germany, based upon the example of the linen industry. He also investigated the history and historiography of the Revolution of 1848–49 in Germany.