On February 3, 2005, Sevir Borisovich Chernetsov, an outstanding Russian Ethiopianist, Doctor of Historical Sciences, passed away in St. Petersburg after a serious illness.

S. B. Chernetsov was born on December 15, 1943 in Kostroma, where his family was being evacuated. In 1951-1961, he studied in Leningrad at the famous English boys ' school No. 213. The special way of life of this school largely determined the formation of his personality. He kept friendly relations with his classmates and loyalty to his school friends for the rest of his life. I showed interest in the East in the last two years of my studies. After graduating from high school, he entered the Amharic Department of the Department of African Studies at the Eastern Faculty of Leningrad State University, where he studied the Amharic and Geez languages. In 1967, he was a corresponding member. D. A. Olderogge, with whom Chernetsov studied at the University, invited him to work in the then-headed sector (now the Department) of ethnography of the peoples of Africa of the Leningrad Branch of the N. N. Miklukho-Maklay Institute of Ethnography of the USSR Academy of Sciences (now the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography). Peter the Great Russian Academy of Sciences (Kunstkamera). In this department, which S. B. Chernetsov headed since 1995, he worked until the last hour.

Sevir Borisovich devoted himself to the difficult task of reviving classical Ethiopian studies in our country, whose promising development was interrupted by the death of Academician B. A. Turaev in post-revolutionary Petrograd in 1920. For his PhD thesis, Sevir Borisovich chose one of Turaev's topics, which is also located at the intersection of Ethiopian philology

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and ethnography. "Ethiopian magic scrolls (experience of philological and ethnographic research)" was the title of his PhD thesis, which he successfully defended in 1974. Two genres of medieval Ethiopian literature - the royal chronicles (more broadly, works of local historiography in general) and the lives of saints - were particularly interesting to S. B. Chernetsov, not only because they were given considerable attention by B. A. Turaev, but primarily as a basis for recreating the course of Ethiopian history and understanding the essence of the processes that took place in the Middle Ages in the African The horn. 10 years later, he defended his doctoral dissertation "The Ethiopian feudal monarchy in the XIII-XVI centuries." based on the already published monograph with the same name (Moscow, 1982).

Since 1991, he has also taught the Geez language at the Faculty of Oriental Studies. "Sevir Chernetsov united such diverse people around him, of course, not only by his excellent knowledge of the Geez texts and the ability to apply them in dealing with complex problems of ethnic and political history, but also by his personal qualities: openness to communication, wit, generosity of soul...", full of deep sadness and love for his Teacher, accurately expressing the attitude towards his Teacher and his other students (Forum, vol. 2, St. Petersburg, 2004). His Amharic colleague G. A. Balashova tells how students who came to Sevir Borisovich's classes for the first time remember his serious and insightful question: "Why did you come here, what do you want - to have or to be?" Some of them looked away in embarrassment and said,"Yes." "Well, then you'll have to find another place, you won't have anything here." To those who answered "to be", he treated quite differently, caring, took care of them in every possible way, gave additional literature, followed their progress.

Now we can talk about the scientific school of S. B. Chernetsov in Ethiopian studies, among his students - S. A. Frantsuzov, D. A. Nosnitsyn, A.V. Sharova. A true patriot, he did everything he could, not wanting to put up with the decline of Russian science, painfully experienced the non - return of his beloved student Denis Nosnitsyn from Germany, realizing, however, that it is difficult to wish for a better assistant to Hamburg Professor Siegbert Ulich in preparing the largest project in the field of Ethiopian studies in recent decades - Encyclopaedia aethiopica.

An important milestone in Chernetsov's work was his research on the origin of the Amharic at the intersection of socio-political history and ethnography. The rise of ethnocentrism in Ethiopia after 1991 turned this issue from an academic one to a political one, which led him to revisit it.

His final work on the Ethiopian Middle Ages, Tribe and State in the Horn of Africa, was completed several years ago and is awaiting publication. A large work "The History of the Ethiopian Script" (co-authored with V. M. Platonov and S. A. Frantsuzov) is almost ready for publication. In the 1990s, he was a member of the International Editorial Board of the Journal of Ethiopian Studies of the University of Addis Ababa. In recent years, S. B. Chernetsov was also a member of the editorial board of the Encyclopaedia Aethiopica (Hamburg), where he published a huge number of articles, and the editorial board of the journal "Christian East", collaborated with the "Orthodox Encyclopedia", for which, being a convinced atheist, he wrote dozens of articles on various sections of Ethiopian studies. He put a lot of effort into reviving the journal "Christian East", the first volume of which was published in 1999.S. B. Chernetsov wrote more than a hundred works in various fields of Ethiopian studies: monographs, articles, reports on Ethiopian philology, history, linguistics and ethnography.

S. B. Chernetsov devoted a lot of time and effort to the Ethiopian collections of the Kunstkamera, especially after the transformation of this institution from an institute to a museum. He described the collection of Ethiopian paintings stored there and made a brilliant report on this topic at the Academic Council of the MAE RAS, illustrating it with authentic paintings and drawings. His works will serve more than one generation of researchers, not only Ethiopians, but also various specialists in the field of studying the Christian East.

The passing away of such a great scientist is a great loss for science. But for people who knew him, this is also the loss of a kind, decent, intelligent person.

ETHIOPIANS, COLLEAGUES AND FRIENDS

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MAIN SCIENTIFIC WORKS OF S. B. CHERNETSOV*

Glagol'nye analiticheskie konstruktsii v sovremennom amharskom yazyke [Verbal analytical constructions in the modern Amharic language]. Proceedings of the Institute of Ethnography. N IX. L., 1972.

The life of Yafkeran Egzie / / Theological works. Sat. 10. Moscow, 1972. pp. 225-251 (without specifying the name of the translator).

Who are the Amhara? Experience of historical review of the term and its content // Etnicheskaya istoriya Afrika [Ethnic History of Africa], Moscow, 1977, pp. 18-45.

Some assumptions about the reasons for the origin of the Ethiopian version of "Glory of the Kings" / / Ethiopian Studies. Istoriya i kul'tura [History and Culture], Moscow, 1981, pp. 26-31.

Ethiopian feudal Monarchy in the XIII-XVI centuries, Moscow, 1982, 309 p.

Ethiopia: ethnopolitical situation (40-70th years) / / Yearbook "Races and Peoples", Moscow, 1983. pp. 116-138.

Introduction and closing, translated from the Ethiopian. and a comment. // Ethiopian chronicles of the XVI-XVII centuries, Moscow, 1984, 390 p.

Ethiopian Literature / / History of World Literature, vol. IV-VI, Moscow, 1987-1991, pp. 180-197.

The Ethiopian handwritten Book / / The handwritten Book in the culture of the peoples of the East, Moscow, 1987 (together with V. M. Platonov), pp. 91-99.

Medieval Ethiopian Historiographers and their Method // Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of Ethiopian Studies. Moscow, 26 - 29 August 1986. Moscow, 1988. P. 191 - 200.

Enter. and zakl., translated from geez and comment. // Ethiopian chronicles of the XVII-XVIII centuries, Moscow, 1989, 318 p.

Ethiopian feudal Monarchy in the 17th century, Moscow, 1990, 325 p.

Translated from geez, introduction, comment. and afterwords // Ethiopian chronicles of the XVIII century, Moscow, 1991, 358 p.

On the Origins of the Amhara // St. Petersburg Journal of African Studies. Vol. 1. 1993. P. 97 - 103.

On the Problem of the Ethnogenesis of the Amhara // Der Sudan in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart (Sudan Past and Present) S. 1.: Europaischer Verlag der Wissenschaft. 1995. P. 17 - 35.

Research in the field of archaeological sources of the history of Ethiopia after B. A. Turaev / / Kunstkamera. Issue 10, St. Petersburg, 1996.

Ethiopian traditional painting (based on the materials of the Kunstkamera collections) / / Kunstkamera. Ethnographic notebooks. Issue 11, St. Petersburg, 1997, pp. 277-298.

Ethiopian Traditional Painting: On the Materials of Collection of Peter the Great Kinstkammer // St. Petersburg Journal of African Studies. Vol. 6. 1997. C. 128 - 155.

The Aerial Flight of Alexander the Great in Ethiopian Painting and Literature // Oriens Christianis. Hefte fur die Kunde des Cristlichen Oriens. Bd. 83. Hamburg, 1999. P. 177 - 186.

Orthodox Encyclopedia. Under the general editorship of Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia. Vol. 1. Moscow, 2000 (29 articles).

Jihad of the XVI-XVII centuries in the fate of Muslim statehood in the Horn of Africa / / Readings in Memory of D. A. Olderogge. Chelovek v sotsiokul'turnom i politicheskom prostranstve [Man in Socio-cultural and Political Space], vol. 2, Moscow, 2001, pp. 156-161.

From the history of Russian Ethiopian studies (short biographies). Boris Aleksandrovich Turaev (1868-1920) / / Manifestatsiya, SPb., 2002. N11. pp. 25-28.

Encyclopaedia Aethiopica. Ed. by Siegbert Uhlig. Harrassowitz Verlag. Wiesbaden. Vol. I. A-C. 2003 (40 articles).

Ethiopia in the first sixteen centuries AD. St. Petersburg: MAE RAS, 2004, 216 p. (in Russian)

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