On August 22, 2007, SHIRAB BODIEVICH CHIMITDORZHIEV, Doctor of Historical Sciences, professor, a well-known Russian orientalist who made a significant contribution to the study of the history and culture of Mongolia and the Mongolian peoples, turned 80. He is an academician of the Petrovsky Academy of Sciences and Arts, Honorary President-Academician of the International Academy of Nomadic Civilizations, Honorary Doctor of the Institute of History of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences. Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Buryatia. Sh. B. Chimitdorzhiev was born in the village of Kizhinga in the Kizhinga aimag of Buryat Mongolia. He graduated from the Kizhinga Secondary School, then took a one-year course in mathematics teacher training under the Ministry of Education of the Buryat-Mongolian ASSR. In 1947, he entered Leningrad State University at the Mongol-Tibetan Department of the Faculty of Oriental Studies. He graduated from the university with a degree in Oriental history. In 1952-1955, he worked in the office of the Buryat-Mongolian Regional Party Committee as a translator of Marxist and political literature, and as an instructor in the propaganda and agitation Department. In 1955, he entered postgraduate studies at the Department of History of the Far East Countries of Leningrad University, where he graduated with a thesis for the degree of Candidate of Historical Sciences. He worked in 1959-1964 at the Tomsk State University, in 1964-1973 at the Buryat Pedagogical Institute, at the Departments of General History and History of Eastern countries. In these universities, he taught the history of the countries of the foreign East, conducted special courses and special seminars on the problems of the East. Since 1973, Sh. B. Chimitdorzhiev worked in the Buryat branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences: he headed the sector of Mongolian studies and the Department of Oriental Studies of the Buryat Institute of Social Sciences. Currently, he i ... Read more