Unexpected loss, Prof. Olcott will be missed

February 22, 2024 - Beth Brauer

Martha Brill Olcott, a part-time professor in James Madison College, passed away on Feb. 5, surrounded by family. Olcott was a leading scholar of nationality issues in the USSR, especially Central Asia as well as broader issues of Soviet governance and policy questions. She is known for her many works on Central Asia, including her authoritative book on Kazakhstan.

Olcott’s scholarly and professional achievements were vast. She was a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which is where former JMC Dean Sherman Garnett worked closely with her. It was through this connection that Olcott would eventually find her way to Michigan.

In 2011, Olcott visited MSU to teach a course on post-Soviet foreign policy. Olcott had previously taught political science at Colgate University from 1975 to 1998. She continued on as a part-time visiting professor until her unexpected passing this month.

Olcott helped to establish The Living Archive, a grant-funded JMC digital archive that preserves Soviet-era newspapers, political pamphlets, videos and personal ephemera.

“Not only was Martha a mentor of mine, but she was one of my closest friends,” said Michael Downs, project manager for “Science, Art and Faith: Architectural Heritage and Islam,” the most recent research project Olcott had been working on.

Both Olcott and her husband Tony, also a visiting professor in the college, were Downs’ professors during his senior year when Downs’ father passed. Tony Olcott passed away about five months later.

“Tony was someone who took an interest in me, because I thought I wanted to do the kind of work he had done in national security, and he had also lost a parent at a young age. I think it was a combination of those things that compelled him to mentor me. But originally, the plan wasn’t to work with Martha at all, it was to study under Tony,” said Downs.   

“Martha and I would talk about what we referred to as our ‘intergenerational friendship’; although we were 40-some years apart in age, that gap wasn’t as significant for us as it may have seemed to other people. She was someone I grew closer to as we both navigated our own grief and loss.”

In addition to her impact in Madison, Olcott worked closely with the Muslim Studies program at MSU. The program was able to receive two major Templeton Religion Trust grants.

“Martha’s career has really been devoted to cultivating opportunities and highlighting the potential in regions that are often overlooked,” Downs said. “We had been looking at the multi-faith history of religious architecture primarily in the Muslim world.”

“The project, funded by the Templeton Religion Trust, uses architecture as a vehicle to explore contentious histories and was the culmination of Martha’s scholarly career in Central Asia and Muslim Studies.”  

A celebration of Professor Olcott’s contributions to the field of Eurasian Studies and Muslim Studies is being planned for late spring or early summer.

Donations may be made to the Anthony Olcott Russian Studies Scholarship established in her late husband Anthony (Tony) Olcott’s name or to The Living Archive.