瓦伦丁·亚宁1929—2020

生平

1929年生于维亚特卡，在家族悲剧的阴影中长大。外公在1937年的大清洗中被捕，次年死于莫尔多瓦劳改营。父亲本来也上了枪决名单，最终逃过一劫，幸免遇难。第二次世界大战前，他对钱币学产生了浓厚兴趣。1946年以优异成绩毕业后免试进入莫斯科国立大学历史系学习，师从考古学家阿尔捷米·阿尔齐霍夫斯基，1951年本科毕业后留校深造，1954年以论文《中世纪罗斯货币体系》获历史学副博士学位，此后留系担任初级研究员。1962年，他带领团队对大诺夫哥罗德考古遗址进行了发掘，所获极丰。1963年获全博士学位。1964年晋升教授。1966年当选苏联科学院历史学部通讯院士。1970年获苏联国家奖。1978年至2016年，担任莫斯科国立大学考古系主任。1984年获列宁奖。1990年当选苏联科学院院士。1996年获俄罗斯联邦国家奖。1999年获罗蒙诺索夫金质奖章。2010年获亚历山大·索尔仁尼琴文学奖。

2020年2月2日在莫斯科去世。

学术成果

亚宁早期主要研究古罗斯钱币学。1962年后主要从事对中世纪诺夫哥罗德共和国货币体系和民主制度的研究。他的博士论文明确证明了俄国人祖上也曾民主过：在基辅罗斯被莫斯科大公国吞并之前，甚至在向金帐汗国称臣的时代，诺夫哥罗德的市长一直是通过民主选举的方式产生的。同时，亚宁也在中世纪桦皮书简、宗谱学和纹章学等研究领域颇有建树。

Valentin Lavrentievich Yanin (Russian: Валентин Лаврентьевич Янин; 6 February 1929 – 2 February 2020) was a leading Russian historian who authored 700 books and articles. He had also edited a number of important journals and primary sources, including works on medieval Russian law, sphragistics and epigraphy, archaeology and history. His expertise was medieval Rus' especially Novgorod the Great, where he had headed archaeological digs beginning in 1962.

Early life

Yanin was born in Vyatka. His maternal grandparents were arrested in 1937 and died in a prison camp in 1938. His father was apparently on a list to be executed but escaped this fate and moved with his family to Moscow. Yanin finished his secondary education in 1946, graduating with a Gold Medal; he matriculated at Moscow State University in 1951.

Research

In 1954, he defended his Kandidat thesis on the monetary systems of pre-Mongol Rus. This was published as The Monetary and Weight Systems of Medieval Russia ("Денежно-весовые системы русского средневековья") and has become a classic. His doctoral thesis on the posadniks of Novgorod followed in 1962 and significantly changed our understanding of the constitution of the Novgorod Republic. The book demonstrated that the office of posadnik, while subject to election every year, was often held by one man for several consecutive years, sometimes more than a decade, and then passed on to his sons or other members of his clan. It shattered the earlier image of Novgorod as a more democratic republic and showed it to be ruled by a boyar aristocracy (not unlike other medieval republics).

Yanin's monograph about the seals of Ancient Rus (2 volumes, 1970) summed up half a century of Soviet sphragistics research. After that, Yanin turned his attention to the birch bark documents of Novgorod, on which he was considered the greatest living authority (alongside Andrey Zaliznyak).

Honours and positions

In 1964, Yanin became professor in the department of archaeology in the Faculty of History at Moscow State University.

Since 1978, Yanin had held the chair in archaeology at the Moscow University.

He was a member of the President's Committee for the Defence of the Material Culture of the Russian Federation and a member of the Consultative Committee of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation.

In 1962, he was elected a corresponding member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences; he became a full academician in 1990. In 1999, he became the first historian to be awarded the Lomonosov Gold Medal.

• His other awards included:
• Order of Merit for the Fatherland 4th class
• Order of Lenin
• Order of the Red Banner of Labour
• Order of Friendship of Peoples
• Medal "Veteran of Labour"
• USSR State Prize (1970)
• Lenin Prize (1984)
• Demidov Prize (1993)
• State Prize of the Russian Federation (1996)

Yaroslav the Wise Medal of the first degree of Yaroslav-the-Wise Novgorod State University

Triumph Prize (2002)

Solzhenitsyn Prize (2010).

He was an honorary citizen of Novgorod the Great and an honorary member of the Novgorodian Society of Lovers of Antiquities. He died in Moscow on 2 February 2020 at the age of 90.