Vladimir Yakovlevich Petrukhin - a famous domestic scientist. Specializes in history and archeology. He has the title of Doctor of Historical Sciences. He teaches at the Department of Russian History during the Middle Ages and early modern times at the Historical and Archival Institute of the Russian State University for the Humanities.
Biography of a scientist
Vladimir Yakovlevich Petrukhin was born in the suburbs in the city of Pushkino in 1950. He received secondary education at school No. 1 in the same small town with a population of only 100 thousand people.
Even at school he became interested in history and especially archeology. At the age of 12, he became a member of the club of young archaeologists, which works in Moscow at the metropolitan museum of history and reconstruction, created at the very end of the XIX century.
School Petrukhin Vladimir Yakovlevich finishes with a silver medal. Children's hobby determined his future profession. For higher education, he goes to the history department of Moscow State University.
After university
Petrukhin Vladimir Yakovlevich graduated from Moscow State University in 1972. He received a specialty of a historian with knowledge of a foreign language and the right to teach at school. But the young man had other plans.
He enters a graduate student at the Department of Archeology of Moscow State University. By that time, the ancient artifacts of medieval Russia interested him more and more. He works at the department under the supervision of Professor Daniil Antonovich Avdusin, the author of the most widespread textbooks on archeology, which were used in all universities of the country.
At Avdusin Vladimir Yakovlevich Petrukhin defends his thesis. The theme of his research is funeral rites in pagan Scandinavia. He receives the degree of candidate of historical sciences.
Archeology works
In 1975, Vladimir Yakovlevich Petrukhin headed the editorial board of archeology and ethnography at the Sovetskaya Encyclopedia publishing house, which was engaged in both the production of the famous Great Soviet Encyclopedia and the preparation of industry and thematic dictionaries and encyclopedias. Petrukhin oversees the work related to the history of Ancient and Medieval Russia and Scandinavia.
In 1991, he became a professor at the Dubnov Higher School of the Humanities, which at that time was called the "Jewish University in Moscow." Semyon Dubnov, whose name is the educational institution, is one of the founders of the history of the Jewish people. Petrukhin Vladimir Yakovlevich paid much attention to the study of this people. Jewish history is one of his areas of interest.
At the same time, he goes to work at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is still working in it.
Ph.D
In 1994, Petrukhin received the title of Doctor of Historical Sciences. He defends his dissertation at the Institute of Slavic Studies and Balkan Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The theme of his research is the problems of the ethnocultural history of the Slavic peoples in Russia in the 9th-11th centuries.
At the same time, he becomes a member of the academic council of the Center for Scientists and Teachers of the Jewish Studies "Sepher". This is an organization created specifically to conduct scientific research in the field of Jewish studies, as well as to teach all kinds of Jewish disciplines in higher education. Actively promotes such items and Petrukhin Vladimir Yakovlevich. The nationality of the scientist largely determines his interests and work.
Since 1997, Petrukhin also teaches at the Department of Russian History at the Institute of History and Archives of the Russian State Humanitarian University. In 2004, his merits were evaluated by the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation. He is awarded the degree of professor of history of the Ancient World and the Middle Ages.
Awards and prizes
During his scientific career, Petrukhin has repeatedly received various awards and prizes. So, in 1996, he received a diploma from the Open Society Foundation. This is an interstate public charity founded by philanthropist George Soros. Merits of Petrukhin were evaluated in the competition "New books on the social and human sciences for schools." One of his main works at that time was the monograph "The Beginning of the Ethnocultural History of Russia of the 9th-11th Centuries", on the basis of which he defended his doctoral dissertation.
In 2010, Petrukhin received a Slavic Fund medal for his contribution and development of the heritage of the founders of the Slavic writing Cyril and Methodius.
In 2015, he became a laureate of the prize named after academician Dmitry Likhachev for his work on medieval Russia. The studied period is the 9th-10th centuries, from the arrival of the Varangians to Russia to the choice of faith.
Scientific activity
Today, in Russian science, Petrukhin is one of the largest experts in archeology and historical anthropology of ancient and medieval Russia. The peoples, the research of which he is primarily engaged in, are Slavs, Khazars and Scandinavians.
Also in the field of his research, the beginning of the ethnocultural history of Russia and the study of the ethnographic characteristics of the peoples living in Northern and Eastern Europe. These include Slavs, Jews and Finno-Ugric peoples.
The main feature of his scientific work is an integrated approach to the problem addressed. Petrukhin Vladimir Yakovlevich, whose books are currently being studied by all connoisseurs of the history and archeology of Ancient Russia, strictly relies in his work on all known and accessible sources.
A striking example of such a work is his monograph "The Beginning of the Ethnocultural History of Russia of the 9th-11th Centuries", which was released in 1995. In this scientific work, he creates a fresh concept of the history of Ancient Russia, the emphasis of which is primarily on geopolitical and ethnocultural issues. This approach was not previously used by researchers.
Publications in Scientific Journals
Petrukhin is a very prolific scientist. He is a member of the editorial board of a dozen scientific and specialized journals, regularly appears on their pages with his articles and studies.
You can get acquainted with the works of Petrukhin in the Herald of the Hebrew University, Slavic Studies, Living Antiquities, the almanacs Parallels, and the Khazar Almanac.
The scientist is a member of the organizational committees of Russian and international conferences on archeology, Russian and Khazar history. He regularly participates in meetings dedicated to the ethnography of Eastern European peoples.
"Khazar project"
Vladimir Petrukhin is an active participant in most of the largest domestic and international projects in archeology, history and ethnography.
In particular, one of the largest is the Khazar Project. Its main goal is to protect and study the monuments of Khazar history and culture, the study of artifacts left over from Jewish history. The project is being cultivated at the Higher School of Humanities and the Russian Jewish Congress.
In the same school, the scientist teaches the history of Russia in ancient times and in the Middle Ages, teaches a course on the introduction to archeology. At the Moscow State University at the Institute of Asian and African countries, gives a course of lectures "Khazars and the initial history of Jews in Eastern Europe."
At the Russian State University for the Humanities, Petrukhin gives a course of lectures on the initial history of Russia. He also teaches special courses for students in religious antiquities, the history of the ancient Slavs. Every year, under his leadership, field archaeological research takes place in different parts of Russia, Europe and Asia.
Scientific publications
Vladimir Petrukhin is the author of more than 500 scientific papers. They are published from 1973 to the present day. He also owns a number of popular science books that are interesting not only to narrow specialists, but to a wide range of readers.
Among them is the book "Russia in the Middle Ages." Petrukhin Vladimir Yakovlevich released it together with Leonid Belyaev, a famous Russian archaeologist studying ancient Moscow, medieval Europe and the East. This is a book for a wide range of readers, telling about the history of Russia in the Middle Ages. It covers the era of Ancient Russia from the X to the XIII century and Muscovite Rus to the XVII century.
Scandinavian myths
Another popular science book is Myths of Ancient Scandinavia. Petrukhin Vladimir Yakovlevich released it in 2012 at the publishing house AST.
It tells in a popular form about the picture of the world that the Scandinavian pagans imagined. It appears to us the same in the primary sources - "Elder Edda", sagas, myths and the epic of the Scandinavian people.
In his work, Petrukhin focuses on the study and analysis of monuments of ancient fine art, as well as religious worship, discoveries made by archaeologists in recent decades.
Vladimir Petrukhin carefully studies the culture of the German people during the era of the Great Migration of Peoples, as well as the Scandinavians during the Vikings. Then, according to the author, their culture was closely connected with the culture of the Slavs who lived in Russia. That is why much attention is paid in the book to comparing and comparing the myths of the Scandinavians and the ancient Slavic peoples. Petrukhin finds a lot in common in them.
"Slavic antiquities"
One of Petrukhin’s main works is the scientific encyclopedia Slavic Antiquities: Ethnolinguistic Dictionary. 5 volumes of this work were published from 1995 to 2012. The encyclopedia was published under the general editorship of the doctor of philological sciences Nikita Ilyich Tolstoy. Petrukhin was one of the most active authors.
This publication details the theme of Slavic studies, Slavic culture and mythology.
This dictionary sums up a peculiar result of the study of Slavic culture, language, folklore and mythology over the past half century. Initially, it was supposed to be exclusively scientific reading, but it turned out to be interesting to a wide range of readers.
From this encyclopedia we can learn the features of the spiritual life of the Slavic peoples. Separate articles are devoted to their ideas about the world order, natural forces and phenomena, saints of that time, a place in the world of sorcerers, witches and other evil spirits.
In all its glory, Ancient Russia appears. Petrukhin Vladimir Yakovlevich pays special attention to rituals, holidays, customs and family life, which was adopted in the families of the ancient Slavs.
Petrukhin and Zadornov
The topics that Vladimir Petrukhin raises in his works have recently been extremely popular in Russian society. Actively discussed not only by scientists, but even by pop artists.
The famous satirist Mikhail Zadornov has recently paid much attention to Slavic history. Even he calls himself a non-academic researcher of the history of Slavism. Moreover, the scientific community is skeptical and frivolous about its conclusions.
For example, in 2012, Zadornov released the film "Rurik. Lost Real Estate." Professional historians have criticized the picture for pseudoscience and populism. In the film, Zadornov adheres to anti-Norman ideas, many considered it amateurishness. Among them was an ardent supporter of Norman theory - Petrukhin Vladimir Yakovlevich. Zadornov was criticized by him.
Movie "Viking"
Adherence to Norman theory was revealed when working on the film "Viking" by Andrei Kravchuk. The main historical consultant of the painting is Petrukhin Vladimir Yakovlevich. "Viking" is a film about the history of Russia in the X century. The events described in The Tale of Bygone Years, in particular, the rise to power of Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavovich, are taken as a basis.
The film was released on the screens of Russian cinemas on the eve of the new year 2017. It became the main film event at the long New Year holidays. At the box office, the picture collected more than one and a half billion rubles. With a budget of one billion 250 million, this can be considered a definite success.
The film was actively advertised in all sorts of ways. Its producers were Konstantin Ernst and Anatoly Maximov.
In addition to Petrukhin, the creators of the painting were advised by a specialist in Russian anthroponymy and linguist Fedor Uspensky, a major researcher of Slavism.
In total, about three thousand people were involved in the work on the project. Work began in 2008.
To give maximum historical authenticity, the shooting took place in the Crimea, on the Taigan reservoir, in the Genoese fortress, in the village of Shkolnoye in the Simferopol district, in Bakhchisarai and on the cape Fiolent in Sevastopol.
For the film, a special cinema park was even built in the area of the Red Caves in Crimea. According to the creators, these landscapes corresponded to the events described in the picture.