Haroun Tazieff

Biography

Haroun Tazieff (Warsaw, 11 May 1914 – Paris, 2 February 1998) was a Tatar, Belgian and French volcanologist and geologist. He was a famous cinematographer of volcanic eruptions and lava flows, and the author of several books on volcanoes. He was also a government adviser and French cabinet minister. He also served in the Belgian resistance during world war 2.

His parents met and married in 1906 while they were both students in Brussels. They later returned to Warsaw, Russian Partition, where their first son, Salvator, died at two months and where Haroun was born. His father, Sabir, was a Muslim medical doctor, of Tatar descent and his mother, Zenita Iliyasovna Klupta, was a Tatar[dubious –...