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Academician Valery Tishkov was bestowen the Demidov Award - 2018

Academician Valery Tishkov was bestowen the Demidov Award - 2018

08 February 2019

The winners of the Demidov Award - 2018 were awarded at the residence of the governor of the Sverdlovsk region on February 6. Among the award recipients are Academician Valery Tishkov (for outstanding contributions to the study of the history and ethnography of the peoples of Russia and the development of ethnographic monitoring methods), Academician Valery Kozlov (for outstanding contributions to the theory of dynamic systems) and Academician Vladimir Minkin (for outstanding contributions to the development of physical, organic and quantum chemistry).

The Demidov Award was established by the Ural industrialist Pavel Demidov in 1832. Demidov bequeathed to present the award from his savings throughout his life and another 25 years after his death. The will was fulfilled and after 25 years, in 1866, the award ceased to exist. The award was revived at the initiative of Academician Gennady Mesyaz in 1993, and it celebrates outstanding figures of Russian science for the 26th year. The winners are determined by the scientists themselves - by people who can objectively evaluate the scientific achievements of the candidates.

Each Demidov Award winner receives a silver medal with the image of Pavel Demidov in a malachite box and a money prize of one million rubles. The laureates read public lectures at the Ural Federal University before the official awards ceremony. Then a solemn award ceremony takes place in the residence of the governor of the Sverdlovsk region.

The Demidov Award is the most authoritative non-governmental scientific prize in Russia. That is the award that became the Nobel Award prototype.

One of the winners of the Award 2018 is Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, Scientific Director of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology named after N.N.Miklukho-Maklay of the Russian Academy of Sciences, member of the Presidium of the RGS Academic Council, Chairman of the RGS Ethnographic Commission Valery Aleksandrovich Tishkov.

Valery Aleksandrovich is a famous Russian historian and ethnologist, an expert in the field of history and ethnography of the peoples of Russia, historiography of the countries of North America, Aboriginal peoples and cultures, the theory of ethnicity, problems of nationalism and conflict, national policy in Russia and foreign countries. Valery Tishkov is the founder and leader of the national scientific school of interpretive sociocultural anthropology. He is an author of more than 400 scientific papers. Under his editorship and author's participation were published about 40 books, including the fundamental historical and ethnographic encyclopedias "Peoples of Russia" and "Peoples and Religions of the World", as well as the 35-volume series of historical and ethnographic works "Peoples and Cultures".

Valery Tishkov has been the Ethnographic Commission of the Russian Geographical Society Chairman since its revival in 2013. The commission is engaged in publishing, organization of ethnographic festivals, and various educational and museum projects.

"I am immensely pleased with the decision of the foundation to award me a prize. I was born in the Urals, in the small town of Nizhnye Sergi. It is 90 km from Yekaterinburg. There is the plant of the Ural dynasty of industrialists Demidov and my roots are there, my parents and many relatives are buried there. Parents were school teachers, and all the best school graduates, who received gold medals, always were admitted at the Ural Polytechnic Institute. But I ventured and went to the History Department at the Moscow State University. I graduated, and since then my life is connected with the humanities, history, later more with ethnology and sociocultural anthropology. Therefore, for me, the Demidov Award means a connection with my homeland, with the Urals, that I love immensely", - Valery Tishkov said.

Congratulations to Valery Alexandrovich Tishkov on receiving the award!