On November 18, 2003, Valery Alexandrovich Subbotin, an international historian and Africanist, Doctor of Historical Sciences, passed away. He was born on February 23, 1927 in Moscow in a family of employees. Until 1941, he lived in Moscow. I met the war as a fourteen-year-old teenager. Like many of his peers, he had to stop studying. He began his career in one of the military medical institutions of the Kalinin Front, where his parents, both doctors, served.

In 1944, V. A. Subbotin graduated from high school in Moscow and entered the Moscow State Institute of International Relations of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1949, after receiving a higher education and majoring in international history, he began working as an editor of the French editorial board of the Radio Broadcasting Committee under the Council of Ministers of the USSR. However, he, a man of outstanding abilities and a pronounced analytical mind, was more attracted to scientific work. In 1949-1952, he was a post-graduate student at the Potemkin Moscow City Pedagogical Institute (Department of Modern History). Under the scientific supervision of Academician A. L. Narochnitsky, he is working on a PhD thesis on "The policy of French imperialism in the Fashoda crisis of 1898". In 1953, he successfully defended his dissertation and went to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk to work at the local pedagogical institute.

Giving lectures, conducting seminars, and taking exams provided the young teacher with invaluable experience. It was there, at the Department of History of the Far Eastern university, through the efforts of himself and Star-

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our colleagues laid the first stones in the foundation of high professionalism, which later always distinguished V. A. Subbotin as a historian and teacher.

After returning to Moscow in 1955, V. A. Subbotin worked at the Research Institute of Labor of the Committee on Labor and Wages of the USSR Council of Ministers as an associate Researcher in the Department of Capitalist Countries. He majored in France. Thus, his long-standing desire was fulfilled - to engage in scientific research on the basis of solid knowledge of the history, economy, and culture of this country obtained at MGIMO.

The work at the Research Institute of Economic Profile was short-lived, but it left a noticeable imprint on the scientific biography of V. A. Subbotin. This was manifested in the researcher's serious attitude to the role of an economic factor, the ability to handle statistical material, and the desire to confirm conclusions with digital calculations. Economic history has always been present in his works, giving them an additional foundation.

In 1956, at the request of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences, the Research Institute of Labor seconded its promising junior researcher "to work in the field of African history". The request wording is succinct and meaningful. In those years, in the country and in the world, Africa was rapidly moving from the realm of yesterday's exoticism to the realm of today's political practice. At the Institute of Oriental Studies, a new type of scientific division was being formed - the Africa Department. By the biography itself, V. A. Subbotin was destined to become one of the first Russian Africanists of the new, post-war formation. After all, by that time he was almost the only" settled " historian of French colonial policy in the vast tropical African region.

The young researcher began to develop in-depth African issues at a crucial moment for Africa. The owners of overseas possessions lost ground one by one. The irrepressible rush of Africans to independence inspired boundless optimism in their souls. To the most far-sighted analysts, and V. A. Subbotin was one of them, however, what was happening did not seem so simple, and in the long run even rosy. Earlier than others, it became clear to him that it was necessary to be able not only to expose colonialism, but also to explain the essence of this phenomenon, to thoroughly understand its roots, features, negative and positive aspects. This, in fact, is what he devoted his long creative life to.

Serious dangers lay in wait for domestic researchers of the colonialist phenomenon. The main one was a revolutionist-Messianic black-and-white vision of problems in the spirit of Stalinist-Comintern dogmas (colonies are the reserve of the world proletarian revolution; national reformism and genuine anti-colonialism are incompatible, etc.). V. A. Subbotin, who belonged to the second generation of Soviet Africanists, was, of course, less constrained in theoretical terms. better than its predecessors. But even he, who entered the scientific path already in the post-comintern era, had to make great efforts to overcome the dogmatics that had taken root in social science. Eventually, he developed into a true connoisseur of colonial and then postcolonial Africa, and became a first-class wide-field Africanist.

He was lucky: already in 1960, the fateful year for the continent, he saw the real Africa with his own eyes. The first trip (to the Congo, just two months after it ceased to be called Belgian) was followed by others - to the Republic of Guinea (twice), Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, the Cape Verde Islands, and Ghana. The first Russian historian of African studies, he worked in the state archives of two French-speaking countries (Guinea and Senegal), introducing layers of important material that served as the basis for subsequent in-depth generalizations. In 1972, he was the first to raise the question of the formation of a colonial society by the beginning of the 20th century in Tropical Africa and on the islands of the Indian Ocean, and characterized its parameters and vectors of evolution.

Two things were peculiar to him. First, he never collected material, especially archival material, at random. Working with sources was always preceded by the most thorough acquaintance with the literature of the issue. The search was accurate, targeted, and therefore effective. The second feature: excellent language training. Its working languages were initially English, French and German, to which Italian, Portuguese and Spanish were added. This allowed him to freely navigate a huge variety of sources and attract material in the main European languages.

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V. A. Subbotin made a significant and versatile contribution to Russian African studies. The half-century intellectual route taken by the scientist was not easy. It appears to us as an intense, constantly complicated multi-level search, as a continuous ascent from the simple to the more complex and complex.

He began as a conscientious international historian with methodological guidelines set in advance in the spirit of the times - with the study of French politics in Africa (Western, then Equatorial and Insular). In the first works, French-speaking African colonies are presented rather as an object of historical research. The focus is on the metropolis, its military and political power, and the diplomatic intricacies of the powers that divided the continent. Then there is a major methodological shift. The countries themselves, the peoples of the continent, their daily lives, the struggle for freedom from colonial oppression, and the associated successes and failures are moving to the fore. Having abandoned outdated ideas, the Africanist begins to push the international expert, who sometimes paid a certain tribute to Eurocentrism.

But V. A. Subbotin is not limited to this. It becomes cramped within the French tropical-African colonial complex. And, having included comparative studies in his scientific tools, he begins a comparative analysis of the French colonial possessions with the Belgian ones. At the next stage, he makes the task even more difficult: now three colonialisms in their African dimension - French, Belgian and British-are involved in the scope of his analysis at once. The older and more experienced a scientist became, the more complex tasks he set for himself. We can say that he made the most of the new opportunities for scientific research that were opened up to domestic historians who were lucky enough to live to the time of Perestroika.

In the 1990s, the scientist replenishes the studied total colonial space with a new story - Portuguese colonialism, which has the greatest "historical experience". Finds out what is common, special, and unique about its development. It attempts to generalize and critically rethink the experience of its predecessors in dealing with the multidimensional relationship between two major historical phenomena: the great geographical discoveries and the colonial expansion of powers outside Europe. Explains in a new way the choice of routes of intercontinental expeditions that have transformed the face of the planet, reveals their psychological climate.

In parallel with the expansion of the thematic range, the methodology of the research process also became more complex. New parameters were defined that would make it possible to highlight the features of a particular colonialism more clearly and visibly. The scientist sought to show European colonialism as if in person, to give a kind of gallery of the most energetic leaders of the colonial seizures and the subsequent consolidation of overseas possessions for the metropolises. The gallery looks impressive: there are French and English, Germans and Belgians, Portuguese.

To crown the whole structure, perhaps, was intended to be a kind of synthesizing work, drawing a global panorama of colonialism in all its aspects, including personal ones, over the past centuries. However, he did not speak directly about this super-task. However, in the last months of his life, he shared with his colleagues his plans for writing a new book - about the peculiarities of Spanish colonialism in the Old and New World. It is likely that he felt the need for a more detailed study of the Iberian colonialist phenomenon as an integral part of the conceived complex system.

It is an astounding project in terms of scale, scientific boldness, and consistency. The scientist managed to implement it only partially. The unfinished part seems to be his testament to future historians of Africa and colonialism.

And another feature of V. A. Subbotin, noticed by his readers: thoroughness of working out the invoice, extremely responsible attitude to the information entered into circulation, dates, and personalities. The description of military equipment, the equipment of armies and fleets, the tactics used by colonizers and colonized-all met the most stringent requirements of historical science. He knew so well the details of shipbuilding and navigation, the peculiarities of various systems of firearms, varieties of gunpowder, that sometimes the question arose: did not an expert in sailing, did not an expert in the history of small arms take up the pen? Not at all. He was just a professional in his field. Behind all this was laborious scrupulousness-

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working with encyclopedias, dictionaries, and reference books. She was never a burden to him, for she had become second nature to this book lover and polyglot. His favorite expression was " giving text." The last word can be considered a key word. For his own text has always been distinguished not only by its logical and stylistic completeness, but also by the thoroughness of its execution technique.

In scientific polemics, a deep knowledge of the factual basis of the text turned it into a formidable opponent. It is usually not easy to argue with a self-convinced expert; it is doubly difficult if he surpasses the opponent in knowledge of facts, events, and so-called "little things". But he knew how to be generous and tolerant - when it came to aspiring authors, graduate students, and foreign colleagues who did not speak enough Russian.

Many people remember V. A. Subbotin as a strict and demanding editor, reviewer, consultant or opponent. But his insistence on others (and he led many author groups and edited and reviewed dozens of manuscripts every year) served as a continuation of his insistence on himself. Those to whom he has managed to impart even a small fraction of his writing or editing skills will honestly say that they are grateful to him for teaching them to write shorter, clearer and more intelligible.

V. A. Subbotin lived a long and bright creative life, and managed to do an amazing lot. During his 76 years, he has published five books, published dozens of articles and sections in collective works, edited hundreds of manuscripts, and delivered lectures and reports in various audiences at home and abroad. He gave a start in life to a number of students, postgraduates, applicants and graduate students from Russia, Africa and other countries who decided to devote themselves to African studies. He always did a lot of public work in the team. All this brought him a well-deserved high authority in the scientific community, as evidenced by his works published at various times in our scientific periodicals, as well as in Germany, England, the Czech Republic, France, China, Portugal, Mozambique. He participated in several international scientific congresses : the VII Congress of Anthropological and Ethnographic Sciences (Moscow, 1964), the VII Congress of Economic History (Budapest, 1982), nine All-Union Russian conferences of Africanists (Moscow, 1969-2002), three editions of the encyclopedic reference book "Africa" (1963-2003), and many others. meetings of Africanists of socialist countries (Moscow, 1974 and 1985; Varna, 1975; Leipzig, 1976). It is impossible to list all the editorial boards to which he was a member - at the Institute of Africa, to which he gave 43 years of his life, other academic institutions, including INION, etc.

With his tremendous work capacity, determination, and energy, he could have done even more. But the strength was undermined by long-standing serious illnesses and everyday adversities. For all that, until the end of his life, he retained kindness of soul, responsiveness, humanity in communicating with colleagues, just acquaintances, or even not at all familiar people. He knew how to find words of encouragement, support, and sympathy for everyone at the right moment. He knew how to empathize.

A talented scientist and a man of rare moral qualities left us. He left us, especially the youngest, a wonderful example in life.

The memory of him will never leave our hearts.

FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES FROM THE INSTITUTE OF AFRICA OF THE RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

MAIN SCIENTIFIC WORKS OF V. A. SUBBOTIN

Colonial aggression of France in tropical and Northeastern Africa on the eve of the Fashoda crisis of 1898 / / Uch. zap. MGPI im. V. P. Potemkin, vol. 58, Issue 3. Moscow, 1956. pp. 175-238.

Colonial policy of France in West Africa (1880-1900). Moscow, 1959, 102 p. The same: Peking, 1960, 106 p. in Chinese.

French colonial expansion in the late 19th century (Equatorial Africa and the islands of the Indian Ocean), Moscow, 1962, 167 p.

Anglo-French clash in Fashoda in 1898 / / Afrikaner sbornik I. Istoriya [History], Moscow, 1963, pp. 143-169.

On the question of land relations in Futa Jallone on the eve of colonization.-

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uka, 1964. Reports. 9 s. The same (in French) in: VII International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnographic Sciences, Moscow. 1964. Vol. 9. 3-10 August 1964, Moscow, 1970. pp. 140-145.

Nekotorye voprosy istorii Afrika [Some Questions of the History of Africa], Collection of Articles, Moscow, 1968. articles "Nomadic and settled population of the Sudanese Sahel in the XIX century" pp. 87-94.

West and Equatorial Africa under French rule; Post-independence period // Recent history of Africa. 2nd ed., ispr. and dop. Moscow, 1968. p. 207 - 234, 244 - 251, 272 - 280, 291 - 293, 298 - 301. Ditto: A History of Africa. 1918-1967. Moscow, 1968. P. 178 - 199, 208 - 213, 231 - 238, 246 - 248, 252 - 256. To же: L'Afrique dans les etudes sovietiques. 1969, Moscow, 1973. P. 128 - 151.

French colonies in 1870-1918 Tropical Africa and Indian Ocean islands. Conquest and colonization. Author's abstract. dissertations for the position of a scientist. step, doctor of Historical Sciences, Moscow, 1972, 36 p.

French colonies in 1870-1918 Tropical Africa and the islands of the Indian Ocean, Moscow, 1973,403 p.

The French-Malagasy Wars. 1883- 1885 // Sovetskaya istoricheskaya entsiklopediya [Soviet Historical Encyclopedia], vol. 15, Moscow, 1974, pp. 264-265.

Armed struggle of the peoples of Africa for Freedom and Independence, Moscow, 1974. Member of the Editorial Board, author of the chapter: The Struggle against imperialist Seizures in Africa and the first anti-colonial uprisings, pp. 77-92; Ditto: Der bewaffnete Kampf der Volker Afrikas fur Freiheit und Unabhangigkeit, V., 1981. pp. 93-108.

Mauritania // The newest history of Arab countries, Part 2, Moscow, 1975, pp. 435-462 (in Arabic, yaz.), together with G. N. Utkin.

The struggle of the West African peoples against the French expansion / / History of the national liberation struggle of the peoples of Africa in the new time. Moscow, 1976. pp. 347-369.

Africa in modern and contemporary times. Collection of Articles, Moscow, 1976. Ed. (co-authored with G. A. Nersesov). Author: Administrative structure of the French colonies at the end of the XIX century (Tropical Africa and the islands of the Indian Ocean). pp. 144-167.

Say afrikanskie istoriki [African Historians Speak], Moscow, 1977 (Collection of articles). Comp., ed. ed. of translations from English and French, auth. afterwords (pp. 142-150).

Problemy kolonializma i stanovleniya anticolonialnykh sil [Problems of colonialism and the formation of anti-colonial forces]. Sb. statei. Moscow, 1979. Otv.red., author of the preface. and the article "The colonialist movement in France and Tropical Africa". pp. 3-5, 35-46.

The Belgian Monarchy and the division of the Congo basin in 1876-1885. History. Historiography. Collection of Articles, Moscow, 1980, pp. 74-86. То же: Colonialism, Neocolonialism and Anti-Imperialist Struggle in Africa // Asia, Africa, Latin America. Special issue 13. V., 1984. P. 26-32.

Istoriya Zaire v novoe i sovremennoe vremya [History of Zaire in modern and Modern Times], Moscow, 1982, 304 p. Ed. volumes, co-author (together with Yu. N. Vinokurov and A. S. Orlova).

Voprosy afrikanskoi istorii [Issues of African History], Collection of Articles, Moscow, 1983. Ed. (together with G. A. Nersesov), ed. Articles: From the history of colonial society in British Tropical Africa (1918-1945), pp. 86-118.

History of Africa in the 19th and early 20th centuries, 2nd ed., reprint. Moscow, 1984. Ed., author's preface (p. 3-12), Introduction to part 1 (p. 13-20); section: Countries of West Africa (p. 74 - 92; 94, 97, 104 - 105); Introduction to part 2 (p. 187 - 193); section: Countries of West Africa (p. 300-323); Countries of West Equatorial Africa (p.339-354).

Berlin Conference 1884 - 1885 // Peoples of Asia and Africa. 1985. N 6. pp. 91-95.

Africa. Encyclopedic reference book in two volumes, Moscow, 1986-1987. Member of the Editorial Board, co-author. articles "New History" of the historical essay (vol. 1, pp. 58-61), articles "African Studies" (ibid., pp. 288-292).

Aspectos historicos do colonialismo // Vida sovietica. - Lisboa, 1988. N 151. P. 50 - 51.

Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Congo (Brazzaville), Ivory Coast, Central African Republic, Chad, Gabon, Guinea (Conakry), Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Togo // History of" Tropical and Southern Africa. 1918-1988. Moscow, 1989. pp. 115-155.

Export of European capital in the context of deepening raw material specialization. English Tropical Africa in modern times / / Africa. Colonialism and anticolonialism (XIX-XX centuries). Collection of articles. Moscow, 1990. pp. 105-153.

Evolution of the control system: English Tropical Africa after the Second World War / / Vostok (Oriens). 1991. N 2. P. 32 ^ 1.

Great Britain and its colonies. Tropical Africa in 1918-1960, Moscow, 1992, 275 p.

Africa. Kolonialnoe obshchestvo i politika [Colonial Society and Politics], Collection of Articles, Moscow, 1993, ed. ed., author's preface (pp. 3-6).

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Christopher Columbus / / Voprosy istorii. 1994. N 5. pp. 57-72.

Vasco da Gama // Questions of history. 1995. N 9. pp. 49-68.

Fernand Magellan // Questions of history. 1997. N 1. P. 64-82.

Great discoveries. Columbus. Vasco da Gama. Magellan, Moscow, 1998, 269 p.

Portuguese expansion in Africa and the discovery of the sea route to India / / Africa through the eyes of contemporaries and historians. Collection of articles. Moscow, 1998. pp. 6-72.

In the service of the Empire. Joseph Simon Gallieni / / Orient (Oriens). 1999. N 2. pp. 92-105.

Proceedings of the VIII Conference of African Studies. Africa and the Past Century, Moscow, 2000. Ed. Introduction "From the editor". pp. 5-7; article "Two campaigns of General Kitchener". pp. 41-49.

Pages of English Imperial History: Kitchener / / Orient (Oriens). 2001. N 2. pp. 105-120.

Colonial troops in the late 18th and early 20th centuries // Questions of history. 2002. N 8. pp. 21-38.

Paul von Lettow-Forbeck: East Africa in 1914-1918 / / Orient (Oriens). 2003. N 1. P. 64-72.

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