In Memoriam: Woodford D. McClellan, Professor of Russian History

Professor Emeritus, Woodford D. McClellan, died in hospice on Monday November 20, 2023 in Prescott, Arizona.  He was preceded in death by his first child, Wendy Bolam, and his second wife, Jelena “Lela” Ivanovic McClellan.

Born in Martinsville, Illinois on the heels of the Great Depression, Woodford spent the latter portion of his childhood in Tacoma, Washington where he graduated from Stadium High School.  McClellan matriculated at Stanford University in 1952, entering also as a member of the United States Army Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC).  

Professor McClellan earned a Doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley in 1958 where his studies focused on the Balkan states and Soviet-era Russia.

Woodford taught history at the United States Military Academy West Point between 1959 - 1965.  In 1965, McClellan accepted a teaching position at the University of Virginia, and he and his family moved to Charlottesville.  

Professor McClellan taught Russian history at UVA for thirty-three years, focusing on the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 for most of his career.  His publications include Svetozar Markovic and the Origins of Balkan Socialism, Revolutionary Exiles: The Russians in the First International and the Paris Commune, and Russia: A History of the Soviet Period and After.