Frank Tachau, one of the leading scholars of Middle Eastern politics, died on July 23, 2010, at the age of 80 in Sykesville, Maryland, after battling with multiple myeloma for two years. Born in Braunschweig, Germany, Professor Tachau moved with his family to Chicago at the age of seven in 1936. He studied at the University of Chicago, earning a bachelor's and a master's degree in political science. His MA thesis on the diplomacy of the Turkish Straits between 1936 and 1946 led to his remarkable Ph.D. dissertation, which offered one of the first scholarly accounts of Turkish nationalism in 1958. What distinguished Professor Tachau's analyses from others studying the Middle East was his extensive ethnographic work in the region. His unique language skills allowed him to learn modern Turkish very quickly in 1956 and opened the door for him to master historical Ottoman Turkish as well. During his multiple visits to the region, Professor Tachau studied the history of the Ottoman Empire and also noted the emerging institutions of the new Turkish republic. His extensive stays in the region equipped him with unique insights into the views of the country's political elite and the mechanisms of its fledgling democracy.
Professor Tachau started his academic career at Purdue University–Fort Wayne (Indiana), before moving on to Rutgers University. He joined the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, now the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), in 1968 and spent the remainder of his professional life there. He was an active participant in the drastic transformation of UIC from a little-known state university to a university of international stature. The ensuing rapid growth of the political science department faced challenges. He provided significant leadership along the way, stepping in when needed to chair the department on two occasions for a total of eight years. He and his wife Paula tirelessly provided intellectual and social leadership by opening their home on countless occasions for departmental events. His thoughtful and piercingly effective leadership helped to smooth out the rough edges in a demanding and often taxing institutionalization process.
Professor Tachau's scholarly interest covered a broad range. He was truly an interdisciplinary scholar before the term became fashionable. One of the many things that set him apart from others was his willingness to write books for an unconventional audience and his ability to make his work relevant to broader audiences. He did not shy away, for instance, from contributing to a school book series that introduced exemplary world leaders to high school students. His eloquent and informative style offered a detailed account of the ideas of the founder of the Turkish Republic to general readers in Kemal Ataturk (Chelsea Publishing, 1987). He also shared his keen observations on the Turkish political system in The Politics of Authority, Democracy, and Development (Praeger, 1984). His analyses crossed the intellectual boundaries that are typically drawn between history, political science, and regional studies by introducing studies of the Middle East into the conventional debates of political science based on a historically grounded assessment.
Professor's Tachau's insight into Turkish politics was unique and unmatched in its empirical and conceptual grounding. His analysis in National Identity among Turks (Die Welt des Islams, 1963) still remains one of the main sources for those who tackle issues of identity and democracy in the Middle East. His extensive studies of the political elite and their efforts to mold national politics enabled him to take a leading role in discussions on political parties. His edited volume Political Parties of the Middle East and North Africa continues to rank as one of the most exhaustive and important descriptive and analytical assessment of political parties in the region. Professor Tachau's unique regional collaboration in editing and co-editing works brought together country studies by different experts, generating his most-cited books Political Elites and Political Development in the Middle East (1975) and Electoral Politics in the Middle East (1980). Professor Tachau's comparative interests manifested themselves in his extensive engagements with political analyses of Israel and the intricate peace process. His continuing interest in Israel politics manifested itself in his well-balanced analysis entitled “The Knesset and the Peace Process,” published in Israeli Affairs. As in his other studies, Professor Tachau based his discussions of Israeli politics on a wide range of longitudinal personal interviews of Knesset members. Such research inspired many students and colleagues.
He played an active role in recruiting and supporting students and emerging scholars who ventured into the complex issues of the Middle East's history and politics. Professor Tachau always managed to strike a fine balance between high standards and humor to show that serious work only improves with a mind that also sees the humor in situations. In honor and recognition of his pioneering and inspiring scholarship, an international conference on social, political, and economic change in Turkey was convened at Isik University, Turkey, in 2006.
Professor Tachau's colleagues, friends, and students will remember him for his dedication to his community, his students, the development of new scholars, the principles of peaceful coexistence, and a wide range scholarly work that challenges others to approach the politics of the Middle East with rigorous analytical tools and to call into question well-entrenched traditional accounts. His efforts proved invaluable in helping to raise the stature of Middle East politics from an area-studies focus to a respected disciplinary subfield that attracts the attention of scholars from a wide range of research areas. Frank epitomized the really “exemplary citizen” and worked hard to make UIC an intellectual hub, closer to the ideal of a great university. Members of the UIC community and scholars of the Middle East owe Professor Tachau a deep debt of gratitude for all his painstaking labor. Most important, Frank carried on a successful professional career without shortchanging his family, his love for music as a dedicated cellist, his public engagements serving public platforms as a commentator on Middle East politics, his regular volunteer hosting of new international students in the Chicago area, and his many other remarkable activities outside the insular world of the academy. His rich life set a fine example and enhanced the lives of many people around him in diverse settings.
Professor Tachau leaves his wife Paula, their five children—Daniel, Carla, Ellen, Jeremy, and Joel—15 grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren. Appropriately for this internationalist, the Tachau family extends from Bnei Brak, Israel, to Seattle, Washington, and many points in between. Frank Tachau is terribly missed by all those whose lives he touched with his intellectual brilliance and personal warmth, while his legacy carries the study of Middle East politics forward.
