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Jubilee of Dr O.Bolshakov Print E-mail
08/06/2009
On June 3, 2009, Prof Dr Oleg G. Bolshakov, chief researcher of the IOM RAS, honored Russian academic of encyclopedic knowledge, expert in Arabic history, archaeology, epigraphy, and Islam, celebrated his 80th birthday and 58 years of scholarly activities.

In 1951, when he had graduated from Leningrad State University, the Faculty of Oriental Studies, the Department of the History of Near Eastern Countries, O.Bolshakov took doctoral course at the State Hermitage and worked some time there and at the Institute of Archaeology. From 1966, he has worked at the Department of Near Eastern Studies (the former Arabic Section named after acad. I.J.Krachkosvky) of the Leningrad/St Petersburg Branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies, now the IOM RAS.

Dr O.Bolshakov is an excellent specialist in Arabic and Persian historical-geographical and biographical literature and urban Arab-Muslim culture. His first monograph, published in 1973 and later defended by him as the habilitation dissertation, was on urban Central Asian culture, from late 8th to early 13th century. Then he moved to the study of urban mediaeval Near Eastern culture. He was the first scholar to explore the correlation between price and cost in mediaeval Oriental economics, level of exploitation of various strata of urban and rural population, specifics of certain aspects of relationship between urban and rural areas.

Dr O.Bolshakov took part in the compilation of the catalogue of the Institute’s Arabic mss and the edition of some collective works such as The Essays on the History of Arabic Culture, from the 5th to the 15th Century [Очерки по истории арабской культуры V-XV вв.] and Slavery in the East during the Middle Ages [Рабство на Востоке в средние века]. He is the author of many entries for the encyclopedic dictionary Islam [Ислам] (Moscow 1991) and was one of the chief initiators of the revival of the academic journal Eastern Epigraphics [Эпиграфика Востока].

Dr O.Bolshakon took part in numerous archaeological expeditions to the Near East, Egypt, Iraq, and Syria.

The major work of Dr O.Bolshakov in recent years has been the voluminous History of Caliphate [История халифата]. By late 2008, the fourth volume was completed and we hope it is going to be published soon. Without doubt, this fundamental research, based on enormous factual material and analytical methodology, is a great achievement of worldwide humanities studies.

Academic activities of Dr O.Bolshakov were honored by the Russian State. On November 17, 1997, he was given the honorary title of the respected academic; on August 5, 2002, the state award for the series of papers entitled Social-Economic Relations in the Mediaeval Near East and the History of Early Islam [Социально-экономические отношения раннесредневекового Ближнего Востока и история раннего ислама].

Dr O.Bolshakov has been successful in the educational area, too. Thus, he supervised 8 PhD dissertations and prepared a number of special courses to be delivered at universities of several countries. He is a member of a few Dissertation Councils.

Dr O.Bolshakov is still very active in both academic and social life of the Institute. He is highly respected by the colleagues. The Institute’s authorities wish Dr Oleg G. Bolshakov solid health and many new academic achievement for the glory of Russian science.

Head of the IOM RAS, Prof Dr I.F.Popova

Deputy Head of the IOM RAS, Dr S.M.Prozorov

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