Nicolau Sevcenko

He was born in 1952 in São Vicente to a Ukrainian family that fled the Russian Civil War.

He grew up in the city of São Paulo, in the working class district of Vila Prudente, which had a concentration of Slavs.

He graduated from the history program at the University of São Paulo (USP) in 1975.

He earned his doctorate in social history in 1981, also from USP, with a thesis entitled: "Literatura como Missão: tensões sociais e criação cultural na Primeira República" (Literature as Mission: social tensions and cultural creation in the First Republic).

He became a professor at USP in 1985, where he worked until his retirement in 2012.

In 1990, he performed post-doctoral work at the University of London.

He lectured at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP) and the State University of Campinas (Unicamp).

In 1999, he won the Prêmio Jabuti in the category of human sciences for his book The History of Private Life in Brazil (volumes 3 and 4), published by Companhia das Letras.

From 2010, he was a professor of Romance languages and literatures at Harvard University.

Nicolau Sevcenko (São Vicente, 1952 — São Paulo, August 13, 2014) was a Brazilian historian, university professor, columnist, writer, and translator.

Sevcenko specialized in the history of Brazilian culture and the social development of the cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

He graduated from the University of São Paulo (USP), where he also served as a professor of cultural history.

He was also a member of the Center for Latin American Cultural Studies at King's College of the University of London.

He also served as a visiting professor at Georgetown University, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Harvard University.

For many years, he published a column in the Folha de S.Paulo.

He died of a heart attack at his home August 13, 2014.