Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin (né Jacques Duchesne, born 21 April 1910 in

Jupille Jupille or Jupille-sur-Meuse ( wa, Djoupeye) is a district of the city of Liège, Wallonia, located in the province of Liège, Belgium. It was a municipality until 1977. Jupille is the location of the brewery Piedbœuf (InBev group), where Jupi ...

and died 8 February 2012 in

Liège Liège ( , , ; wa, Lîdje ; nl, Luik ; german: Lüttich ) is a major city and municipality of Wallonia and the capital of the Belgian province of Liège. The city is situated in the valley of the Meuse, in the east of Belgium, not far from b ...

) was a Belgian

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...

, and orientalist who was professor at the

University of Liège The University of Liège (french: Université de Liège), or ULiège, is a major public university of the French Community of Belgium based in Liège, Wallonia, Belgium. Its official language is French. As of 2020, ULiège is ranked in the 301 ...

and specialized in

ancient Iran The history of Iran is intertwined with the history of a larger region known as Greater Iran, comprising the area from Anatolia in the west to the borders of Ancient India and the Syr Darya in the east, and from the Caucasus and the Eurasian S ...

. Duchesne-Guillemin began his teaching career with the untimely death of his collaborator and mentor at the University of Liège, Auguste Bricteux, in 1937, becoming a professor in 1943 and a full professor in 1964. With the publication of his ''Zoroaster'' (a translation of the Gāthās of the

Avesta The Avesta () is the primary collection of religious texts of Zoroastrianism, composed in the Avestan language. The Avesta texts fall into several different categories, arranged either by dialect, or by usage. The principal text in the litu ...

, consisting of seventeen hymns attributed to

Zoroaster Zoroaster,; fa, زرتشت, Zartosht, label=New Persian, Modern Persian; ku, زەردەشت, Zerdeşt also known as Zarathustra,, . Also known as Zarathushtra Spitama, or Ashu Zarathushtra is regarded as the spiritual founder of Zoroastria ...

) in 1948, Duchesne-Guillemin became one of the major figures in the study of the

Avestan Avestan (), or historically Zend, is an umbrella term for two Old Iranian languages: Old Avestan (spoken in the 2nd millennium BCE) and Younger Avestan (spoken in the 1st millennium BCE). They are known only from their conjoined use as the scrip ...

language of ancient Iran. At different times in his career, he lectured at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

, and the

University of California at Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a Normal school, teachers colle ...

. His 1962 ''La Religion de l’Iran Ancien'' is still considered a masterpiece and the best scholarly introduction to

Zoroastrianism Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religions, Iranian religion and one of the world's History of religion, oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian peoples, Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a Dualism in cosmology, du ...

despite the decades of subsequent developments in the scholarship of the religion. His international reputation culminated in his appointment, in 1973, as editor of the series ''Acta Iranica''. In 1974, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the

University of Tehran The University of Tehran (Tehran University or UT, fa, دانشگاه تهران) is the most prominent university located in Tehran, Iran. Based on its historical, socio-cultural, and political pedigree, as well as its research and teaching pro ...

Publications

*''Ormazd et Ahriman, l'aventure dualiste dans l'antiquité'', PUF, 1953, 156 pp. *''La Religion de l'Iran ancien'', Paris, PUF, 1962, 411 pp. *''Le Croissant fertile : la découverte de l'Asie antérieure'', Paris, 1963. *"Islam et mazdéisme", in ''Mélanges Mass'', 1963, pp. 105-109. *''Zoroastre : étude critique, avec une traduction commentée des Gâthâ'', Paris, Robert Laffont, 1976, 265 pp. *"Pour l'étude de Hafiz", in ''Acta Iranica'', vol. XXI (1981), pp. 141-163. *''Dictionnaire des religions'', Paris, PUF (1984). *''Les Instruments de Musique dans L'Art Sassanide''. Leuven: Imprimerie Orientaliste, 1993, 130 pp.

References

1910 births 2012 deaths Academic staff of the University of Liège French philologists French orientalists Indo-Europeanists Linguists of Indo-European languages Linguists from France French Iranologists Zoroastrian studies scholars 20th-century translators French centenarians Men centenarians {{Belgium-academic-bio-stub

Publications

See also

References