A $2.4 million gift to the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Liberal Arts and Sciences from the estate of Marianna F. Thaden has established the Edward and Marianna Thaden Chair in Russian and East European Intellectual History.

Ms. Thaden, who died in 2011, was the wife of former UIC professor emeritus of history Edward C. Thaden. Mr. Thaden died in 2009.

A native of Vienna, Austria, Marianna Thaden completed her master's thesis, "Pasternak and Symbolism," at Pennsylvania State University. She and her husband of almost 56 years collaborated on two books, The Western Borderlands of Russia, 1710-1870 (1984), and Interpreting History: Collected Essays on the Relations of Russia With Europe (1990).

Edward Thaden came to UIC in 1968 after 16 years at Penn State, where he twice was chair of the Russian arts program. From 1971-73, he was chair of history at UIC, where he remained until his retirement in 1992. Professor Thaden was one of the pioneers of studying Russia as a multicultural and multiethnic empire - a truly imperial history. He also laid the foundation of modern intellectual history of the Russian Empire.