IN MEMORIAM

IN MEMORIAM

Huey Louis Kostanick

Professor of Geography, Emeritus

Los Angeles

1918–2000

Huey Louis Kostanick, a distinguished scholar, teacher, and linguist, passed away on July 21, 2000, at the age of 82. He had been a member of the UCLA faculty for more than a third of a century.

 

Louie, as he was widely known, was born in the village of Horning in western Pennsylvania on April 7, 1918. His parents were of Yugoslavian origin, and he took great pride in his Eastern European heritage. He took his B.A. degree in political science from the University of Pittsburgh in 1940, and an M.A. degree in geography from Clark University in 1942.

 

He was a civilian employee of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in 1942-43, at which time he entered military service. He was re-assigned from the Army to the OSS in 1943, and spent the rest of the World War II years in various Eastern European assignments. He was based in Cairo for some time, and then moved to Italy, where he was first a member and later chief of the Balkan Section field office. Toward the end of the war he was assigned to the U.S. delegation of the Allied Control Commission in Bulgaria. In 1946 he returned to the State Department, where he served as research analyst for Eastern Europe.

 

He re-entered graduate school at Clark University in 1946 and received a Ph.D. degree in geography in 1948. Meanwhile, he was hired by the Geography Department at UCLA as an instructor in 1946, and was promoted to assistant professor upon receipt of the Ph.D. in 1948. He was advanced to the rank of professor in 1962, and retired in 1983 after 37 years of service.

 

Dr. Kostanick had an international reputation as a scholar of Eastern Europe, including the Soviet Union. He wrote knowledgeably on demographic issues in what is now the former Yugoslavia, and on political problems in the Balkans in general. In addition, he was a remarkable linguist, with research capabilities in half a dozen languages from Russian to Croatian. He was a brilliant teacher, and was given numerous teaching awards, including three Outstanding Teacher awards from the Prytanean Society at UCLA. His upper division Political Geography course was invariably over-subscribed and his regional courses on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe were very popular. He taught more than 14,000 undergraduate students during his long career and many considered him their best teacher at UCLA. He was also much in demand for graduate advising, and served on more than 90 Ph.D. committees. He was well known and well liked in the broader geographical community, and served as president of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers in 1956.

 

Louie's persona was marked by a ready smile, a quick wit, and a bow tie. He is survived by his beloved wife Celeste (Tess), and son Christopher.

 

William A.V. Clark

Tom L. McKnight