The concept of a multi-ethnic Russian nation. Area of ​​scientific interests and scope of scientific activity

Director of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, member of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation, former Minister-Chairman of the State Committee for National Affairs of the Russian Federation.

In 1959 he entered the Faculty of History of Moscow State University, from which he graduated in 1964.

In 1966-1969 he was a post-graduate student of the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute (MGPI) named after M.V. IN AND. Lenin. He defended his Ph.D. thesis on the topic "Historical Background of the Canadian Revolution of 1837". Doctor of Historical Sciences (dissertation on the topic: "The Liberation Movement in Colonial Canada", defended in 1979 at the Institute world history Academy of Sciences of the USSR).

In 1964-1966 he was a teacher at the Magadan State Pedagogical Institute.

From 1969 to 1972 - Associate Professor, Dean of the Faculty of History of the Magadan State Pedagogical Institute.

In 1972-1976 he was a researcher at the Institute of World History of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

From 1976 to 1982 - Academic Secretary of the Department of History of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

From 1982 to 1992 - head of the Americas sector of the Institute of Ethnography of the USSR Academy of Sciences (now - Russian Academy Sciences (RAS)).

From 1988 to 1989 - Deputy Director of the Institute of Ethnography.

Since 1989 - Director of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology. N.N. Miklukho-Maclay (former Institute of Ethnography).

He was a member of the CPSU until its ban in August 1991.

February 27, 1992 was appointed chairman of the Russian State Committee for National Policy - Minister of Russia, while remaining director of the Research Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology.

The main opponent of Tishkov's nomination was Galina Starovoitova, presidential adviser on national policy, who had worked with Tishkov for a long time at the Institute of Ethnography. Their scientific and political differences date back to the late 1980s, when, during the escalation of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh Starovoitova, as an expert and politician, took a pro-Armenian position, while Tishkov adhered to the official "conciliatory" one.

On July 19, 1992, he participated in the negotiations between the leaders of Georgia, Northern and South Ossetia to resolve the interethnic conflict in the region. He met with the command of the peacekeeping forces, visited the positions of Russian paratroopers.

On October 15, 1992, he was relieved of his post without giving reasons. According to Tishkov, he was removed because he refused to endorse the decree on the Cossacks prepared by Sergei Shakhrai.

On November 4, 1992, S. Shakhrai was appointed minister-chairman of the State Committee for National Affairs (as well as vice-premier).

He was a member of the "Club-93", founded in the summer of 1993 by Vyacheslav Nikonov. Signed at the beginning of 1994 the Statement of club members calling for "moderate forces in the Federal Assembly, representing farmers and communists - on the one hand, PRES, YABLOKO, Russia's Choice" - on the other, other associations and independent deputies do not consider themselves as opposition to the government , but to try to create a pragmatic bloc on which it could rely.

In September 1995, he was nominated to the State Duma on the list of the Movement "Education - the Future of Russia" (DOBRO) bloc Larisa Babukh (No. 12 on the list), as well as in the Cheryomushkinsky district No. 203. Did not collect signatures. The block did not collect the same signatures.

On March 6, 1998, he became a member of the Government Commission for the implementation of the Concept of State national policy.

He was a member of the Expert Council of the Commission under the President of the Russian Federation on countering political extremism in Russia.

He was a member of the collegium of the Ministry of Nationalities (in all modifications of the name of this ministry) - until its abolition in October 2001.

On May 31, 2005, Komsomolskaya Pravda published an interview with Tishkov, in which he condemned the anti-Putin opposition (“Today we really live in perhaps the most prosperous period in the entire history of the country. But, surprisingly, it was during the rise in our the philosophy of denying Russia itself has blossomed. Young politicians, scientists, journalists, who are able to give talented and biting assessments of everything, assert themselves only through this.

On June 28, 2005, speaking at the VI Congress of Russian Ethnographers and Anthropologists in St. Petersburg, he stated that " soviet empire has never been a prison of peoples, but, on the contrary, the cradle of nations." The future "civilizing mission of Russia", according to Tishkov, is to spread Orthodoxy and Russian culture, to perform the functions of "the custodian of the memory and identity of peoples former USSR"and" a recipient for those who want to feel like a Russian.

In September 2005 approved by the president RF member of the Public Chamber (OP) RF. He headed the OP commission on tolerance and freedom of conscience.

(19411106 ) , Nizhniye Sergi, Sverdlovsk region, USSR

Biography, education, career:

Born into a family of school teachers. After graduating from school with a gold medal, he entered the Faculty of History of Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov. He began teaching at the Magadan Pedagogical Institute, where at the age of 24 he became dean of the Faculty of History and Philology. Teachers in science: V.Z. Drobizhev, E.F. Yazkov, G.N. Sevostyanov, A.L. Narochnitsky. In 1969 at the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute. IN AND. Lenin defended his dissertation for the degree of Candidate of Historical Sciences on the topic "Historical Background of the Canadian Revolution of 1837". After a break due to admission to graduate school and defending his dissertation, he returned to Magadan, from where he left for Moscow in 1972, where he became a researcher at the Institute of World History of the USSR Academy of Sciences and in 1979 defended his doctoral dissertation on the topic “The Liberation Movement in the Colonial Canada" (according to the monograph). In 1976-1982 - Scientific Secretary of the Department of History of the USSR Academy of Sciences, in 1982-1992. - Head of the Americas Sector of the Institute of Ethnography of the USSR Academy of Sciences; in 1988-1989 - Deputy Director of the Institute of Ethnography, in 1989-2015. - Director of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology. N.N. Miklukho-Maclay, in 2001-2013. - Deputy Academician-Secretary and Head of the History Section of the Department of Historical and Philological Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, from 2003 to the present - Dean of the Educational and Scientific Center for Social Anthropology of the Russian State Humanitarian University, from 2015 to the present - Scientific Director of the IEA RAS. Initiator and creator of the Network for Ethnological Monitoring and Early Warning of Conflicts. In 1992 - Chairman of the State Committee for Nationalities and Minister for Nationalities of the Russian Federation. Member of the Presidium of the Council under the President of the Russian Federation for Interethnic Relations, member of the Russian Council for International Affairs, member of the Commission of the Russian Federation for UNESCO, member of the Public Council of the Federal Migration Service of Russia, member of the Scientific Council of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, member of the Board of the Ministry regional development Russian Federation, member of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation (2006-2010), head of the Commission on Tolerance and Freedom of Conscience. He collected a collection dedicated to the traditional applied art of the Chukchi bone carvers (carving and engraving on walrus ivory) and which has a serious museum value.

Main scientific achievements:

Series scientific works on the history and social anthropology of the countries of North America, the history of interethnic relations, ethnoconflictology, on issues of ethnicity, nationalism, modern ethnopolitical and ethnoconfessional processes, on historiography, source study and methodology of ethnographic science. Establishment of a Network for Ethnological Monitoring and Early Warning of Conflicts.

Awards, titles:

Medal "For Labor Valor" (1981), Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation (1999), laureate of the State Prize of the Russian Federation in the field of science and technology (2002), Order of the Russian Orthodox Church of St. Prince Daniel of Moscow III degree (2008), Order of Honor for labor achievements and many years of fruitful work (2009), a convicted worker of science of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic (2014), laureate of the State Prize of the Russian Federation in the field of science and technology (2014), the Order of Friendship for a great contribution to the development of science, education, training of qualified specialists and many years of fruitful work (2016).

Membership in scientific organizations and unions:

Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (2003), Full Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (2008), from 2013 to the present - Academician-Secretary of the Department of Historical and Philological Sciences, Member of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Member of the Board of the Association of Anthropologists and Ethnologists of Russia; President of the International Academy of Social and pedagogical sciences; President of the Network for Ethnological Monitoring and Early Warning of Conflicts; Vice-President of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (1983-2003).

Main publications:

History and Historians of the United States. Moscow: Nauka, 1985;

Dejiny Kanady. Nakladatelstvi Svoboda. Prague, 1986;

Indigenous people of North America modern world/ resp. ed. V. A. Tishkov. M.: Nauka, 1990 (co-authored with V.P. Alekseev, V.A. Shnirelman and others);

Path of tears and hopes: a book about the modern Indians of the USA and Canada. M .: Thought, 1990 (co-authored with Stelmakh V. G., Cheshko S. V.);

Russians in Central Asia and Kazakhstan. M.: IEA RAS, 1992 (Research on Applied and Urgent Ethnology. Document No. 51);

Russians as a minority: the case of Estonia. M.: IEA RAN, 1992 (Research on Applied and Urgent Ethnology. Document No. 52);

Nationalities and Conflicting Ethnicity in Post-Communist Russia, United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, Geneva, 1994;

Peoples of Russia. Encyclopedia / Tishkov V. A. (editor-in-chief). M: Great Russian Encyclopedia, 1994;

Russia as a multinational community and the prospect of interethnic harmony. M.: AC "Russian Research", 1994 (series: Political science, issue IV);

Conceptual evolution of national policy in Russia. M.: IEA RAN, 1996 (Research on Applied and Urgent Ethnology. Document No. 100);

Tishkov V. Ethnicity, Nationalism and Conflict in and after the Soviet Union: The Mind Aflame / PRIO, UNRISD. L.: SAGE Publications, 1997;

Peoples and religions of the world. Encyclopedia / Tishkov V. A. (editor-in-chief). M.: Great Russian Encyclopedia, 1999;

Tishkov Valery. Chechnya: Life in a War-Torn Society. Berkeley-LA-London: University of California Press, 2004;

Nationalism in world history / ed. V.A. Tishkov and V.A. Shnirelman. Moscow: Nauka, 2007;

Russian Caucasus: a book for politicians / ed. V.A. Tishkov. Moscow: Rosinformagrotekh, 2007;

About him:

Tishkov Valery Alexandrovich // Historians of Russia of the XX century: Bio-bibliographic dictionary / Compiled by A.A. Chernobaev. Ed. V.A. Dines. Saratov: Saratov State Socio-Economic University, 2005. Vol. 2. P. 405;

Valery Aleksandrovich Tishkov / Compiled by G.M. Tikhomirova, D.D. Pavlova; the authors of the introductory article T.B. Uvarova, E.N. Viktorova. M.: Nauka, 2016 (Series “Materials for biobibliography of scientists”).

Tishkov Valery Aleksandrovich - a famous Russian historian, scientist, who is engaged in. Has the title of professor and doctor of historical sciences. Member Since 1989, he has been the head of the Miklukho-Maclay Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and also heads the Center for Social Anthropology of the Russian State University for the Humanities.

Biography of a scientist

Tishkov Valery Alexandrovich was born during the Great Patriotic War- November 6, 1941. He was born in the small Ural town of Nizhniye Sergi, located in the Sverdlovsk region. The town is small, but very beautiful and picturesque. The locals even call it "Ural Switzerland".

Valery's younger brother, Leonid, was an artist. Father Alexander Ivanovich and mother Raisa Alexandrovna Tyagunova taught at the school. So from childhood there were a lot of books in the house, parents gave great attention upbringing and education of children. At the same time, the mother taught in primary school, and his father taught physical education and geography at once. From the first days, my father went to serve at the front. Having not really taken part in any battle, he was taken prisoner and stayed in the camp until 1945.

Study at school

At school Tishkov Valery Alexandrovich studied well. As he himself admits, he could not keep up, so as not to disgrace his parents. His favorite subjects were history and literature. The class teacher Nina Vasilievna Malinina played a big role in his life, it was she who convinced him to enter Moscow State University, which was hard to imagine for the inhabitants of this small town, where they sought to study at polytechnic institute or in best case at the Ural University in Sverdlovsk.

He graduated from school in 1959 with honors. At first I was going to enter the Faculty of Philology, but, having learned that the competition there was too high, at the last moment I chose the Faculty of History. Parents were at first against this adventurous trip, but the mother nevertheless supported her son, and Tishkov Valery Aleksandrovich went to Moscow. The family allocated 50 rubles for a return ticket.

Initiative and independence - the qualities that Tishkov showed then remained with him for life. True, such a decision was not easy. For the next ten years, I had to wander around the hostels. First undergraduate, then postgraduate.

At this time it younger brother threw medical education and devoted himself to painting. Tishkov Valery Aleksandrovich did not forget about relatives. He tells interesting facts about postcards that he sent to the Urals. His grandmother suddenly started painting in her old age. He regularly sent her postcards from the capital, and she redrawed them and asked for more.

Studying at the University

In those days, at the initiative of Khrushchev, preferences for medalists were canceled. 80 places in universities were intended for those who had at least two years of experience in any job. The remaining places were distributed among all the rest. As a result, the so-called interns were enrolled with triples, and ordinary students had to score 19 points out of 20.

Tishkov Valery Alexandrovich received a B in English, but brilliantly passed History with an A and entered. I decided to specialize in the Department of the History of the CPSU.

Even in his student years, the freedom-loving character of Tishkov manifested itself. With an American trainee, he read the book "Stalin. A Political Biography" and began talking at the seminar about the camps and repressions, which the authorities had not yet recognized. Only the intercession of senior comrades saved him from expulsion, however, he had to transfer to the Department of US History.

Going to Magadan

After graduating from the Faculty of History of Moscow State University in 1964, Tishkov Valery Aleksandrovich was assigned to the Magadan Pedagogical Institute. A year later, he became the youngest dean of the faculty in the history of the university. He was only 24 years old.

In Magadan, he worked until 1972 with short breaks to defend his Ph.D. thesis. The work was defended on the history of Canada. I had to return to Magadan largely due to the fact that there was no one else to give lectures on modern history and students missed them for three years.

Before leaving, there was an important event, after which Tishkov Valery Aleksandrovich could not help but change. The personal life of the scientist began to improve, he married Larisa Nikishova, who worked at the Tretyakov Gallery as an art critic. The wife soon moved in with her husband where she began to teach courses on the history of Russian art. In 1971, their son Vasily was born.

First publications

In 1977-78. publishes the first works Tishkov Valery Aleksandrovich. The books were titled Maple Leaf Country: The Beginning of History and The Liberation Movement in Colonial Canada. They were published by the Nauka publishing house.

By and large, it was an extended PhD thesis. Colleagues, having familiarized themselves with the works, advised me to defend my doctoral thesis on their basis. Which was already done in 1979.

Work at the Institute of Ethnology

Since 1989, Tishkov has headed the Miklukho-Maclay Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology. It is one of the research institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

In the spheres of interest of the institute, various areas are human evolution and the origin of cultures, ethnic and social cultures, nationalism, religious and physical anthropology.

Scientific interests

Tishkov's main works are devoted to the social anthropology of the North American countries, in particular, to the peculiarities of their interethnic relations.

He received the title of candidate of historical sciences by defending his dissertation on the topic "Historical Background of the Canadian Revolution of 1837". The doctoral dissertation was defended on the liberation movements in the Canadian colonies.

Work at the head of the institute

Tishkov headed the Institute of Ethnology at a difficult time for the country. Perestroika, glasnost, almost no attention is paid to science. At this time, he decides to create an association of ethnographers and anthropologists.

Its first congress took place in Ryazan in 1995. Only 80 scientists came to the first congress, after 12 years there were already more than 700 of them, from all over the world.

For 7 months, Tishkov was Minister for Nationalities. But when he left this service, he was only happy, because the work did not bring pleasure, was not to his liking. On the other hand, the realization has come that few people in the political elite have any idea how to manage a multi-ethnic and multinational country in modern conditions democracy and liberalization.

The first serious conflicts on ethnic grounds have already occurred, Russia was seriously threatened by separatism, Tishkov notes at that time. He then decided to focus on early conflict prevention. As a result, an ethnological monitoring network was created in 1994. This term, by the way, is still not in foreign science.

The project was entirely led by Russian scientists, its results were used by the authorities and the expert community.

Born November 6, 1941 in the mountains. Nizhnie Sergi (Sverdlovsk region). Father, Alexander Ivanovich, and mother, Raisa Alexandrovna, were teachers by education.

In 1959 he graduated with a gold medal high school№1 mountains. Lower Sergi.
In 1964 he graduated from the Department of Modern and Contemporary History of the Faculty of History of Moscow State University (MGU) named after M.V. M. V. Lomonosov.
In 1969 he defended at the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute. IN AND. Lenin (now - Moscow State Pedagogical University) Ph.D. thesis on the topic "Historical background of the Canadian Revolution of 1837".
Doctor of Historical Sciences. In 1979 he defended his dissertation at the Institute of World History of the Academy of Sciences (AN) of the USSR on the topic "The Liberation Movement in Colonial Canada".
Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences (2008).
In 1964-1966 was a senior lecturer at the Faculty of History and Philology of the Magadan State Pedagogical Institute (now the North-Eastern State University), in 1969-1972. was an assistant professor of history and dean of the historical and philological faculty of this university.
In 1972-1976. He was a junior, then a senior researcher in the sector of the history of the USA and Canada at the Institute of World History of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
In 1976-1981. - Scientific Secretary of the Department of History of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.
In 1981-1988. was the head of the sector of ethnography of the peoples of America at the Institute of Ethnography. N. N. Miklukho-Maclay of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.
In 1988-1989 was deputy director of the Institute of Ethnography. N.N. Miklukho-Maclay of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.
In 1989-1992 served as director of the Institute of Ethnography (since 1990 - the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology) named after. N. N. Miklukho-Maclay of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. From 1992 to 2015, he was the director of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology. N. N. Miklukho-Maclay of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). Since 2015, he has been the scientific director of the institute.
From February 27 to October 15, 1992 - Chairman of the State Committee of the Russian Federation for Nationalities - Minister of the Russian Federation. In the same year he received the academic title of professor.
In 1993-2003 He was Vice-President of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences.
In 2000, he became director of the Educational and Scientific Center for Social Anthropology at the Russian State University for the Humanities.
In 2003 he was elected a corresponding member, in 2008 - a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is a member of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences, is a member of the bureau of the Commission of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences for improving the structure scientific organizations under the jurisdiction of the Federal Agency for Scientific Organizations, member of the Bureau of the Council of the Russian Academy of Sciences for work with foreign members of the Russian Academy of Sciences and compatriot scientists living abroad, Academician-Secretary of the Department of Historical and Philological Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
In 2006-2010 was a member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation: in 2006-2008. was a member of the Council and Chairman of the Commission on Tolerance and Freedom, in 2008-2010. - Deputy Chairman of the Commission on Interethnic Relations and Freedom of Conscience, member of the Intercommission working group on international activities and the Intercommission Working Group on the organization of expert activities.
Since 2014, he has been a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation.
He is a professor (part-time) of the Department of Ethnology of the Faculty of History and the Department of History and Theory of Politics of the Faculty of Political Science of Moscow State University. M. V. Lomonosov.
He is the general director of the company "Ethnoconsulting".
Tishkov's research interests include social anthropology in Canada and the United States, ethno-political conflicts in the modern world and ways to resolve them, issues of national politics and intercultural interaction in the Russian Federation and the CIS states, etc. His research is devoted to the problems of studying the phenomenon of ethnicity, the concepts of nationalism, national identity and civil nation-building, etc.
Author of about 400 scientific papers, including ten individual monographs. Among them are Maple Leaf Country: The Beginning of History (1977), The Liberation Movement in Colonial Canada (1978), History and Historians in the USA (1985), Society in Armed Conflict. Ethnography of the Chechen War (2001) , "Requiem for an ethnos. Studies in socio-cultural anthropology" (2003), "Tundra and the sea. Chukchi-Eskimo bone carving" (2008), etc. Managing editor and co-author of more than 30 collective monographs. The scientist's works have been translated into English and Czech.
Repeated participant of the International Congress of Historical Sciences, the International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, the Congress of Ethnographers and Anthropologists of Russia, as well as field research and ethnographic expeditions.

Deputy Chairman of the Presidium of the Council for Interethnic Relations under the President of the Russian Federation, Deputy Chairman of the Permanent Environmental Commission of the Russian Geographical Society.
Member of the Russian Council on International Affairs, the Commission of the Russian Federation for UNESCO, the Scientific Council under the Security Council of the Russian Federation, the Presidium of the Association of Anthropologists and Ethnologists of Russia, the Council of the Russian Historical Society, the Council of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, the Council of the Russian Humanitarian Science Foundation, the Board of Trustees of the History of the Fatherland Foundation ".
Member of the non-governmental public association "Council for Foreign and Defense Policy".
He was a member of the Board of the Ministry of Nationalities and Federal Relations of the Russian Federation, the Public Council under the Federal Migration Service of the Russian Federation, the Scientific Council Research Institute United Nations Organization (UN) for Social Development, Expert Council of the UN High Commissioner for Internally Displaced Persons.
Included in editorial boards magazines "Ethnographic Review" and "Federalism".

Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation (1999) and the Karachay-Cherkess Republic (2014). He was awarded the Orders of Honor (2009) and Friendship (2016), the medal "For Labor Valor" (1981). Has gratitude of the President of the Russian Federation (2014).
Laureate of the State Prize of the Russian Federation in the field of science and technology for 2001 and the State Prize of the Russian Federation in the field of science and technology for 2014.
He was awarded the Russian Orthodox Church - the Order of the Holy Prince Daniel of Moscow, III degree (2008).

Married. Wife Larisa Mikhailovna - art critic. Son Vasily (born 1971) - head of the public relations sector of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology. N. N. Miklukho-Maklay RAS. Brother Eugene (born 1948) - candidate medical sciences, Associate Professor, Moscow State University of Medicine and Dentistry. A. I. Evdokimova. Brother Leonid (born 1953) is an artist.

Pravmir continues to acquaint readers with modern Russian science and ask scientists if they need .

Back in the fifties, Soviet ethnologists and anthropologists wrote reports on the problems of the deported peoples, but they could not make this information public. Only when national conflicts broke out during perestroika in different parts of the country did politicians turn to scientists for help. Director of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Valery Tishkov told Pravmir about this, about the multi-ethnic Russian nation, about modern Russian humanities.

Valery Tishkov was born in 1941 in the Sverdlovsk region. In 1964 he graduated from the history department of Moscow State University. In 1964-1972 worked at the Magadan Pedagogical Institute, in 1972-1982 - at the Institute of World History of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1969 he defended his Ph.D. on the topic: "The historical background of the Canadian Revolution of 1837", in 1979 he defended his doctoral thesis on the topic: "The Liberation Movement in Colonial Canada." Since 1982 - at the Institute of Ethnography and Anthropology. Since 1989, the director of the institute, which in 1990, on his initiative, was renamed the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology. Since 2003, the head of the Educational and Scientific Center for Social Anthropology of the Russian State Humanitarian University. Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Academician-Secretary of the Department of Historical and Philological Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

What do ethnographers and ethnologists do?

Valery Alexandrovich, one of your first steps as director was the renaming of the Institute of Ethnography and Anthropology into the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology. Why did you think it was important, what changed after that?

The fact is that our Institute, which turned 80 this year, came out of the Petrovsky Kunstkamera and the Russian Geographical Society, where there was a powerful ethnographic section. In a natural way, the science of ethnography was born in our country - a description of peoples. At the same time, a large discipline was born in the world humanitarian knowledge called cultural anthropology (this is the American tradition) or social anthropology (the European tradition). As a result, it is called socio-cultural anthropology.

A related specialty - ethnology - was affirmed rather in Eastern Europe. Not graphics - a description, but logos - the knowledge of peoples, the cultural diversity of the world. In Russia and the USSR, ethnology also existed - until 1931, there was an ethnological faculty at Moscow State University. But it was disbanded, the dean was shot, and our science returned to the ethnographic caftan of the 19th century, to the study of the remnants of the past of different peoples.

In fact, scientists at the Institute of Ethnography were engaged not only in describing peoples, but also in various cultural phenomena (for example, kinship systems, myth, ritual), the history of the most important social phenomena (for example, power and authority, peace and war), which, strictly speaking, not related to ethnography. Including religion. A group of scientists led by Marina Mikhailovna Gromyko conducted research within the framework of the program "Orthodoxy in folk life”, We publish Orthodox Science Magazine"Tradition and Modernity". The largest department of the institute is the department of the Russian people, whose employees have created a whole library on the history and ethnography of Russians.

Over the 23 years of my directorship at the institute, several more directions have appeared that go beyond pure ethnography and ethnology. The name Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology corresponds to our activities, and it is in line with modern world science.

I myself am not an ethnologist by education, but a historian, I graduated from the history department of Moscow State University, the department of modern history of Western countries. He was engaged in ethnic history, for example, the history of the French-Canadian national question (one of my first publications was “Problems of Quebec”), the problems of the aboriginal population - North American Indians.

And in Soviet time did someone study the interethnic relations of the peoples of the USSR, or was it not welcomed at the top?

Domestic themes have always been in our ethnography. In general, we have a strong ethnographic tradition since pre-revolutionary times. Russian empire after all, it was also a huge state with a large ethnic periphery, and power, and Imperial Academy Sciences showed great interest in travel, in geographical and ethnographic expeditions. The Kunstkamera was born during the reign of Peter the Great, it presents materials from round-the-world geographical expeditions, in which ethnographers have always participated.

Ethnographic expeditions were a priority, because the Russian Empire was interested in the composition of the population not only in its own country, but also in neighboring states. Sometimes ethnographers abroad performed special assignments. It is known that Snesarev in Afghanistan not only studied the customs of the local population, but also worked for our intelligence. Chokan Velikhanov in Central Asia - too. Foreign policy services The Russian Empire often attracted ethnographers to their work.

Everything that was connected with the Soviet national policy also required ethnographic knowledge. The state pursued a policy of supporting both large peoples and the smallest, until recently backward. Only the Russians were not sufficiently studied, and the rest of the peoples were studied. In drafting ethnographic maps, reference books, atlases, Soviet ethnography in general was "ahead of the rest of the planet." Our 18-volume "Peoples of the World" series from the early 1960s. was unique. The Americans have translated English language our "Atlas of the Peoples of the World", since no one in the world then made such atlases.

And when the Marxist-Leninist ideological system collapsed, our works did not depreciate to the same extent as, for example, the works of economists or philosophers. Of course, ethnography was not free from ideological schemes (first of all, about the friendship of peoples), but even today my colleagues and I are not ashamed of our labors.

Why failed to prevent national conflicts? Because politicians did not consult with scientists, or because the scientists themselves did not see everything behind the slogans about the friendship of peoples, did not understand many of the nuances?

Indeed, for at least the last two Soviet decades, the slogan about the rapprochement of the socialist nations dominated, and this slogan imposed a certain veto on real situations. We have recently published memorandums written by the staff of the institute since the 1950s on the situation of some of our peoples in specific situations. All these notes were kept in the institute archive. And they wrote about the small peoples of the North, and about Karabakh, and about the problem of deported peoples.

When the Meskhetian Turks were pogrom in Central Asia in 1989, many people asked: "Who are the Meskhetian Turks?" And at our institute, a dissertation on the Meskhetian Turks was defended. We knew who they were, when and where they were deported from. And we knew what Karabakh is, and about territorial disputes in the North Caucasus. But sometimes we could not even show the deported peoples on ethnic maps. Crimean Tatars not to be mentioned at all. There were prohibitions and restrictions, especially when it came to controversial issues, conflicts.

In my opinion, Andropov said that our humanities were solid healthy toasts, because we do not know the society in which we live. This was before perestroika. And already under Gorbachev, the press of power, law enforcement agencies weakened, and conflicts got out: Karabakh, Sumgayit, Dushanbe ...

I took up this problem because I knew the problem of Quebec, the problems of aboriginal peoples, I knew how it was solved or not solved there. Back in 1982, I wrote an article about the politics of multiculturalism in Canada. Naturally, I studied this not only from books, but also traveled around North America. When these problems emerged in our country, there were not enough specialists in national problems, interethnic conflicts, and my knowledge and experience came in handy. I consider myself one of the founders of post-Soviet ethnic conflictology.

In 1992, I even entered the government. Without leaving the post of director of the Institute, he became Minister for Nationalities. It was a direct link to practical work on public administration, ensuring civil harmony and stability with academic science.

But you've only been a minister for seven months. Why didn't they linger? It seems that everyone already understood that there is a problem, that your knowledge and experience are needed.

The first reason is stylistic disagreements with Mr. Yeltsin, and not only with him, but also with his assistant in national politics, Galina Vasilievna Starovoitova, who, by the way, worked at our institute before entering politics. I was against radical support for the so-called liberation movements, and even more against the territorial form of "national self-determination". I also did not agree with the program that Starovoitova and Sakharov proposed back in the late 80s - to create a “Union of the United States or States of Europe and Asia” instead of the USSR. Then there were 53 allied and autonomous republics, regions and districts, and they wanted to make a state out of each!

And when I tried to do something, to agree, they didn’t let me. The problems in the North Caucasus were especially acute then. then it actually went out of control, no longer obeyed the central government. In the summer of 1992, I wanted to go there, but Khasbulatov and Yeltsin forbade me from this trip. An attempt to negotiate with Dudayev, to prevent armed separatism ended in nothing.

It's the same in North Ossetia... Some of our politicians, including Yeltsin, had a mindset for improvisation, possibly with the use of weapons. As a result, the situation got out of control, and in the fall there was Ossetian-Ingush conflict, which led to armed clashes, human casualties. I left two weeks before the conflict. Knowing that there will be blood, and I cannot do anything, because my advice and proposals for resolving conflicts are being ignored, I resigned.

The second reason is that public service weighed me down. Still, science is closer to me. Gone by own will, although Yeltsin did not like it, and he did not even indicate the reason in my dismissal order - he simply wrote: "Release the chairman of the State Committee and the Minister for Nationalities."

But even after my dismissal, I was and still am a member of the collegium of the Ministry of Regional Development, participated in the development of state concepts. I did not break with the authorities, I did not go into opposition. I believe that the state is the most important institution (it is impossible without the state), besides, I head the budget government agency, therefore, he maintained a centrist position, not politicized, not biased. For me, as a scientist, it is important not only to draw conclusions, to tell the truth as I understand it, whether someone likes it or not, but also to put forward new concepts, in particular, the concept of a multi-ethnic Russian nation. I formulated it back in the nineties, now it has become somewhat of an official doctrine.

Putin, as soon as he became acting president, turned to the Academy of Sciences for advice on how to resolve the conflict in Chechnya. I spoke with a group of specialists with him in February 2000. Some of our key recommendations were taken into account, which helped to get out of the conflict without new victims and quickly restore Chechnya.

- If it's not a secret, what specific recommendations?

There is no secret. I advised him not to be afraid to give power and resources to the Chechens themselves, so that they would resolve this conflict. He said that there are forces loyal to Russia, and it is necessary to find such leaders, then they will sort it out themselves. This was done, and this one step saved thousands of military lives. By the way, such is the world experience. If Pierre Trudeau, a native of Quebec, had not come to power in Canada, and as before, all places in power were occupied by Anglophones, not giving them to French Canadians, especially in Quebec, things would have come to a civil war there.

Unfortunately, so far it has not been possible to fully change the attitude Russian society to Chechnya and Chechens. This was my third recommendation to the President. It is clear that many have Chechen war, many lost their loved ones in this war, and a negative image developed: all Chechens are either thieves and embezzlers of public funds, or. This image is partially preserved today.

Here is an example of how scientists can help politicians, although politicians are not obliged to be guided only by scientific advice. They have a lot different tasks: it is necessary to be re-elected, to remain in power, to take into account the interests of different groups. Politicians often lack time and resources. But I am convinced that without scientific recommendations it is impossible to competently manage the country.

Of course, not all scientists have a social temperament. There are people who are completely absorbed in science, who are little interested in what is happening around. The so-called cabinet bugs. At the same time, they can be excellent scientists, doing a lot of useful things for science. And there are scientists with a social temperament. For example, a philologist cannot but cut his hearing “to make it easier”, and this is how announcers often speak now. But one will simply shudder and wave his hand - what, they say, to take from the announcers, - and the other will not be too lazy, get through to the studio and say that it is necessary to “make it easier” to speak. Depends on temperament.

From a young age, even earlier, from school, I was an active social activist: the chairman of the council of the squad, the Komsomol organizer. Naturally, it was not the ideology that attracted me, but the opportunity to organize a team, to hold interesting events. And in the future, I did not shy away from organizational work. It took a lot of time, maybe I would have written a couple of extra books, but I am already the author of more than 400 scientific papers and the most cited humanist in Russia.

Public activity gives additional experience and additional understanding. A scientist must be a responsible citizen, our science is to promote peace and harmony among Russian citizens of different nationalities, races, and religions. We, ethnologists and anthropologists, help to preserve and maintain the customs of the peoples who live in our country. Through our labors, sometimes forgotten knowledge, traditions, and customs return. I created a small firm "Ethnoconsulting" at the Institute.

We explain to employees of oil and gas companies that produce gas and oil in the North how to behave correctly among small northern peoples or resolve conflicts if they arise. For many Russians of various professions, it is important to know how to celebrate rituals, how to keep traditions, what folk costumes or souvenir dolls should be like. The new generation, especially in the cities, has lost a lot of traditional knowledge that needs to be preserved. In this I see our, scientists, professional responsibility.

The concept of a multi-ethnic Russian nation

You said that you formulated the concept of a multi-ethnic Russian nation. Please tell us more.

My experience of exploring other countries and traveling around the world, from Alaska, Hawaii, the Canadian North to China and Australia, helps to look at my own country as well. If we think that we are an exception, that there are no more such states, and we live by different laws, then fatal mistakes are inevitable. I mean again racial, linguistic, religious and ethnic factors. Today, there are practically no mono-ethnic and mono-confessional states in the world, with the possible exception of some countries of fundamental Islam, where people of other faiths are simply persecuted.

Even under Gorbachev, my colleagues and I worked on the preparation of a special plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU on interethnic relations. It was then that I first encountered Soviet clichés about the friendship of peoples and internationalism - the Soviet national policy was based on this. It seems like good things, but too slogan, they do not come from a person. I re-formulated in the text of the final resolution the goal of national policy. It is based on ensuring the rights and requests of citizens based on their belonging to a particular nationality or culture. That is, he offered to go from a person. This was one of the innovations, thanks to acquaintance with world experience.

Further... On the one hand, the friendship of peoples was declared, on the other hand, there was a passion for ethnic differences and the construction of socialist nations. And the USSR was arranged according to the territorial principle, and eventually disintegrated along the borders of ethnic formations. This line has been preserved in the post-Soviet period, it is reflected in the Constitution - it says that we are a country of many nations. And what is it?

They began to mock the concept of "Russians" - this, they say, Yeltsin came up with, a Russian is the same as a Martian. People just don't know their own history. From Lomonosov, Karamzin and Pushkin, the concept of Russians, Russian people were dominant. Even the Church was called the Russian Orthodox Church. And in all the documents of the Council of 1917-1918, it is the Russian Orthodox Church that is mentioned. In my opinion, it was only in 1945 that Stalin finally approved the name of the Russian Orthodox Church. After 1917, the concept of Russian was forgotten.

I began to study the history of self-consciousness, the categories of "Russian people" and "Russians", the history of the concept of "nation". This concept is first encountered already in the 18th century, later, in the works of Witte, Struve, Milyukov, Trubetskoy, Ilyin, they speak of both a “multiple nation” and a “big Russian nation”, but then the word “Russian” was not understood exclusively as ethnicity. All Orthodox and Eastern Slavs were considered Russian - Great Russians, Little Russians and Belarusians - already under Soviet power Great Russians began to be called Russians, and this understanding is still preserved.

The fact that the Russian Empire had ideas of community was somehow forgotten, mainly multinationality was sponsored - many nations, and we are all friends. And what if tomorrow we become friends, the state will not exist? Especially after the collapse of the Union, the lack of national in the all-Russian understanding began to be felt. Everyone was talking about the national interests of Russia, the national income, the health of the nation, the leader of the nation, the national Olympic team, but there is no nation. Therefore, I considered it necessary to restore the understanding of the Russian people as a civil, political nation. And it found support.

When in the early 1990s people were asked who they felt they were in the first place, a significant part answered: “I am Soviet”, many preferred ethnicity - I am Tatar, I am Mordvin, I am Chuvash, I am Chechen, - and the answer “I am Russian” was in third or fourth place. All sociological surveys since 2000 show that the concept of "we are Russians" - this is a collective category - has become familiar, has come to the fore. Maybe only in some republics the ethnicity is ahead of the general civil one, and even then I'm not sure. This must be checked. But in Russia as a whole, the identity “we are Russians” has become dominant. And this is not a chimera, I did not invent the Russian nation. This is a real reflection of our past and present.

And what could be another option? The old friendship of peoples does not work. There will definitely be leaders who will say: "You are exploiting us." Therefore, support for diversity, support for ethnic cultures is important, but no less important are efforts to create a common identity, a sense of belonging to a single people, which we call the “Russian people” and “Russians”. We have a common history, a common language, a common culture.

We do not divide the great Russian culture by ethnicity! Ethnic culture (I call it particular culture) is only a small layer that is part of our common cultural baggage. Not only Russians love the Russian folk song, not only Russians listen with pleasure to the Kuban Cossack choir, not only Lezgins dance the Lezginka. We preserve diversity, but also ensure unity. This, by the way, works in many countries: from India to Jamaica. India is an even more heterogeneous country, there are castes and separatist regions, there are religious and civil wars, but there is also the concept of a common Indian nation.

We tend to exaggerate differences and overlook commonalities.

- Do you think that there is unity in Russia today?

The fact is that we tend to exaggerate the differences that exist between Russians, and do not notice the commonality at all. We speak the same language, and this is not even in all countries that seem to us to be mono-ethnic. For example, in Mexico, not everyone knows Spanish. Many Indians there speak Aztec and Mayan languages. And in Brazil, not everyone speaks Portuguese.

There are Scottish separatists in Great Britain, one of the provinces, Ulster, does not recognize the British crown, but no one in England falls into hysterics because of this. In Spain, there are separatist regions - Catalonia and the Basque Country. Absolutely united, merged in agreement, without dissidents and separatists, I do not know large states. But no one refuses what they nation states with multi-ethnic civil or political nations.

In Russia there is a problem of interethnic relations. There was a region of armed separatism and secession - Chechnya, which we did not control for several years, but eventually returned under control central government. We have anti-migrant sentiments, and this is also a problem. But at the same time, Russia demonstrates enough high level interfaith and interethnic harmony.

We do not have such strife between Muslims and Christians as in many other European countries. And there are more interethnic marriages in Russia, on the contrary. According to the latest population census, no more than a million Russian citizens (out of one hundred and forty million) do not speak Russian. So the degree of consolidation and homogeneity with all the diversity is quite high.

It is impossible to assert on the basis of existing civil and social discontents and contradictions that we do not have a civil nation. That is what some of my opponents say. “We do not have free and equal citizens, therefore there is no civil nation,” they say. “Let’s first educate, ensure democracy, civil liberties.”

I always answer: “In China, too, it means that there is no civil nation. There, if you soil the portrait of Mao Zedong, you will go to jail. In Argentina, when the colonels ruled, or was there no nation in Chile under Pinochet? Was it abolished during the dictatorship?” There is no rigid connection between the existence of the nation and the obligatory civil consent, ensuring the full extent of civil liberties.

- But there are xenophobic sentiments. As a scientist, do you see what can be opposed to this?

Xenophobia, as well as ultra-nationalist sentiments, which manifest themselves up to violent actions, are not Russian know-how. And in enlightened Europe it exists, even in calm Norway. America has racism and far right.

Russia survived such a cataclysm as the collapse historical state- I believe that the Soviet Union was a continuation of the historical Russian state. And inside the country, complex transformations took place, and plus millions of Russians immigrated here from regions that had fallen away from us. They, Russians, were often pushed out of there, survived. Many left with pain in their souls, unable to bear the insults and unreasonable hostility. When they see that from where they survived, people come here to work, and they themselves are not so hot here, they have unkind feelings towards visitors, and this can be understood.

Of course, the authorities made many mistakes in migration policy, and employers took advantage of this lack of control, began to use illegal labor in order to pump out excess profits through exploitation and the minimum wage. They not only hired those who had already arrived, but sometimes brought them in themselves. They placed people without registration in their dachas or in construction trailers, sometimes even in the basements of offices. Therefore, we, the Russians, are also responsible for mass uncontrolled migration.

But no matter what happens in the country, it cannot be justified when such sentiments develop into mass riots and violent actions with the use of violence, up to and including murder. It is also unacceptable that a part of our population, especially young people, became fascinated with neo-Nazi ideas and practices, the slogans “Russia for Russians” and other similar content appeared. This threatens the foundations of our state, the security of citizens, their health and life.

At the same time, you need to know that extremist, radical ideas and social activities, organizations exist all over the world. Russia is no exception. If they do not exist, if there are no extremes, we will not know what the norm is. There will be ultra-lefts and ultra-rights. You just need to treat such things with knowledge, competently. Of course, do not allow ultra-radical, fundamentalist actions, especially if they are based on ethnic or religious principles. This can lead to big trouble, especially in states with a complex population, like our state.

Racial differences have developed under the influence of climate

Does the human mentality somehow depend on ethnicity and race, or is it just a matter of what culture a person is brought up in?

Modern science says that a social hierarchy based on racial differences is a historical construction of a particular state or society. Especially if these are phenotypic differences - skin color, hairline. In some societies, these differences are not noticed. If you have even a drop of white blood in Brazil, you are white. In America, the opposite is true - if you have even a drop of black blood, you are black. For Brazilians, Barack Obama is white; for Americans, the first black president in American history.

These racial differences are historical biological characteristics of people. They were formed under the influence of climate. For example, if an albino is born in Africa, he is practically doomed, because he cannot bear this sun. Mental capacity these characteristics are independent. It's just that where there was racial segregation and discrimination for centuries, the social lift for the discriminated was much narrower. For example, in America, if they made their way, then through boxing, basketball, jazz. But when segregation disappears, blacks and whites show roughly equal ability. This has been shown by American society over the past 30-40 years.

There are practically no representatives of the African race in Russia. There is Mongoloid - several peoples. There are some physiological differences between them and Caucasians. Scientists have found that representatives of the Arctic Mongoloid peoples cannot decompose alcohol. This feature leads to rapid alcoholization, if a person consumes alcohol, that is, it pours into social problem. And representatives of the African race have such muscular structure bodies that show the best results in athletics. There are excellent white sprinters, but many international competitions black runners win.

Science has opened and peculiarity to the perception of certain drugs. When you buy a medicine at a pharmacy, there is an instruction there. And some of the instructions say: "No effects found on members of different racial minorities." That is, some drugs may not work on representatives of the Mongoloid race or have a completely different effect. A new direction in science has appeared - medical anthropology, it continues to study this phenomenon.

Historically, race is associated with ethnicity, because culturally distinct peoples often formed in areas where populations were formed that were similar in physical appearance. But, firstly, in Russia a considerable part of the population was born in interethnic and interracial marriages, and secondly, ethnicity is even less fundamental than race. Race is for life. At least skin color.

And ethnicity is self-consciousness. A person is not born a Tatar, Russian, Chuvash ... A descendant of an African or Arab Hannibal, Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin became one hundred percent Russian, although his phenotype probably did not fit the classical ideas of how a Russian person should look like.

Ethnicity is, first of all, the fruit of self-consciousness, self-identification. And it depends on the family, and on the environment, on the language in which he spoke and thought from childhood. Ethnicity is mobile. For example, your father is Russian, and your mother is Ukrainian or Tatar, and you equally you know Russian and Ukrainian (Tatar) languages, the culture of your father and mother. Who are you? Everyday consciousness says that one cannot be Russian and Tatar at the same time. Debatable. You can't be a Muslim and a Christian at the same time - that's for sure. And ethnic mixed affiliation is acceptable, in many countries it is even allowed to indicate several ethnicity(in our opinion - nationalities).

Ethnicity is mobile. Due to assimilation within one generation, a change of ethnicity is possible. Just because a person does not have the opportunity to communicate on mother tongue, in some countries it is even forbidden, and if not him, then his children will inevitably assimilate. How many Tatars or Armenians we have in Moscow, who are Russian in their culture, self-consciousness, and language. But the names remain...

A separate phenomenon that we study is religious identity. Here the boundaries are tighter. Religious doctrine condemns transition or exit, and radical Islam even punishes exit from Islam. Doubling is not allowed. Therefore, many religious communities have more defined boundaries. In addition, religious affiliation implies the obligatory performance of religious practices and rituals.

In Russia, after a long state of atheism, the situation is peculiar. On the one hand, there is a certain overkill in the desire to bring religion back into our lives, on the other hand, if we talk about awareness, there is still a lot to be done in order for faith to come into the souls of people. A couple of weeks ago I was outside the city in the pool. A group of teenagers and schoolchildren came to swim. On all the crosses, while the mat-remat. They don't swear, they speak it. Their parents put crosses on them, but they don’t have an understanding that you can’t swear, do other bad things. And not just teenagers. Many of our citizens, who consider themselves Orthodox, lack inner restraint. The same applies to young Muslims.

Therefore, I am not against teaching the basics of religious culture and secular ethics at school, and even participated in the development of a well-known course. I think that theology should also acquire a status, including departments and faculties at universities. Nothing special about it - a European tradition. In general, science and faith are not antipodes, as the late academician Ginzburg, some of my other colleagues at the Academy, especially naturalists, believed. Humanitarians rarely think so. At the institute, we study the history of the Church and participate in theological readings. This year, the publishing house "Palomnik" published a book by our colleague, Doctor of Sciences Kira Vladimirovna Tsekhanskaya "Veneration of Orthodox shrines in Russia." A lot of things are done in history.

The need for our knowledge has increased

And how did your science, your institute, survive in the last 20 years? Did the youth come? Did you manage to go on expeditions?

It is difficult for me to estimate this time, because it coincided with my directorship. I have been a director since 1989. But it seems to me that it was one of the most fruitful periods for the Institute. Our research does not require expensive equipment, reagents, which must be imported from the West. Of course, in the nineties there was no money for foreign expeditions, but we concentrated more on the problems of our country.

Now, traveling around the country has also become difficult. Especially to the North, to Siberia. Airlines have raised prices, and now tickets to Kamchatka, Sakhalin, Chukotka are more expensive than to America. But there were grants, there was interest from local authorities, from companies. Thanks to the support of Sakhalin Energy, we were able to publish a Uilta language dictionary - this is such a small group on Sakhalin.

As for salaries, I came to the conclusion: if a person is a scientist, if he is interested in science, you can pay him 100 thousand, you can pay 20, but he will still work, although 100 thousand is better anyway. And if he is lazy or simply not educated enough, not talented, then at least 200 thousand pay, he will not write anything. The need for our knowledge has not decreased, but increased. Interest in roots, in ethnic cultures, in the revival of languages, traditions, and customs has increased. There is a very great interest in this not only among national minorities, but also among the Russian population.

Recently, a dissertation was defended at the institute on new shrines and memorial signs - crosses placed on the sites of road accidents. Very interesting job. Our specialists also study the history of missionary work, eldership, and pilgrimage. Many stories appeared that we simply would not have been allowed to explore before.

There is a problem with youth. New professional areas, which did not exist before: private entrepreneurship, management, design ... Yes, a lot of new professions that seem more prestigious. Therefore, there is no such influx into science as before. And you can’t earn a lot of money here now, and people have become pragmatic, parents too. Of course, we need an influx of young people, we need continuity. If there were a limit for the director of the institute up to 70 years old, I would have been doing other things for two years already. But there are no restrictions, and the team believes that I can still remain in the director's position. I remain, although I think that it would be more useful if the young scientist replaced me. No matter how successful this or that director is, succession and the principle of turnover are more important.

You are still the head of the Educational and Scientific Center for Social Anthropology, which opened 10 years ago at the Russian State University for the Humanities. Was this specialty introduced into Russian higher education for the first time? How many graduates have already been, how many work in their specialty?

Since last year, "anthropology and ethnology" has been recognized by the Ministry of Education and Science as an independent area of ​​professional training in higher education. That is, not only at the level of masters, but there is also a bachelor's degree. Last year we recruited 20 students for budget places plus paid. To the direction of "anthropology and ethnology", and not just to specialize in the training of historians. It took almost 10 years for this - it was not easy in our society to approve a new specialty.

One cannot do without ethnographers, ethnologists and anthropologists in Russia. They are needed both in education and in the means mass media, and in business. The World Bank requires that all companies, especially those extracting resources in regions with a vulnerable environment and unique cultures, whether it be tundra, taiga or highlands, have an anthropologist or ethnologist on staff who can tell: “Guys, here is the path of deer pastures or spawning grounds. If you lay an oil pipeline here and leave no room for reindeer to pass, you will undermine the economy of local communities.”

Anthropologists and ethnologists are needed in public service, in foreign affairs agencies. Our guys are working… Not all of them in their specialty. Still, there is still not enough understanding that such specialists are needed. For example, our embassies abroad say: there are courses in ethnology at MGIMO, diplomats know the specifics. In fact, they don't always know. In addition, they are transferred from one country to another. Well, if they transfer from Iran to Pakistan. And if from Iran to Vietnam? You have an ethnographer who knows the Vietnamese peoples, including the mountain peoples, and you will always receive qualified advice.

So the request has not yet been fully formed, but it will grow. Our graduates work in the Ministry of Regional Development, in the Moscow House of Nationalities, in "Ethnomir" - there is such an ethnographic museum-park in the Moscow region, on the border with Kaluga region. And many of them come to us in graduate school. So it cannot be said that young people do not come to us at all.

Many techies and natural scientists left in the nineties, and those who did not want to leave still survived largely due to long trips abroad. And how much are our humanities students in demand abroad?

There are not as many ethnologists and anthropologists in Russia as there are physicists and mathematicians, so we did not suffer much from emigration. But some talented scientists left. Now Nikolai Ssorin-Chaikov, a specialist in Siberia, is returning to us from Cambridge. He is successful there, but accepted our offer, which I am very happy about.

But, of course, foreigners do not so often entice our humanities scholars as physicists, mathematicians or biologists. They have their own experts on Russia. We constantly cooperate with foreign colleagues, we have joint projects with the French, British, Poles, Americans, Chinese, Serbs, not to mention the countries of the former USSR.

Recent achievements of the humanities

And what else interesting is happening in the Russian humanities in last years? You are also the head of the Department of Historical and Philological Sciences of the Academy.

Some do not understand why history and philology are needed, if everything can be read on Wikipedia. Directly modern mitrofanushki! Friends, who wrote these articles for Wikipedia? Before you looked into the explanatory dictionary of the Russian language, dozens of people from the Institute of the Russian Language of the Russian Academy of Sciences wrote it for decades. In our institutes, too, for many years and also dozens of scientists compiled a dictionary of Russian dialects, linguistic studies on the languages ​​of small peoples, with the help of which forgotten traditions are now being revived.

And the collected works of Chekhov, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky! This is our world calling card, if you like. They are being prepared at IMLI - the Institute of World Literature. And the Pushkin House in St. Petersburg with its manuscripts! This is part of our national consciousness.

I'm not talking about history. How do we know our past? Here we celebrated 1150 years of Russian statehood. The same historians showed everything: Rurik's settlement was dug out, Novgorod letters. Institute of Archeology, Institute of World History, Institute Russian history- everyone participated. How do we know what peoples live in our country? It was our Institute that made, under my editorship, the 20-volume work "Peoples and Cultures" about the peoples of Russia and other CIS countries. Maybe this knowledge does not reach hundreds of thousands, but professionals use it: something is taken by a university teacher, something by a school teacher, something by a journalist who is interested in history, something by a screenwriter with a director who want to shoot film about the civil war Battle of Stalingrad. It's all written by someone.

Who publishes archival documents? professional historians. Of course, without humanitarians, we will know that it is impossible to cross the road at a red light, but why the street bears the name of Volgin or Kosygin, we will not say. Like the blind. Coordinates in space and time are given by humanities scientists. Only after reading a book about the past, we find out: there was such a prime minister Kosygin and historian Volgin, that's where the name of the street comes from.

I think the readers of Pravmir do not need to be convinced of the importance of the humanities. But in connection with the upcoming reform of the Academy, everyone is interested in what is being done in science today. What interesting things have been discovered by Russian humanitarians in recent years?

Humanities differ from physics, astronomy or biology in that our stars do not explode. It is cumulative. It does not happen with us that today we have proved a theorem that scientists could not prove for 100 years. For example, for several decades they have recreated the history medieval Russia. Over the past 20 years, we have recreated it quite fully, especially the history of the central part. Before that, the history of Kyiv and Novgorod was more or less clear, but we had a poor idea of ​​the medieval Volga region. Now we present.

Another one from major discoveries the last 20 years have done archaeologists. They also worked not instantly, but for 20 years, dug up a huge number of monuments, described them, published books, made discoveries in textbooks. I consider this a scientific feat. If you compare modern textbooks and twenty years ago, you will see that early stages the stories are told quite differently now.

Also, archaeologist Anatoly Panteleevich Derevyanko discovered the remains of ancient man("Denisovite"), and this changed the ideas of scientists about evolution, about how it took place. Last year, Anatoly Panteleevich received the State Prize for his discovery.

There are also significant achievements in Russian linguistics. She, especially corpus linguistics - the compilation of language corpora - is quoted all over the world, Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich Ivanov has been working in America for 15 years. And another linguist, Andrey Anatolyevich Zaliznyak, joined the research birch bark letters and ancient writing, which was started by Academician Valentin Lavrentievich Yanin. Andrei Anatolyevich proved many things related to the early appearance of literacy in Russia, with different versions of the Old Russian language. And this helped him prove that "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" is really a monument ancient Russian literature, not a late styling as some have suggested. And for this discovery, he received the Solzhenitsyn Prize six years ago, and three years ago - the State Prize.

In 2004, Vyacheslav Ivanovich Molodin and Natalya Viktorovna Polosmak, a spouse-archaeologist from Novosibirsk, received the State Prize for the discovery of a mummy in Altai - Princess Ukok. The year before last, our sinologists received the award for the creation of the encyclopedia "History and Culture of China".

I did not name all the achievements, but almost every year one of the State Prizes is awarded to humanitarians. They just don't give it.

Is reform scary?

- How do you feel about the reform? Many scientists say that it will destroy Russian science.

I'm still a supporter of change. Although I study traditions, I believe that change is a condition for development. We are late with the change. For 20 years we have grown new economy- market, new political system based on democracy and multi-party system, new cultural environment, new informational space. Science turned out to be more conservative; there were fewer changes in the Russian Academy of Sciences than it should have been. This caused some dissatisfaction.

Some of the most mobile disciplines left the academy, including some social sciences. We have strong economists, but they stood in some opposition - Gaidar did it, you and clear up - and graduate School the economy began to do for us what we were supposed to do. We have missed some areas related to the development of the country, in which scientists should play a leading role.

But all the same, the Russian Academy of Sciences has remained the focus of scientific fundamental knowledge, an institution where there are large professional teams that can solve major problems. No higher education institution, even the most lured one, will do in 20 years what I have done with my colleagues - they will not publish a 20-volume series "Peoples and Cultures". It's 20 years and hundreds of people we've recruited across the country and even overseas to publish these books. It is impossible for any university teacher or rector to do this. Therefore, the plan to liquidate the academy (and initially the project contained the word “liquidate”) was similar to raiding, and it was he who was rejected by us, and not the idea of ​​change. After some adjustments have been made (albeit not to the full extent that we wanted), and the law has been adopted, we cannot but comply with it. We are a budgetary state institution.

This does not mean that we are satisfied with everything. Negotiations and settlements with the Federal Agency for Scientific Organizations continue, of course, we will prove that, from our point of view, this is not so. If they are ready to use the property of the Academy more efficiently and rationally - I mean land plots - please. We will only benefit from this. If this improves the working conditions of scientists, raises salaries, we can only say thank you. But if officials who have never dealt with science and understand nothing about it begin to manage institutions, tell scientists what they should and should not do, we will protest. There are no great countries without great science.

Interviewed by Leonid Vinogradov

Photo by Evgeny Globenko