Veteran scholar, historian, geographer and lexicographer Manouchehr Sotoudeh, passed away on Friday (April 8) at the age of 103.

He was suffering from upper respiratory tract infection in recent times and was hospitalized at Taleghani Hospital in Chalous, Mazandaran Province on March 24, Honaronline reported.

Professor Sotoudeh was born in 1913 in Sarcheshmeh bazaar neighborhood of old Tehran. He was educated in the American primary school, wherein, later he started working in the library. After graduating from school, he went to the Teacher Training University in Gilan Province to study Persian language literature.

After receiving his bachelor’s degree, he completed his military service and in 1941 was employed in the Ministry of Culture as a teacher. Sotoudeh became a member of the Philosophy and Human Sciences Association after his PhD.

At the same time, he attended the School of Theology to teach historical geography, and this was the initiation of his focus and continuity in the studies of historical geography. During the following years, he undertook several study tours abroad.

From among his life events the following are significant: promotion to assistant professor at Tehran University and then to associate professor; transfer to Faculty of Literature at Tehran University, membership in History department and finally his promotion to full professor in 1975.

His retirement from teaching gave him a chance to finish his incomplete previous tasks in compiling, editing and annotating ancient texts and writing the collection of the most important resources of historical geography of Iran’s ethnicity and territories in more than 40 titles and volumes.

One of the most important works of Sotoudeh is a ten-volume set named ‘From Astara to Estarabad’. This is a precise historiography of Gilan, Mazandaran and Golestan territories, which provides readers accurate and comprehensive information from buildings, monuments, historical works and geographical and historical information of the region.

Sotoudeh had his special method of research and writing encyclopedias of Iran’s national geography and vast topics in ethical lexicography. His name is inevitably tied to Iranian ethnical historiography and lexicography.

His body will be brought to Salmanshahr in Mazandaran Province where he lived, and his funeral is slated for April 10.

By Financial Tribune