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Shamsuzzaman Khan

Folklorist and former Director General of Bangla Academy

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 30, 2026
Entity authorityQ26251738 ↗
Source-derived summary

Shamsuzzaman Khan (29 December 1940 – 14 April 2021) was a Bangladeshi academician, folklorist, and writer who served as president of the Bangla Academy from June 2020 until his death in April 2021. He also served as the director general of the academy during 2009–2018. He was notable for editing book series on folk culture of 64 different districts in 64 volumes and collections of folklore series in 114 volumes. He was awarded Bangla Academy Literary Award in 2001, Ekushey Padak in 2009 and Independence Day Award in 2017 by the government of Bangladesh.

Early life

Khan's father M.R. Khan was a translator at the government house of Calcutta. His great grandfather Elhadad Khan and his brother Adalat Khan were highly acclaimed intellectuals of colonial India. Shamsuzzaman's father died when he was only two. He was brought up by his mother and maternal grandmother.

Khan completed his honours and master's degrees from Dhaka University in 1963 and 1964 respectively and joined Munshiganj Haraganga College as a lecturer in the department of Bangla in 1964. In the same year he joined Jagannath College as an assistant professor.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Shamsuzzaman Khan” as folklorist and former Director General of Bangla Academy. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1940, 2021, 2020, 2009—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1940-12-29. The account is most persuasive where Shamsuzzaman, Khan and Folklorist can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as folklorist and former Director General of Bangla Academy. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q26251738. VIAF identifies the subject as 118879154. The Library of Congress control number is n84086416. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1940, 2021, 2020 and 2009.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Shamsuzzaman Khan”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Shamsuzzaman Khan primary sources, Shamsuzzaman Khan archive and Shamsuzzaman research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Shamsuzzaman Khan”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Shamsuzzaman Khan” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.