WIKANDER, STIG. Oscar Stig Wikander (1908–1983) was born in Nörrtalje, a small town close to Stockholm, Sweden, on August 27, 1908. He entered the University of Uppsala in 1925, majoring in classical and oriental languages. Wikander's mentor in Asian studies was the great Iranologist and Semitist Henrik Samuel Nyberg, whose principal ideas, expressed in the synthesis Irans forntida religionen (1937), exemplify the Uppsalian school's specific contribution to religious studies. In 1931, Wikander became a member of the prestigious Société Asiatique in Paris. He also studied at the University of Copenhagen under the guidance of Arthur Christensen, where he delivered on February 24, 1936, a paper entitled "Karnamak-i-Artaxer och den iranska historietradition" (Karnamak-i-Artaxer and the Iranian historical tradition). In 1938 Wikander defended his Ph.D. thesis on the Aryan Männerbund, under the supervision of Nyberg, but was awarded only a medium qualification: med beröm godkänd (cum laudatur approbatur).

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