February 28, 2009 marks the 75th anniversary of Vladilen Ivanovich Gusarov, Doctor of Geographical Sciences, a well-known Russian Arabist and Africanist, who has made and is making a significant contribution to the study of various economic, geographical and socio-political problems of the Afro-Arab region.

V. I. Gusarov was born in Irkutsk. In 1957 he graduated from the Moscow State Economic Institute. In 1957-1967, he worked in the State Committee for Foreign Economic Relations (SCEC), where he dealt with issues of providing economic assistance to Arab and African countries. He constantly combined his extensive practical work with understanding the problems of economic cooperation from a theoretical perspective, accumulating his observations and summarizing the collected materials. In January 1959, he published his first scientific article, which marked the beginning of an active creative activity that lasted for more than half a century.

In 1966, while working as an expert of the SCEC, he completed his correspondence postgraduate studies at the Institute of Economics of the World Socialist System and defended his dissertation on the topic "Economic relations of Arab countries with the world Socialist system (on the example of Iraq and Yemen)" for the degree of Candidate of Economic Sciences. In 1967, he went to work as a researcher at the Conjuncture Research Institute MW OF THE USSR. It is from this moment on, having got rid of bureaucratic overloads, that he sharply activates his scientific activities. Until the early 1970s, the problems of his publications remained the same: the economy of Arab countries and economic cooperation with them of the USSR and other socialist countries.

Since 1970, he has been working at the Institute of Africa of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The scope of his research and research interests are constantly expanding due to works on the history of Arab and African countries. In 1972, in collaboration with A. G. Grigorieva, he published a book of essays on travel in the Arab countries "Legends and were of the Arab East", a positive review of which was published in Lebanon.

In the future, it becomes a tradition for V. I. Gusarov's work to summarize what he saw in a particular country and painstakingly collected on-site scientific and statistical materials into a single whole, whether it is a monograph or a series of articles. They combine deep scientific analysis with eye-witness observations that illustrate and confirm the results of this analysis and the conclusions drawn from it. This was the case after trips to YAR (1963-1964), NDRI (1972-1073), Tunis (1968, 1971, 1975) and other countries.

In 1976-1977, he was on a business trip to Sudan, where he worked as director of the Soviet Cultural Center in Khartoum and first secretary of the USSR Embassy. Despite his extensive operational work to develop and strengthen the friendship between the Soviet and Sudanese peoples, he found time to collect original primary materials and participated in meetings of the National Council for Economic and Social Research of the Sudan. Later, on the basis of materials collected in the field, he wrote two fundamental monographs " Socio-economic development of Sudan (actual problems) "(Moscow, 1983) and" Soviet-Sudanese friendship in the mid-70s: between the desired and reality " (Moscow, 2000).

In the early 1980s, the first theoretical publications appeared in the works of V. I. Gusarov, and in the late 1980s-the first works on sociology in relation to Afro-Arab reality. In 1991, he traveled to the United States to attend the 34th Conference of the Association for African Studies with the report " Evolution of Social Structures in Africa: Progress or Regression?" and takes an active part in it.

In 1995, V. I. Gusarov defended his dissertation "The Arab World: Economic Development in the 60s-90s and Interregional differences" at St. Petersburg State University for the degree of Doctor of Geographical Sciences. Since that time, a significant place in his work has been occupied by publications on geographical and environmental topics. But they do not displace from his creative spectrum works on economics, sociology, history, many of which are highly appreciated by reviewers. For example, the guide of the Russian Geographical Society-

The Russian Society, of which V. I. Gusarov has been a member since 1969, positively evaluated his monograph "Recolonization of Africa: danger or Salvation?" (Moscow, 1999) for its innovation and sharp formulation of the question.

Since the mid-1990s, among the works of V. I. Gusarov, publications on topics related to the activities of General M. D. Skobelev have been distinguished. As a vice-president of the Skobelevsky Committee, elected to this public post in 1995, he prepared a number of works. The largest of them was his fundamental monograph " General M. D. Skobelev. Legendary Glory and unfulfilled hopes" (Moscow, 2003), which provoked a wide positive response from the Russian reading public and was translated into Bulgarian. Works about M. D. Skobelev - a Russian commander, a symbol of the greatness of Russia, belong in their genre, of course, to historical ones.

V. I. Gusarov is the author of about 400 works published in Russia, in the countries of near and far abroad, the author and co-author of more than 30 monographs and brochures*.

V. I. Gusarov is a participant of many international and domestic congresses and conferences on a wide variety of topics from economic geography to literary studies.

For his scientific, journalistic and public activities, he was repeatedly awarded. In particular, he is a laureate of the European Leonardo da Vinci Medal "For Outstanding Services to Peoples "(2006), the UN Order of Unity (2007), the honorary medal of the Russian Noble Assembly II degree "For many years of fruitful work in the field of studying the military history of the Russian state, for services to establishing respect for the Russian Federation in society history, to outstanding state and military figures of Russia, for the establishment of traditional Russian spiritual and moral values in modern society "(2009), medal of the Holy Brothers Cyril and Methodius of the Slavic Foundation of Russia "For a great contribution to the preservation of the Slavic cultural heritage and in connection with the 75th Anniversary" (2009).

Colleagues and friends of V. I. Gusarov, employees of the magazine "Vostok (Oriens)" they wish the hero of the day good health and further creative achievements.

* For the main scientific works of V. I. Gusarov, see: East (Oriens). 1994. N 5. pp. 230-232; 2004. N 4. pp. 210-212.

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