Andrew Blane 1929-2019

Andrew Quarles Blane, of New York, NY, died on Friday September 6, 2019 at his home in Greenwich Village, where he had lived since 1965. He was 90.

Andrew was born on March 16, 1929 in El Salvador. He spent his first decade in Guatemala, after which his family returned to their home state of Kentucky. He graduated from Centre College in 1950, and enrolled in Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville. After seminary, Andrew traveled the South, where he was billed as a "dynamic lay evangelist" speaking to gatherings of students. His interest in religion led him to earn his Master's degree in Divinity at Cambridge University in 1957, where he stayed at Fitzwilliam House.

While studying at Cambridge, he traveled to the Soviet Union to attend The World Festival of Youth and Students. The trip changed his life's path. He returned to America to attend Duke University for a PhD, but switched his field of study from Religion to Russia. He became a professor of Russian history at the City University of New York in 1965. He published five books during his academic career, including the definitive biography of the Russian Orthodox priest Georges Florovsky – whom he met during a period of study at Harvard. 

During the 1960s, he was active in the civil rights and anti-war movements, and in 1969 he joined Amnesty International. In 1974, he became the first person from the Western Hemisphere to serve on AI's International Executive Committee, and he served as vice-chairman of that committee from 1979-1981.

He is survived by his wife of 36 years, Dr Jaana Rehnstrom, and their two children, Saga Blane and her husband Jake Jeppson of Brooklyn and Eliot Blane, of Manhattan; and a grandson, Finn Blane Jeppson.