On August 7, 2003, Grigory Lvovich Bondarevsky's heart stopped beating.

Unfortunately, passing away is inevitable, but when such extraordinary personalities as Grigory Lvovich, who, despite his venerable age, was in full bloom, and even under tragic circumstances, pass away, it is perceived as a heavy and irreparable loss.

We have lost an outstanding scientist who has forever written his name in the history of Russian Oriental studies.

G. L. Bondarevsky was born on January 25, 1920 in Odessa. As a schoolboy, he became interested in world history and eagerly read the historical studies he could get his hands on. In 1936, he entered the Faculty of History of the Odessa State University. Mechnikov Street. He was lucky - his student years fell on the " golden age "of the history department of this university, since after the murder of S. M. Kirov, many outstanding Leningrad historians were" exiled " there. Under the guidance of one of them-Professor N. N. Rosenthal-G. L. Bondarevsky wrote his first course work on the topic: "Venice's Expansion to the East".

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From that time until the end of his life, G. L. Bondarevsky showed an ever - increasing interest in the problems of the history of the Mediterranean, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf basins. As the topic of his thesis, he chose the history of the struggle over the construction of the Baghdad Railway, the final destination of which was to be Kuwait, full of dramatic conflicts and diplomatic intrigues. His thesis was an original scientific study that revealed the most complex vicissitudes of the struggle of diplomats, generals, financiers and industrialists in Germany, Great Britain, France and Russia for strategic and economic control over the Ottoman Empire and Iran.

G. L. Bondarevsky's successful scientific studies were greatly promoted by his transfer in 1939 to the Faculty of History of Moscow State University, where in April 1940, with the support of outstanding orientalists I. M. Reisner and V. B. Lutsky, he brilliantly defended his thesis.

Already in his early youth, Grigory Lvovich amazed everyone who knew him with his amazing abilities. He graduated from the university in four years and completed a postgraduate course in one year. As a dissertation topic, he chose the question of the construction of the Baghdad Railway and the penetration of German imperialism into the Middle East. Already in April 1941, the first chapters of his PhD thesis were discussed at the Department of Colonial and Dependent Countries of Moscow State University.

However, the path to science of a talented young man turned out to be long and thorny. Due to the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, the defense of the candidate's thesis was postponed for seven years.

The Main Political Directorate of the Red Army became interested in the thesis of G. L. Bondarevsky, which analyzed the methods of German diplomacy, which tried on the eve of the First World War to provoke the invasion of Afghanistan in Russian Central Asia and British India. Grigory Lvovich was sent to Stalinabad (Dushanbe), where special courses were created at the headquarters of the Central Asian Military District. It was officially issued by a senior teacher of Oriental history.

G. L. Bondarevsky's extensive erudition and extraordinary abilities could not but attract attention, and soon he was transferred to work in Iran as an editorial employee of the newspaper "Dustun Irani" ("Friend of Iran"). As a junior liaison officer between the Soviet and Anglo-Indian forces, the young lieutenant-orientalist took part in identifying German-Fascist saboteurs who were being sent to Iran in connection with the preparation of the famous Tehran Conference.

In the fall of 1943, Bondarevsky was transferred from Tehran to Tashkent, where he worked in the GRU system until February 1945. Then, at the request of the Uzbek leadership, he was demobilized and transferred to work in the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the republic.

From 1945 to 1951, Bondarevsky worked as the head of the Political Department of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan. At the same time, he gave lectures on the history of Eastern countries at the Central Asian State University (now TASHSU). In 1948, thanks to the initiative and efforts of G. L. Bondarevsky, the Eastern Faculty of the Central Asian State University was established, which later became an independent institute - the center of Oriental studies in Central Asia, the leading higher Oriental educational institution in the region. G. L. Bondarevsky was the organizer and first head of the Department of History of Foreign countries of the East, now the oldest and most powerful department of the Institute of Oriental Studies in Tashkent. For a long time, he was the dean of the Eastern Faculty of SAGU. He carried out a lot of work on the restoration and expansion of the Oriental faculty, the creation of new departments there-Chinese, Uyghur, Indian and corresponding departments. So far, numerous students of Grigory Lvovich are successfully working in Uzbekistan and far beyond its borders.

Only in 1948 G. L. Bondarevsky finally defended his PhD thesis on the topic: "The Baghdad Road and the Penetration of German Imperialism into the Middle East", which was published as a monograph in Tashkent in 1955.

While working in Tashkent (1945-1956), G. L. Bondarevsky simultaneously headed the international department of the newspaper Pravda Vostoka, in which he published several dozen articles about the situation in the East and headed the section of international relations of the Republican Society for the Dissemination of Political and Scientific Knowledge. On the initiative of G. L. Bondarevsky

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In Tashkent, radio broadcasting was organized in the languages of the peoples of the East, which in an expanded form still exists today. For his work in 1949, Grigory Lvovich was awarded a Certificate of Honor from the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Uzbek SSR. When Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru arrived in Tashkent, Bondarevsky personally met with him and received consent to translate the book into Russian and publish it in the USSR. Nehru's A Look at World History, written in prison in the form of letters to his young daughter Indira. This book was published in Moscow in the 1970s thanks to the efforts of G. L. Bondarevsky and under his editorship by the Progress publishing house in three volumes.

In 1956, at the invitation of the Director of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Academician B. G. Gafurov, G. L. Bondarevsky moved to Moscow and became the organizer and head of the Department of International Problems of the Institute, where he worked for 20 years - from 1956 to 1976.Grigory Lvovich managed to create a brilliant team of highly qualified International orientalists. Such well-known orientalists as A. F. Miller, V. M. Danzig, N. A. Khalfin, M. S. Lazarev, B. M. Potskhveria, B. G. Sapozhnikov, V. I. Pavlov, L. N. Kotlov, K. M. Popov, F. A. Toder, V. B. Vorontsov, I. B. Redko, G. G. Shishkin worked in the department. Kadymov, N. A. Dlin, and L. A. Fridman.

This brilliant "team" of first-class international scientists, created and inspired by Grigory Lvovich, managed to implement his truly grandiose project in 1960-1967-they prepared and published a 9-volume series of collective monographs "The Policy of Colonial Powers in Asia and Africa" ("US Policy in the Near and Middle East", "US policy in the Arab East", "US policy in South Asia", "US Policy in the Far East", "French policy in Asia and Africa", "British policy in South and South - East Asia", "US policy in the Far East"). England's Policy in the Middle East", "England's Policy in Africa", "Portugal's Policy in Africa and Asia"). The responsible editor of this serial publication was G. L. Bondarevsky. In addition, the department has published a series of monographs on the foreign policy of Asian and African countries.

G. L. Bondarevsky enjoyed great respect and authority among his subordinates and colleagues. Literally every meeting of the department began with the fact that he made a 40-50-minute report, brilliant in form and in-depth in content, on the most relevant events and on the international situation in general. Having great erudition, Grigory Lvovich always generously shared his extensive knowledge and experience with colleagues. The range of scientific interests of G. L. Bondarevsky was unusually wide. The problems of his numerous studies are diverse-from the history of the principalities of the Persian Gulf to the history of Transcaucasia and India. In 1965, G. L. Bondarevsky defended his doctoral dissertation on the topic: "The struggle for the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Red Sea at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries." His doctoral dissertation consisted of two volumes and numbered 2500 pages! In 1966, G. L. Bondarevsky was awarded the academic title of professor.

In 1968, the fundamental work of G. L. Bondarevsky "English politics and International relations in the Persian Gulf basin" (late XIX - early XX centuries) was published. (Moscow, Nauka Publishing House, 542 p.) This monograph was written on the basis of the author's study of published English, German, French and Russian diplomatic documents, parliamentary debates, Russian and foreign press. The funds of the Archive of Foreign Policy of Russia, the Central State Historical Archive and the State Archive of the Navy allowed the author not only to cover the policy of tsarist Russia, as well as international relations in the period under study, but also to introduce new information about the history of the Arab principalities of the Persian Gulf into scientific circulation. The monograph recreates the history of the British conquest of the Persian Gulf basin, reveals the peculiarities of English colonial policy, and highlights the struggle within the British ruling elite around problems related to the directions, methods, and pace of colonial expansion. Much attention was also paid to the analysis of acute contradictions between the colonial powers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

While on a research trip to India, G. L. Bondarevsky discovered and microfilmed a huge number of archival documents on British policy in Asia, on the Anglo-Russian struggle in Asia in the XIX century, on the establishment of borders in Transcaucasia, Central Asia, the Himalayan region, and the Persian Gulf. 74 thousand pages of these documents are now stored in the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation. On the basis of these unique archival documents, he wrote and published a number of valuable scientific and political works, including " Russia and Transcaucasia

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in the XVI-XIX centuries", "Russia and Central Asia in the XVII-XIX centuries", "The Struggle for the Persian Gulf in the XVIII-XX centuries", "Kuwait in International relations of the XIX-XX centuries", " Russia and the North Caucasus in the XVI-XX centuries. Research and archival documents". In a number of his studies on the history of Kuwait, G. L. Bondarevsky, based on documents, irrefutably proved that Kuwait has always been an independent state and, therefore, Iraq has no historical rights to it. These works were published in Kuwait in Arabic and Russian.

The documents of the National Archives of India were also widely used by colleagues, students and postgraduates of Grigory Lvovich, who thanks to this were able to write and publish scientific research on the most pressing and sometimes controversial problems of international relations in the regions located "east of Suez".

All the works of G. L. Bondarevsky are distinguished by their thoroughness, perfection of form and maturity of thought.

G. L. Bondarevsky has done a lot to strengthen the friendship between our country and India, for which he was awarded the J. Nehru International Prize. He met and talked with J. R. R. Tolkien. Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi.

For his great scientific achievements, G. L. Bondarevsky was awarded in 1982 the title of Honored Scientist of the RSFSR, in 1987-the title of Honorary Doctor of the University of Meerut (India), in 1989 he received the UNESCO medal for his report at the conference in Paris dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of J. P. Blavatsky. Nehru was selected as a Guest Professor at Durham University's International Center for Border Studies in 1995. In 1996, he was elected a full member of the Academy of Social Sciences, in 1987 an academician of the International Academy of Informatization, and in 1998 an honorary academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. The President of India awarded G. L. Bondarevsky with the Order of the sacred lotus - "Padma Shri", and since there were only two holders of this order in Russia, this helped investigators find the killer of G. L. Bondarevsky, who advertised for the sale of this order on the Internet.

Grigory Lvovich, of course, was a unique person: first of all, he was the embodiment of a bright and versatile talent. It is rare in life when one person has the talent of a researcher, an amazing erudition, a lecturer's talent, whose lectures fascinated audiences consisting of superintelligents, and the talent of a teacher who created a whole school of students - he was the scientific supervisor of more than 70 candidates and doctors of sciences.

Grigory Lvovich had some kind of magic that attracted people. He radiated a warm vibe, and everyone who knew him respected him for his bright head and loved him for his kind and noble heart. He was an outstanding scientist and at the same time a charming person, a witty conversationalist. For those who were lucky enough to work together with Grigory Lvovich, communication with such a bright personality was a true school of Oriental studies. We have always admired the way this head works, full of not only encyclopedic knowledge, but also brilliant and original ideas. Grigory Lvovich was a source of inspiration, a standard that we all looked up to. He had a phenomenal memory, and if it was necessary to get some kind of reference, check the name or date, you could not go to the reference books - you just had to call Grigory Lvovich, and he gave the necessary information without delay and with pleasure.

According to Schopenhauer, fate plays the role of wind in our lives, and our own efforts play the role of oars. Although the wind of history was sometimes harsh for Grigory Lvovich, he worked tirelessly with oars all his life. That's why this big ship made a truly great voyage. The life of G. L. Bondarevsky proves that talent, hard work and love of science can raise a person very high.

A person dies three times: the first time-when he dies physically; the second time - when his relatives forget about him; the third time-when the cause he served dies. The best memory of Grigory Lvovich will be new research on the history of international relations in the East by his many students and admirers.

The life of the outstanding Oriental scholar G. L. Bondarevsky, his work, his inspired service to Science, and his bright personality will forever remain in our memory.

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