In 1971, the Department of African History was established at the Institute of General History of the USSR Academy of Sciences under the leadership of A. B. Davidson. Thus, the History Department of the Academy of Sciences has re-established a scientific division dealing with the problems of African history.

During the long negotiations between A. B. Davidson and the then director of the IVI, Academician E. M. Zhukov, many formulations were discussed for the order on the creation of the sector, justifying the expediency of this act. As a result, the order for the institute was short and clear: "Create an African History Sector".

When creating the sector, its head put forward several main principles, which he tried, as far as possible, to firmly adhere to later:

- Avoid dealing with issues directly related to the political situation, such as "non-capitalist development path" or "socialist orientation" in Africa;

- to study the problems of the history of African peoples, relying on the widest possible range of primary sources;

- to form the structure of the sector from people who have received special training in African studies and, as a rule, speak African languages.

At the same time, the main areas of work of the new research team were formed, within the framework of which its employees still conduct their individual and joint research: sources and source studies of African history; historiography of Africa; Russia and Africa; African colonial societies.

The first employees of the sector were R. R. Vyatkina, permanent scientific secretary for many years, and G. V. Tsypkin. Currently, the Center for African Studies employs A. S. Balezin, S. V. Mazov, and N. G. Shcherbakov, who started their career as postgraduates, as well as academic secretary L. V. Ivanova, A. V. Voevodsky, and M. S. Kurbak.

For the last few years of her life, G. I. Potekhina (1926-1979), a well-known Africanist and literary critic, worked there. This quiet little woman was a kind of human and scientific tuning fork of the sector, her work was present in almost every publication of those years, even if it did not contain her last name.

From 1976 to 2009, V. P. Gorodnov (1929-2009) worked at the center, who preferred the position of senior researcher to the position of head of the Southern Africa sector at the Institute of Africa of the Russian Academy of Sciences. V. E. Ovchinnikov, A.M. Pegushev, I. E. Sinitsyna, and B. A. Shabaev worked in the sector at various times.

For several years, I. I. Filatova was a full-time employee of the sector. In those years, she was an associate professor, and then a professor at the ISAA of Moscow State University, head of the Department of African Studies. Currently, Irina Filatova lives in South Africa, but continues to actively cooperate with us.

The Sector began its work with what every self-respecting historian should start with - an "inventory"of available sources on the history of Africa. In 1977, the first collective work "Source studies of African history" appeared (Moscow, 1977). It analyzed the types and types of sources available to Russian Africanists. Special attention was paid to sources in African languages that have long been written, such as Swahili, Hausa and Amharic. The book opens with an article by the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church

African studies by D. A. Olderogge (1903-1987) on African languages as a special historical source. As soon as it was released, it immediately became a bestseller.

The same fate was reserved for the next work of the sector - the collective monograph " Historical Science in the countries of Africa "(Moscow, 1979). It was devoted to the analysis of views on the history of African peoples of scientists in Africa itself. In those years, some countries of the continent already had national historical schools, while others were just beginning to have their own historians ' first names, and it was important to understand the ideas and trends that were emerging on the African continent itself before developing their own view of African history.

A group of friends and co - authors formed in the work on these books-famous scientists collaborated with us: D. A. Olderogge, L. E. Kubbel, S. Ya. Berzin, L. O. Golden, N. B. Kochakova, V. A. Beilis and others.

In addition to general works, individual monographs were published in those years - R. R. Vyatkina ¹, G. V. Tsypkin ², etc. In cases where it was the author's first book, he went through a whole school of work on the manuscript at all stages, including during its long journey in publishing, and A. B. Davidson, who was the executive editor of these publications, always put a lot of effort into this process. In those years, he himself co-authored two books with V. A. Makrushin on Russian-African pre-revolutionary relations, ³ which opened up a new area of research in the Russia-Africa sector.

The branch's staff also participated in major inter-institute works on the history of Africa, in particular in the fundamental two-volume work on the history of the anti-colonial struggle of the peoples of the continent in modern and modern times.⁴ They did not stay away from, perhaps, the main collective work of the Institute of Universal History of those years - the multi-volume "World History" ⁵.

I was lucky enough to be the first full-time postgraduate student in the sector: I came there in the fall of 1975. The time was not the best - I recall, in particular, the campaign that took place at the Institute to convict A.M. Nekrich. But that was out of the sector... And in it interesting topics were discussed, competent people came-employees of other sectors of the institute. Thus, N. A. Erofeev and A. Ya. Gurevich have repeatedly made presentations.

I still have a few" general " notebooks, as they were called at the time, thick with the inscription on the spines: "Sector. Actions". Unofficially, of course, the sector meetings were called actions. I'm flipping through these notebooks:

"September 23, 1975 Joseph Ki-Zerbo (one of the greatest African historians of those years from Burkina Faso). Historical science in West African countries... October 14, 1975 Thomas Hodgkin (major English Africanist). African studies in the UK... November 24, 1975 Dr. Polacek from Prague. African studies in Czechoslovakia... December 3, 1975 Joe Jelle, activist of the African National Congress (South Africa) on the youth movement and the current situation in South Africa... December 13, 1976 P. G. Kuznetsov. Mathematical expression of the laws of historical development ... April 13, 1977 A. Y. Urnov on a trip to Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique and Somalia...".

It would be possible to continue leafing through the old notebooks, but it seems that the excerpts already show quite clearly that in those years there were certain traditions of the subject of sector meetings. Foreign African historians were invited, including those from Africa itself, as well as African political figures who happened to be in Moscow. In addition, the sector's meetings were attended by African and non-African speakers who had traveled to Africa. Such trips were very rare at the time, and meeting people who had seen Africa firsthand helped the sector's employees to get closer to the continent's realities. And, of course, there were reports from colleagues from various scientific institutions in Moscow on new methods of historical research and new approaches to history in general.

¹ Vyatkina R. R. Sozdanie Yuzhno-Afrikanskogo Soyuza [Creation of the South African Union]. Moscow: Nauka, GRVL, 1976.

² Tsypkin G. V. Ethiopia: from fragmentation to centralization. Moscow: Nauka, GRVL, 1980.

³ Davidson A. B., Makrushin V. A. Oblik dalekoi strany [The Image of a distant country]. Moscow: Nauka, GRVL, 1975; they are the same. Zov dalnykh morey [The Call of Distant Seas], Moscow: Nauka, GRVL, 1979.

^{History of the national liberation struggle of the peoples of Africa in modern times} 4. Moscow: Nauka, GRVL, 1975; History of the national liberation struggle of the peoples of Africa in modern times. Moscow: Nauka, GRVL, 1978.

⁵ Davidson A. B. Countries of Tropical and Southern Africa // World History, Vol. XI, Moscow, 1977; Vol. XII, 1979; Vol. XIII, 1983.

It is clear that the employees of the sector themselves spoke at its meetings-they talked about what they had done, "rolled out" new research topics, shared their impressions of their own (such rare!) trips to Africa and other scientific trips.

At the end of the 1970s, however, due to a change in the situation at the Institute, the life of the sector, which was developing so successfully and fruitfully, was interrupted. The people who then held the reins of the institute in their hands organized an expanded meeting of the party bureau, at which the directions of scientific activity of the sector were declared incorrect.

And more: "War is like war!" For more than four years, the lives of former employees of the Africa sector were complicated by various challenges - difficulties in defending dissertations, with the approval of their works for publication, refusal to hire graduate students, even a "political" personal matter. They were dispersed into different sectors, but they remained true to their scientific and human ideals and faith in the triumph of justice.

The staff of the African History Section did not agree with this assessment of their work and tried to object. However, one day they were confronted with a fact: the African History section was reorganized into the history of colonialism section, "re-equipped" with employees from other departments of the institute, and received a new head. From this chief, the sector staff was surprised to learn, for example, that "there is no such science - African studies."

In 1984, the section of African History was restored to almost the same structure and scientific program under the leadership of its founder, A. B. Davidson. Then the status of the sector gradually increased: it became the Department of African History, and later the Center for African Studies. Employees continued their work, publishing everything that was done over the years.⁶

The result of research on the colonial history of a number of African countries was a book published in 1993 by a group of employees of the center "Colonial Society of Tropical Africa "(M, 1993). It develops the idea put forward by D. A. Olderogge about the colonial society as a special type of sociality. Using a wide variety of African materials, we obtained similar results, which we tried to generalize.

In the years that have passed since the re-establishment of the sector, individual monographs of its employees have also been published.⁷

A sign of recognition for the center's research activities was the publication in English by the Progress publishing house of books by A. B. Davidson and V. P. Gorodnov, which were significantly revised and supplemented.⁸

The tradition of participating in large inter-institute projects in Africa was continued. First of all, in significantly updated reprints of two important works-the encyclopedia "Africa" (vol. 1-2, Moscow, 1986-1987) and "History of Africa in the XIX-early XX century" (Moscow, 1984).

Employees of the sector participated in a large - scale inter-institute project-the preparation of a series of books "The history of African countries in modern and contemporary times". They wrote a number of sections and also served as editors of books on Ghana and Ethiopia, prepared a manuscript on South Africa, and V. P. Gorodnov initiated the writing of a book on Namibia and became its executive editor.⁹

During these years, a new tradition was established, which grew out of sectoral actions: regularly hold conferences on the history of Africa, which at first were called workshops. The theme of the first such workshop (April 1986) is "The African Intelligentsia: Historical fates and social role". It was dedicated to the memory of G. I. Potekhina ¹⁰.

A significant event in this series was the international conference "Africa in World History". It was organized by the African History Sector in cooperation with the Union of Soviet Societies

⁶ In 1985, the collective work " Studying the History of Africa. Problems and achievements" (Moscow: Nauka, GRVL, 1985), compiled in the sector of the history of colonialism in large part from articles and translations of the works of colleagues from the GDR, prepared by employees of the sector of the history of Africa.

⁷ Gorodnov V. P. Chernye zhizni "belogo" goroda [Black residents of the "White" city], Moscow: Nauka, GRVL, 1983; Tsypkin G. V. Ethiopia in anti-colonial Wars, Moscow: Nauka, GRVL, 1988; Davidson A. B. Muza stranstviy Nikolay Gumilyov, Moscow: Nauka, GRVL, 1992; Mazov S. V. Paradoxes of the "model colony". Moscow: Nauka, GRVL, 1993, et al.

⁸ Davidson A.B. Cecil Rhodes and his Time. M.: Progress publishers, 1988; Gorodnov V.P. SOWETO: Life and Struggles of the South African Township. M.: Progress publishers, 1988.

⁹ Mazov S. V. et al. History of Ghana in the new and modern times, Moscow, 1985; Tsypkin G. V., Yagya V. S. History of Ethiopia in the new and modern times, Moscow, 1989; Balezin A. S., Pritvorov A.V., Slipchenko S. A. History of Namibia in the new and modern times, Moscow, 1993.

¹⁰ See: Balszin A. S. On the working meeting in memory of G. I. Potekhina "The African Intelligentsia: historical destinies and social role" / / Peoples of Asia and Africa. 1986. N 5. pp. 130-133.

friendship and the Soviet Committee of Solidarity of the countries of Asia and Africa. First of all, it was the first conference in our country dedicated specifically to the history of Africa. Secondly, it was attended for the first time by foreign scientists-Africanists - about 70 people. Third, for the first time in our country came a representative (more than 10 people) delegation of scientists from South Africa. The conference was a success and was widely approved by the scientific community ¹¹.

Subsequent conferences, which have since become international, also caused a scientific resonance. Particularly noteworthy is the 1999 conference "Afrocentrism and Eurocentrism on the Eve of the XXI century", dedicated to the 70th anniversary of A. B. Davidson. It clearly showed the features that have also become traditional for our conferences: almost exclusively interesting," not boring " reports, a respectful attitude of colleagues to each other, and an informal atmosphere of meetings. The materials of this conference were published for the first time in the form of a book ¹².

In 2001, a conference on the historiography of Africa was held: "African Studies of the XX century: time, people, views". Its participants are prominent scholars representing historical African studies in Great Britain, Germany, France, Eastern Europe and South Africa ¹³. In 2004, the conference was dedicated to the 75th anniversary of A. B. Davidson and was devoted to source studies, more specifically, archival sources on the history of Africa ¹⁴. The topics of the two subsequent conferences, 2007 and 2009, were formulated more broadly, which gave participants the opportunity to address various issues, including historiography and source studies. ¹⁵

The center's staff also actively participates in conferences organized by other research centers in our country and abroad. Thus, not a single All-Union and then All - Russian conference of Africanists, not a single meeting of African historians of socialist countries (there were also some) was complete without their participation. They were the organizers of the historical section at the XI International Conference of Africanists " Africa's Development: Opportunities and Obstacles "(Moscow, 2008).

Changes in the life of our country have opened up new opportunities for us to explore the history of Africa.

First of all, he had broad access to foreign centers of African studies both in the West and in Africa itself. In particular, A. B. Davidson was able to conduct long-term research work at Yale University in the United States (South Africa Research Program) and the University of New York. G. V. Tsypkin worked in Ethiopia, including in the archives, as part of the Russian-Ethiopian expedition. A. S. Balezin was the first Russian historian to get acquainted with the archives of Namibia back in 1991 and return to them in 2001. He also managed to work in the Tanzanian National Archives and get acquainted with the Kenyan one, as well as get into such interesting European document repositories as the French Overseas Archive and the Berlin Missionary Society Archive. The results of such trips were both individual monographs and sections in collective works.¹⁶

The Center for Russian Studies of the University of Cape Town, organized and directed by A. B. Davidson in 1994-1998, played a major role in expanding the scientific relations of the center's staff with the countries of Southern Africa. The first of three scientific symposia "Russia in the modern world", organized by the center in Cape Town, was attended by a group of Russian scientists. Among them was R. R. Vyatkina, who spent many years studying South Africa and finally saw this country with her own eyes.

Thanks to the activities of the Russian Studies Center in Cape Town, our employees were able to publish their work in South Africa in English ¹⁷. At the same time, an opportunity has appeared

¹¹ For more information, see: Balezin A. S. Africa in the world-historical process. (Oriens). 1991. N 1. pp. 163-167.

¹² Eurocentrism and Afrocentrism on the eve of the 21st century: African Studies in a global context. Proceedings of the International Scientific conference dedicated to the 70th anniversary of A. B. Davidson, Moscow, 2000.

¹³ See: African Studies of the XX century: time, people, views. Proceedings of the International Scientific Conference, Moscow, 2002.

¹⁴ See: Archives-Key to the history of Africa. Proceedings of the International Scientific Conference, Moscow, 2005.

¹⁵ Africa: The Continent and the Diaspora in Search of Self in the 20th century. Proceedings of the International Scientific Conference, Moscow, 2008. Africa and the World: Understanding, learning, teaching. Proceedings of the International Scientific Conference, Moscow, 2010.

¹⁶ See, for example: Balezin A. S. Civilizators in the country of Savages, Moscow, IVI RAS, 1996.

¹⁷ См.: Russia in the Contemporary World. Proceedings of the First Symposium in South Africa at the Centre for Russian Studies, University of Cape Town. 17-19 august 1994. Cape Town: Phoenix Publishers, 1995; Davidson Apollon, Filatova Irina. The Russians and the Anglo-Boer War, 1899-1902. Cape Town a.o., 1998.

work in the archives of South Africa and use their materials in their publications in Russia. This activity resulted in the publication of the work "Comintern and Africa" (St. Petersburg, 2003) in Russian and the collection of documents "Comintern and South Africa"¹⁸ in English (St. Petersburg, 2003).

In 1910, as a continuation of this theme, A. B. Davidson and I. I. Filatova published a book "Russia and South Africa: three Centuries of relations" (Moscow, 2010). Based on a large number of South African and Russian archival materials, it describes how the mutual views of the peoples of these two countries have changed over the course of three centuries.

The discovery of Russian archives has played a huge role in the work of the Center for African Studies. Its employees spend a lot of time in the RSASPI (RTSHIDNI), the pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary Archives of the Russian Foreign Ministry, the former archive of the Central Committee of the CPSU, etc. In essence, it is a continuation of the old tradition in a new environment. In the previous difficult years, only A. B. Davidson and R. R. Vyatkina managed to get the right to work in the archives and even get some truly unique documents there. Now it is available even for our graduate students ¹⁹.

The result of his work in Russian and African archives is the two-volume edition " Russia and Africa. Documents and Materials" (Moscow, 1999), which contains rare documents on the history of Russian-African relations from the time of Peter the Great to 1960. The reader will find there, along with the impressions of the first Russians in Africa and the first Africans in Russia, for example, details about the activities of the Comintern in Africa or little-known behind-the-scenes facts that preceded the creation of the Comintern Institute of Africa.

The book by A. B. Davidson, S. V. Mazov and G. V. Tsypkin "The USSR and the countries of Africa. 1918-1960" (Moscow, 2002), written also largely on archival materials, and S. V. Mazov's monograph " The Policy of the USSR in West Africa. Unknown Pages of the Cold War "(Moscow, 2008).

An important result of many years of work of the center was the publication of the three-volume " History of Africa in documents "(Moscow, 2005-2007). This publication of materials, including archival documents, in particular African ones, covers key moments in the history of Africa from 1870 to 2000 and provides a source base for more than one generation of future African historians.

The collective work "Pax Africana: continent and Diaspora in Search of Self" (Moscow, 2009) is the result of many years of research on the problems of historical self-identification of Africans, their relations with the West and Russia. This book opens up new lines of research and poses new challenges.

The special pride of the center is its interest in our African predecessors. ²⁰ Separate articles were written about them, and in 2003 a whole book " The Formation of Russian African Studies. 1960's-early 1980's." It not only tells about the fates, sometimes tragic, of Soviet Africanists, but also analyzes the misconceptions of those years.

Currently, the fundamental collective work "The History of Africa in Biographies" with a total volume of about 70 pp is being prepared for publication.

The staff of the Center for African Studies also participates in the preparation of textbooks: almost all of them wrote sections for the "History of Africa in 1918-1988", published in the ISAA of Moscow State University in 1989. In 2008, a textbook on the new and modern history of Africa by A. S. Balezin was published, and in 2010, under his editorship, a collective textbook was published "The history of Tropical Africa in modern and contemporary times", which was written by all the staff of the center.

According to a long-standing tradition, almost all employees of the center teach special courses on the history of Africa at the Department of African Studies. Since the foundation of this department, A. B. Davidson, and later G. V. Tsypkin and A. S. Balezin have taught and continue to teach new and recent history of Tropical and Southern Africa - the main course for African students. In addition, A. B. Davidson is a professor at the Higher School of Economics, and A. S. Balezin teaches at the Faculty of History of the State Academic University of Humanities, which operates on the basis of our Institute.

¹⁸ Davidson A., Filatova I., Gorodnov V, Johns S. South Africa and the Communist International: a Documentary History. Vol. I-II. L., 2003.

¹⁹ A special issue of the MSU Bulletin: Archival Documents on the History of Africa and Russian-African Relations became a kind of "pilot publication" that reflects some of the results of the work of the Center for African Studies in Russian and African archives. Bulletin of the Moscow University. Episode 13. Oriental studies. 1996. N 3. July-September.

²⁰ See, for example: Vyatkina R. R. The name behind the pseudonym. G. E. Gerngros / / Asia and Africa today. 1993. N 7. pp. 74-76.

As university teachers, the center's staff has repeatedly compiled a wide variety of educational programs on the history of Africa ²¹.

The center's staff is invited to give lectures for students and teachers of many educational institutions of foreign countries - universities in Germany, Great Britain, the United States, as well as Ethiopia, Tanzania, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. It should be noted that lectures are delivered in English, German or in the corresponding African languages.

The Center for African Studies is trying to initiate new interesting projects that bring together Africanists from different institutions in Moscow. Thus, together with the Institute of Asian and African Countries, we hold monthly African seminars, where interesting and important problems of the past and present of African countries are discussed. The seminar was attended, in particular, by the General Director of the De Beers representative office in Moscow, heads of the Africa Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, and many employees of the Institute of Africa of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In particular, the series of sessions of the seminar "The History of Russian African Studies in faces" aroused great interest. This was, to a certain extent, a test of the ideas of a new book being prepared at the center under a similar name.

Another interesting and, we hope, promising project of recent years is the almanac "Under the sky of my Africa", which we prepared together with the Department of African Studies of ISAA MSU. It is intended for a wide reading public and in this sense continues another tradition of the Center for African Studies - to acquaint domestic readers with African culture and literature. In 10 years, five issues of the almanac ²² have already been published.

The IVI RAS Center for African Studies is celebrating its fortieth anniversary with optimism. We are friends and like-minded people and meet with pleasure. And how many teams can boast of this? We are also encouraged by the fact that young employees such as M. S. Kurbak are coming.

For the anniversary of the center, we are preparing a new international conference "Studying the history of Africa in Russia and abroad: stages, trends, prospects". We hope that it will be held, as always, successfully, in a friendly and respectful atmosphere.

²¹ See, for example: Davidson L. B., Dreyer O. K. Course program "History of Tropical and Southern Africa", Moscow: Russian Open University, 1992.

^{Under the sky of my Africa} 22. History, culture, and languages of the peoples of Africa / Edited by A. S. Balezin and N. V. Gromova. Issue 1. Moscow, 2000; Issue 2. Moscow, 2003; Issue 3. Moscow, 2005; Issue 4. Moscow, 2009; Issue 5. Africanistics and Africanists at the Institute of Oriental Languages and the Institute of Asian and African Countries of Moscow State University, 2010.

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