List of Famous people who died in 1997

Prince Boris de Rachewiltz (1926–1997) was an Italian-Russian Egyptologist and writer on Africa and the ancient world. He studied Egyptology at the Pontifical Biblical Institute (1951–1955).

Burton Lane was an American composer and lyricist primarily known for his theatre and film scores. His most popular and successful works include Finian's Rainbow in 1947 and On a Clear Day You Can See Forever in 1965.

Rosina May Lawrence was a British-Canadian actress and singer. She had a short but memorable career in the 1920s and 1930s in Hollywood before she married in 1939 and retired from entertainment.

Pierre Chatenet was a French politician born 6 March 1917 in Paris and died 4 September 1997 in Tafers. He served as French Interior Minister from 1959 to 1961. From 1962 he became the last President of the Commission of the European Atomic Energy Community, until the body was merged with the European Economic Community in 1967.

Ernst Majonica was a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and former member of the German Bundestag.

Sayed Mekawy was an Egyptian singer and composer, popular in Egypt and throughout the Arabic speaking world. Throughout his life, he remained undaunted by modern innovations and the attempts of rivals to produce another type of music. He was best known for his radio collaboration with Fuad Hassad on the character of the Egyptian tradition of El-Missaharati.

Erik Aalbæk Jensen was a Danish writer and Lutheran minister who was awarded both the Danish Critics Prize for Literature and the Søren Gyldendal Prize for his works, most notably Perleporten.

Summerhill School is an independent boarding school in Leiston, Suffolk, England. It was founded in 1921 by Alexander Sutherland Neill with the belief that the school should be made to fit the child, rather than the other way around. It is run as a democratic community; the running of the school is conducted in the school meetings, which anyone, staff or pupil, may attend, and at which everyone has an equal vote. These meetings serve as both a legislative and judicial body. Members of the community are free to do as they please, so long as their actions do not cause any harm to others, according to Neill's principle "Freedom, not Licence." This extends to the freedom for pupils to choose which lessons, if any, they attend. It is an example of both democratic education and alternative education.