Academician Rybakov is a well-known domestic archaeologist, researcher of Ancient Russia and Slavic culture. Hero of Socialist Labor, member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Even after his death, he remains one of the most influential specialists in the field of Soviet historiography. His scientific views and pedagogical activity had a great influence on the development of ideas about the history of Ancient Russia. During the 60-80s, he actually led Soviet archeology.
Childhood and youth
The future Academician Rybakov was born in Moscow in 1908. It was a summer day, June 3rd. His parents were Old Believers. They gave their son a first-class education at home. In 1917, he began studying at a private gymnasium.
Since 1921, he settled with his mother in the premises of the orphanage "Working Family" on the territory of the Goncharnaya Sloboda. He graduated from the second stage school in 1924, and two years laterbecame a student of the historical and ethnological faculty of Moscow State University. In 1930 he received a diploma of graduation from the university with a degree in Historian-Archaeologist.
His direct mentors at the university were Academician Yuri Vladimirovich Gauthier, professors Vasily Aleksandrovich Gorodtsov and Sergei Vladimirovich Bakhrushin.
Early career
The first jobs that can be identified in the biography of Boris Aleksandrovich Rybakov are the archive of the October Revolution in Moscow and the museum of local lore in Aleksandrovsky, on the territory of the Vladimir region. After that, for six months he served in the Red Army with the rank of cadet. Then he became a mounted intelligence officer in an artillery regiment based in the capital.
In 1931 he returned to direct scientific activity. Since that time, he has been a researcher at the State Historical Museum. From the mid-30s until 1950, with a break for the occupation of Moscow, he held the post of senior researcher at the Institute of the History of Material Culture under the USSR Academy of Sciences.
In 1939 he received a Ph. D. in History for a monographic study on the Radimichi.
Doctoral dissertation defense
For many years, the hero of our article has been working on a fundamental work dedicated to crafts that have received the greatest development on the territory of Ancient Russia. Collections form the basis of his research.all kinds of museums, which he carefully studies.
At the height of the Second World War, Boris Alexandrovich Rybakov finally presents his work called "The Craft of Ancient Russia". It becomes the basis of his doctoral dissertation, which he defends in Ashgabat while in evacuation.
Already after the end of the war, in 1948, the book was published as a separate edition. His merits are already highly appreciated at the level of the country's leadership, because the next year the historian is awarded the Stalin Prize.
Throughout the decade, he continues to actively explore various areas of historical knowledge. From 1943 to 1948, he headed the department of early feudalism in the historical museum, and from 1944 to 1946, in parallel, he supervised the work of one of the sectors of the Institute of Ethnography.
Academician Title
At the turn of the decade, Rybakov takes an active part in the so-called campaign against cosmopolitans. This is a resonant political direction that operated in the Soviet Union from 1948 to 1953. The company was targeted against a certain stratum of the Soviet intelligentsia, which was considered as the bearer of pro-Western and skeptical mindsets in relation to the communist system. Most modern researchers consider it anti-Semitic in nature. In particular, Soviet Jews were indeed constantly accused of being hostile to patriotic feelings and cosmopolitanism. All this was accompanied by mass layoffs and arrests.
Contribute to thisThe campaign was also introduced by Rybakov, who published articles in scientific journals about the role of Judaism and Jews in the fate of the Khazar Khaganate.
Since the 1940s, the hero of our article begins to lead the practice of archaeologists at the Faculty of History of the Moscow Pedagogical Institute, which is now called the Moscow State Regional University. Became a member of the Communist Party in 1951.
In 1953, an influential figure received the title of Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences in the Department of Historical Sciences, specializing in Archeology. The status of a full member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR belongs to him since 1958. Until the mid-70s, he occupied leading positions in the institution. In particular, the Deputy Academician-Secretary, i.e., acting in his capacity, finally, the Academician-Secretary of the Department of History (from 1974 to 1975).
In the early 50s, the scientist headed the history department of the capital's state university, and from 1952 to 1954 he worked as a vice-rector of the university.
During the 1950s-1970s, a significant part of Academician B. A. Rybakov’s work was connected with the Institute of the History of Material Culture in a scientific institution. Here he alternately holds the posts of head of the sector, director and honorary head of the institute. In parallel, from 1968 to 1970 he managed the Institute of History of the USSR.
In the 60s, Academician Rybakov served as chairman of the academic council, coordinating activities in the field of Slavic studies, which also functions at this scientific institution. Beginning in 1966, he became the head of the museum council atpresidium of the institution.
An important place in his work is participation in the Bureau of the National Committee of Soviet Historians, as well as in the corresponding committee of the International Union of Protohistorical and Prehistoric Sciences. Since 1963 he has been a member of the International Society of Slavists.
After the end of the war against the Nazis, academician, historian Rybakov regularly represents national historical science at congresses with the participation of delegations from foreign countries. Since 1958 he has been the head of the "USSR-Greece" society.
In 2001, Academician B. A. Rybakov died in Moscow on December 27. He was 93 years old. The grave of Boris Alexandrovich Rybakov is located at the Troekurovsky cemetery.
Scientific views
The works and views of the hero of our article shaped Soviet archeology for several decades, and continue to be of great importance to this day. In fact, his scientific activity in this area began with excavations at the Vyatichi mounds in the Moscow region. In the future, large-scale research was carried out by him in the capital itself, Chernigov, Zvenigorod, as well as in Veliky Novgorod, Pereyaslavl Russian, Tmutarakan, Belgorod Kiev, Aleksandrov, Putivl, and many other places.
Among the main achievements of the historian, Academician Rybakov are the excavations of the ancient Russian castles Vitichev and Lyubech. This allowed him to almost completely reconstruct the appearance of the old city. Work on the castle in Lyubech, which, apparently, was built by Vladimir Monomakh, continued for four years. In 1957-1960Academician Rybakov excavated this ancient Russian settlement built by the Chernigov prince.
His main goal at that time was to evaluate the structure, and with the help of the finds to determine whether it can be considered as a castle. First of all, this should have been indicated by the presence of imported expensive products. In the same Lyubech, academician Rybakov managed to find about four hundred fragments of glazed dishes, while only 17 fragments were found on the territory of the rest of the settlement.
The main achievement of this research was the discovery of the purpose of large pits, which were previously considered semi-dugout structures. In fact, these turned out to be deep foundations of ground structures, very significant in size. Studying their parameters, Academician Rybakov compiled a fairly accurate picture of the ceiling layers, which allowed him to make an assumption about the number of storeys of buildings in the era of Ancient Russia.
Hundreds of future domestic historians and archaeologists learned the craft at these excavations. In the future, many of them became famous scientists themselves. For example, Svetlana Aleksandrovna Pletneva has grown into an authoritative specialist on the Pechenegs, Khazars, Polovtsy, and other nomadic peoples of the steppe.
Beliefs
Throughout his career, Academician Boris Aleksandrovich Rybakov was an ardent supporter of the so-called anti-Normanist views. Adherents of this trend deny the Normanist concepts that claim the origin of the first ruling dynasty in our country and the emergenceancient Russian state.
For example, he was convinced of the belonging of the Slavic population by origin in the lands of modern Ukraine. With them, Rybakov connected Trypillians and Scythians. At the same time, he denied the existence of a ready state in those places. The Chernyakhov culture associated with the latter was attributed to them by the Slavs. In the interpretation of the academician, the largest centers of the nation, in particular, Kyiv, existed from time immemorial.
In his books, Academician Rybakov expounded in detail all his main theories. Among them there were quite a lot of controversial constructions. One of the most controversial is his attempt to find a connection between the Slavs and the Scythian plowmen who lived in the Black Sea region since the 5th century BC, when they were described by Herodotus.
In his monograph en titled "Kievan Rus and Russian Principalities of the XII-XIII centuries", which was published in 1982, Rybakov proposes to count the history of the Slavs from the XV century BC. For example, in the fortifications in the south of Kyiv, known as the Serpentine Walls, the historian saw obvious evidence of clashes between Slavic tribes and the Cimmerians, who, as most scholars believe, left the Black Sea region about a thousand years before the Slavs appeared in it. Rybakov, on the other hand, claimed that representatives of this nationality used captured Cimmerians in the construction of these defensive structures.
A large number of scientific works, books by Academician Rybakov contain significant and fundamental conclusions about the life, life, level of cultural and socio-economic development of the population of residents in the territoryOf Eastern Europe. For example, in the monograph "The Craft of Ancient Russia" he traces the emergence and stages of the formation of production and the corresponding crafts among the Eastern Slavs, starting from the 6th century. He also managed to identify several dozen working industries. The goal pursued by Rybakov was to prove that Russia before the invasion of the Tatar-Mongol not only did not lag behind the states of Western Europe in its level of development, as many scientists claimed at that time, but also outstripped them in many respects.
In 1963 he published the monograph "Ancient Russia. Legends. Epics. Chronicles" he drew parallels between Russian chronicles and epic stories. In particular, he put forward a scientific assumption that chronicle records in Kyiv began to be made not from the 11th century, but much earlier - from the 9th or 10th century. Thus, he managed to create a fashion for speculation about the existence of written traditions among the Eastern Slavs even before the adoption of Christianity.
Examining the ancient Russian annals in detail, Rybakov put forward versions of the authorship of some fragments, he carefully analyzed the original news of the Russian historian Vasily Nikitich Tatishchev. As a result, he came to the conclusion that these news are based on ancient Russian sources, which in fact are trustworthy. Although earlier the generally accepted point of view was the fact that Tatishchev was engaged in falsifying history.
Works of Old Russian Literature
Rybakov's works are of great importancehad a study of the famous monuments of ancient Russian literature. In particular, "Daniil the Sharpener's Prayer" and "The Tale of Igor's Campaign". He devoted several monographs to the last work. In the works "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" and his contemporaries", "Russian chroniclers and the author of "The Tale of Igor's Campaign", "Pyotr Borislavich: the search for the author of "The Tale of Igor's Campaign", he puts forward a hypothesis, according to which it was the boyar from Kyiv, mentioned in title of these monographs, is the true author of this work.
According to another hypothesis, Daniil Zatochnik, a famous publicist and thinker of the 12th-12th centuries, was a grand ducal chronicler under Vsevolod the Big Nest and his son Konstantin.
In the work of Academician Rybakov "Paganism of the Ancient Slavs" and "Paganism of Ancient Russia", which were published in 1981 and 1987, respectively, the hero of our article managed to reconstruct the pagan beliefs of the Slavs. After that, he called numerous accusations against him in the absence of a unified methodology and simply fantastic speculations with facts. For example, in the image of the character of ancient Russian folklore, the Serpent Gorynych, Rybakov imagined probable memories of a certain prehistoric animal, presumably a mammoth. And Rybakov considered the meeting of the hero on Kalinov Bridge, a common epic story, an illustration of the hunt for a mammoth, which is driven into a trapping pit with a fiery chain, and it was disguised with branches of shrubs, in particular, viburnum.
At the same time, Rybakov himself repeatedly expressed hisnegative attitude towards historical falsifications. His son, in an interview with Literaturnaya Gazeta, recalled that at the last meeting he was extremely brief, saying that modern historical science has two threats - this is Fomenko and the Veles book.
Books
Many books by Boris Alexandrovich Rybakov are still in demand and popular. In addition to the works already listed, his main works include "Russian applied art", "Herodot's Scythia", "Strigolniki. Russian humanists of the XIV century", "The initial centuries of Russian history".
The book by Boris Alexandrovich Rybakov "The Birth of Russia" is based on his own work en titled "Kievan Rus and the Russian Principalities of the 9th-13th centuries", written for the 1500th anniversary of Kyiv. In it, he explores the origin of the ancient Slavs, talks about the formation of the ancient Russian state, the development of painting, crafts and literature at that time.
From the book "The World of History" by academician Rybakov, we can learn different points of view on the policy of one of the greatest commanders of Ancient Russia, Prince Svyatoslav. On the one hand, it was aimed at solving important and major state problems, and on the other hand, according to some historians, Svyatoslav, first of all, cared about his own military glory, and not about the good of the state. This is confirmed by the fact that many of his campaigns were frankly adventurous.
Private life
The hero of our article was educated by himfamous father Alexander Rybakov, who was a member of the Old Believer community of the Intercession-Assumption Church, located in Moscow on the German market. He was a graduate of the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow State University. His authorship belongs to works on the history of the schism. In pre-revolutionary Russia, he founded the Old Believer Theological Teachers' Institute.
The mother of Academician Claudia Andreevna Blokhiny is a graduate of the Faculty of Philology of the Higher Courses for Women Guerrier. She has worked as a teacher all her life.
The son of Boris Aleksandrovich Rostislav, who was born in 1938, gained fame. He became a doctor of historical sciences, an Indologist. Specializes in the problems of intercultural interactions and the history of culture. From 1994 to 2009 he headed the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Pedagogical activity
Rybakov began teaching in 1933 at the Academy of Communist Education named after Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya. Then he was an assistant professor, and later a professor at the Moscow Regional Pedagogical Institute.
For more than 60 years, the hero of our article has worked at the Faculty of History of Moscow State University. Among the lecture courses he gave were "History of Russian Culture", "History of Russia from Ancient Times", "Slavic-Russian Archeology".
In the Soviet Union, millions of schoolchildren studied from textbooks written by Rybakov. There is still an authoritative and large "Rybakov" school of historians of the ancient Russian state.
