On October 19, 2001, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, died in Tashkent at the age of 96. Honored Scientist of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences Boris Vladimirovich Lunin is the author of an extensive series of remarkable works on the history of Russian Oriental studies, on the archeology of Central Asia and on the role of Russian science and culture in the East. B. V. Lunin was born on July 18, 1906 in Geneva, where his parents temporarily lived together with his paternal grandfather, a political emigrant, a well-known revolutionary democrat Viktor Ignatievich Lunin, an associate of N. G. Chernyshevsky. Father, Vladimir Viktorovich Lunin (lawyer, private attorney) shared the fate of his father. V. I. Lunin's absentee election in Kuban as a member of the First State Duma allowed the family to return to Russia.

B. V. Lunin, while still a high school student, joined the work of the circle of archeology lovers in the city of Pyatigorsk, conducted auxiliary work on the house-museum of M. Y. Lermontov, participated in archaeological surveys. After his family moved to Rostov-on-Don, he continued to actively participate in the scientific local history movement, attracting the attention and then receiving the energetic support of the outstanding Russian archaeologist V. A. Gorodtsov. Over time, B. V. Lunin gained a reputation as one of the founders of scientific and local history work on archeology, history and museum business in the North Caucasus, conducted excavations, published a number of books and pamphlets on the ancient monuments of the Don region and the Azov region.

In 1941, with the beginning of the war, he was drafted into the Soviet Army, went from private to lieutenant colonel, and had a number of government awards. He was demobilized in 1953, serving in Central Asia, where even before demobilization he joined the scientific and local history movement, and after that he was hired at the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan. He worked at the Presidium and the Institute of History, and for many years was a member of the editorial board and deputy editor of the journal "Social Sciences in Uzbekistan". In 1968, B. V. Lunin was confirmed as head of the Department of Historiography of the Institute of History, working in this position for many years, and until the end remained a leading researcher of the Institute.

Already the first of the books published by B. V. Lunin on Central Asia ("From the history of Rus-

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Russian Oriental Studies and Archeology in Turkestan "(1958), " Scientific societies of Turkestan and their progressive activity. The end of the XIX-beginning of the XX centuries" (1963) and others attracted the attention of researchers. Many of B. V. Lunin's predecessors were also interested in historiographical topics. In the classic work of V. V. Barthold "The history of studying the East in Europe and Russia", some place is also given to the history of studying Turkestan. This is done masterfully, but in the most general form. Such prominent scientists as M. E. Masson, S. P. Tolstov, I. I. Umnyakov, V. A. Shishkin, A. Y. Yakubovsky and others have published articles related to Central Asia, devoted to the problems of historiography of Oriental studies and archeology. However, all this gave an idea only of individual strokes, and by no means of the overall picture.

A new stage in this field begins with the works of B. V. Lunin. They are based on a rich documentary base: the works of researchers and local historians themselves, a huge number of various publications of the late XIX - first half of the XX century, countless notes and articles published in Central Asian newspapers and magazines, materials from public and private archives, reports of scientists whose activities began in the pre-revolutionary period, etc. B. V. Lunin analyzes and interprets all this material from the standpoint of a modern scientist. He vividly and accurately described the activities of specialists who lived in Central Asia (M. S. Andreev, A. A. Semenov, etc.), as well as a large group of representatives of the Russian intelligentsia, who enthusiastically and completely disinterestedly engaged in local lore. At the same time, in the works of B. V. Lunin, we see a galaxy of major Russian Orientalists and archaeologists, such as V. V. Radlov, V. V. Barthold, K. G. Zaleman, and N. I. Veselovsky. B. V. Lunin devoted special monographs to two of them-V. V. Barthold and N. I. Veselovsky-these are the best books about the luminaries of science.

B. V. Lunin's amazing efficiency and fanatical passion for science allowed him to raise a whole layer of previously unknown material, to reveal many of the most important aspects of the development of those areas of historical science, Oriental studies, ethnography and archeology that remained little known or completely unknown. His works allow us to more fully and accurately assess the crucial role of Russian science and the Russian intelligentsia in the study of the history and culture of the peoples of Central Asia.

B. V. Lunin's bibliographic works are also extremely useful, in particular indexes of publications about the life and activities of Farabi, Biruni, Ibn Sina, on the history of Bukhara, Samarkand, Termez, etc.

In total, B. V. Lunin owns about 600 (!) publications, and two dozen of them were prepared by him after his ninetieth birthday ^* . In addition, B. V. Lunin is an active participant in many Oriental conferences and symposia, including the Bartholomew Readings at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The staff of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the editorial board and the editorial board of the journal "Vostok" (Oriens) deeply mourn the death of Boris Vladimirovich Lunin.

COLLEAGUES AND FRIENDS

^* For a complete list of B. V. Lunin's publications for 1924-1986, see: Boris Vladimirovich Lunin. Tashkent, 1986. 56 p. See also: Peoples of Asia and Africa. 1976. N 5. P. 191-193; 1986. N 4. P. 211.

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