Grigory Grigoryevich Kotovsky, a remarkable man, scientist, and organizer of science, passed away on October 24, 2001. For everyone who has come into contact with him in one way or another, this is an irreparable loss.

G. G. Kotovsky was born in 1923 in the family of the famous Civil War hero G. I. Kotovsky. At the age of 18, he volunteered for the Great Patriotic War, was in the active army from April to July 1942. On the Sevastopol sector of the front, he was wounded, captured in the Crimea and imprisoned in a German concentration camp in Norway. After his release from captivity, he passed the Soviet "filtration camp". At the end of the war, he was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War of the First degree. He entered the History Department of Moscow State University, where he began studying India. He graduated from the University in 1949. Candidate of Historical Sciences in 1952.

He worked at the Institute of Oriental Studies since 1953. He first visited India in the mid-1950s.

Grigory Grigoryevich's scientific activity was very multifaceted, but the main focus of his research was the problems of socio-economic development of India and research on the new and modern history of the South Asian country. G. G. Kotovsky made a considerable contribution to the study of agricultural relations in Hindustan. The works of the scientist are characterized by a comprehensive analysis of socio-economic, political and cultural processes, aimed at building a model of the interaction of these parameters and identifying the correlation between economic progress, domestic and foreign policy development and the impact of the civilizational factor. His approaches were also characterized by the assessment of geo-economic and environmental factors.

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geopolitical interests of India, identifying endogenous and exogenous factors that contribute to or limit the realization of these interests. At the same time, G. G. Kotovsky presented the results of his fundamental research succinctly and at the same time lapidarily. He didn't shy away from the popular science form. Its part "Modern India" in the book " History of India. A short essay "(M. 1973), written jointly with other outstanding indologists - G. M. Bongard-Levin and K. A. Antonova, is still a reference for Russian indology. In total, G. G. Kotovsky wrote more than 170 scientific papers ^* .

Some "hindrance" to the scientific activity of G. G. Kotovsky to a certain extent was the huge volume of his scientific, organizational and" international " work, to which he had to devote most of his time. He was a foreign member of the All India Association of Agricultural Economists, a member of the Executive Committee of the World Federation of Scientists, and a member of the Executive Committee of the International Association of Economic History.

G. G. Kotovsky - winner of the J. R. R. Tolkien Prize. Nehru. He met with almost all the leaders of independent India, with major scientists, politicians, public figures and journalists, and was well known in the scientific and public circles of India.

Being in 1970-1980 the head of the Department of India and South Asia of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences, G. G. Kotovsky was essentially the organizer of all Russian indological science. Centralization, which was so characteristic of the Soviet period, naturally affected the whole of Oriental studies, but nowhere, probably, was it more noticeable than in Indology. Apart from the Institute of Oriental Studies, a small number of indologists worked only at the Institute of Asian and African Studies at Moscow State University (under the leadership of the remarkable orientalist V. I. Pavlov) and in the Leningrad branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Academy of Sciences. G. G. Kotovsky, having such qualities as contact, efficiency, broad erudition and high authority, perfectly coped with the problems of coordinating the work of indologists from various institutes of the Academy of Sciences, Moscow State University and MGIMO, which made it possible to significantly improve the quality of theoretical and practical work.

The management of domestic indology was a very difficult task. It was necessary to take into account both the circumstances related to the fact that Oriental studies as a scientific discipline initially differs from other social sciences in their complex nature (the study of traditionalist societies requires a combination of general theoretical disciplines and country studies, taking into account the socio-historical experience of societies in shaping economic and political behavior), and the originally high importance of indology Probably, it is not by chance that the Department of India and South Asia produced major Russian scientists-Orientalists-L. I. Reisner, A. I. Levkovsky and G. K. Shirokov, as well as well-known specialists-L. B. Alaev, K. Z. Ashrafyan, E. N. Komarov, V. G. Rastiannikov, A. I. Chicherov and many others. It is extremely difficult to manage talents, and we must pay tribute to G. G. Kotovsky, who was able to achieve an atmosphere of universal camaraderie and collective aspiration to new intellectual heights in the department.

In the 1990s, during the crisis that engulfed science and the country as a whole, G. G. Kotovsky played a major role in restoring economic ties between Russia and India. As deputy head of the Russian-Indian Commission for Cooperation in the field of Social Sciences, G. G. Kotovsky did his best to maintain these relations at a high level by the end of the millennium, involving third countries in cooperation, often not only receiving no help, but also meeting resistance from short-sighted leaders and limited politicians. Over the past 10 years, Grigory Grigorievich has managed to organize numerous international conferences, seminars and round tables, which were attended not only by representatives of academic circles from Russia and India, but also by political and public figures from different countries. Cooperation with colleagues from India and other countries in scientific and organizational terms has largely contributed to the fact that indology in Russia still retains its traditionally high status.

The practical work of G. G. Kotovsky was also important. He always understood that without a close connection with government agencies-

^* The main scientific works of G. G. Kotovsky for 1951-1991, see: Vostok (Oriens). 1993, N 6. Pp. 208-211.

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the birth of the ideas of domestic indologists will not be able to be implemented. Under his leadership, scientists developed special recommendations for various structures of executive and legislative power, based on new ideas and approaches. Scientific and applied works of indologists (analytical, scientific and informational and initiative notes and references), which gave an objective analysis of what was happening, made it possible to formulate specific recommendations on foreign policy, socio-economic, political, cultural and ideological, information and other areas of activity of practical organizations that contributed to the development of new concepts in the field of foreign policy and national security. security issues.

One should also note the teaching activity of G. G. Kotovsky, who for a long time worked closely with the Institute of Asian and African Countries at Moscow State University. Even in the Soviet period, the scientist was fully aware of the need to involve academic staff in the educational process in the country. The close connection of Oriental scientists with Moscow State University created an atmosphere of profound erudition and scientific intelligence for Indology students, thereby contributing to the replenishment of the USSR Academy of Sciences with new young personnel.

"You can't see a face face to face, you can see a big one from a distance," the poet wrote. The people who worked side by side with G. G. Kotovsky only now began to realize who they had lost. Those who first saw Grigory Grigoryevich on a television screen - during the first Moscow - Delhi teleconference-immediately understood who was the center of this event.

Perhaps it is deeply symbolic that Grigory Grigoryevich passed away on the territory of the Indian Embassy in Moscow: in a place where Russia and India, the countries for which he lived and worked, most closely touch.

colleagues

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