Zdenek Vaclav David

Zdeněk Václav David passed away on December 15, 2025, after a brief illness. Zed, as he was known, was born on May 4, 1931 in Blatná, Czechoslovakia. He was the only child of Václav David, a district judge, and Julie Davidová, née Břicháčková, who later worked as a clothing designer. As a child in Prague, he endured the six-year Nazi occupation of his country, an experience that deeply affected him. In 1947, Zed received a scholarship from the American Field Service to spend an exchange year at the Putney School in Vermont. Following the Communist coup of February 1948 in Czechoslovakia, he remained in the United States and graduated from Wesleyan University in Connecticut. He went on to earn an M.A. in Soviet Studies and a Ph.D. in history at Harvard University. Through the Catholic Student Club he met his first wife, Katherine O’Leary, whom he married in 1960, and with whom he had six children. After they divorced, he married Eleanor Coombs, who died in 2003. For much of his adult life he was a resident of Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.

Zed began his career teaching Russian history as an assistant professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and then took a position as Slavic bibliographer at Princeton University. In 1974, he moved to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC, where he spent 50 years, first as Librarian and then, following his retirement, as a Senior Scholar. Over the course of his career, he authored numerous articles and four books in Russian and East European history. His most influential works focused on Bohemian religious thought and political culture from the Renaissance to the twentieth century. After the Velvet Revolution in 1989 he returned frequently to his native country. There, he began a decades-long collaboration with Czech and international scholars working on the Bohemian Reformation and religious practice. He received many honors for his work, most notably, in 2009, the Palacky Medal from the Czech Academy of Sciences.

Zed developed a life-long love of the outdoors as a child in the Bohemian countryside and during his time in Vermont. Well into his eighties, he led his children and grandchildren on hiking and camping trips, from the Shenandoah to the Rockies, and whenever possible, his favorite spot, the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

Zed was kind and gracious, deeply religious, and a devoted father and grandfather. He is survived by his children Julie Al-Saadawi (Safa), Ann David (J. Carl Cinquino), Katherine David-Fox (Michael), Margaret David, Michael David (Joyce Shin), and Stephen David (Kathleen Hansen), 16 grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, please send donations to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. appalachiantrail.org