Pyotr Mikhailovich Shastitko had many friends and was a friend of many. His amazing friendliness, constant gaiety, and openness attracted everyone he met to him. Pyotr Mikhailovich joined the Institute of Oriental Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences as a post-graduate student in 1954 and worked here all his life. In 1956, the institute accepted into its (very cramped at that time) walls a whole "cohort" of young, mostly capable, cheerful, ambitious children who were in their early 20s. Compared to the older generation, with their teachers, they were not yet "flogged" by this regime. The Institute of that time can be called a "reserve of unafraid youths". P. M. Shastitko lived in the thick of the institute's events for more than half a century. He, a participant in the Great Patriotic War, was about 10 years older than that young growth and belonged to a different generation. But young at heart, an inventor, an entertainer", who did not want to be only a "member of the team". He played a great role in creating the creative atmosphere of the Institute, and in particular the Department of India, in those years.

Despite all the apparent frivolity, Shastitko has always been a man of firm convictions and defended an active civic position.

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Pyotr Mikhailovich's post-graduate thesis related to the Sepoy Uprising did not become a dissertation, as he was expelled from graduate school on political charges. Having deeply experienced the exposure of Stalin's personality cult at the XX Congress of the CPSU, he realized that the problem was not Stalin, but the totalitarian regime in general, and spoke at the party meeting with criticism of Khrushchev himself and with proposals for the democratization of the Soviets. This episode was included in the report of the heads of two departments of the Central Committee of the CPSU V. Churov and G. Drozdov "on the anti-party statements of Mordvinov and Shastitko". The note was discussed at the very top (the document contains the visas of the Central Committee secretaries D. T. Shepilov, P. N. Pospelov, M. A. Suslov, L. I. Brezhnev, V. B. Belyaev, A. B. Aristov and E. A. Furtseva), and the leaders agreed with the opinion of Churov and Drozdov that "the anti-party attacks of Mordvinov and Shastitko should be debunked.""and resolve the issue of their partisanship (Otechestvennaya istoriya. 1998. N 4. P. 119). The press did not pass by this "anti-party" act and firmly "hit" the renegades (Party Life. 1956. N 6. p. 19-20). N. S. Khrushchev many years later could not forget the insults, as evidenced by his memoirs.

Criticism of the policy of the CPSU at the party meeting was, of course, the height of naivety. But that was how he was - from youth to maturity, a loyal soldier of the party, as they said at the time. But the epiphany process was developing. True democratic beliefs were gradually formed. When Pyotr Mikhailovich became a prominent figure in the Institute, he played another important role - a link between the institute's staff and the advanced Moscow public. On his initiative, the Institute held "Thursdays", to which members of the editorial board of Novy Mir, the head of the Moscow Drama and Comedy Theater on Taganka Yu. P. Lyubimov, A. I. Solzhenitsyn, E. A. Yevtushenko and others were invited. As for Solzhenitsyn, at that time he was already in disgrace, he was not allowed to speak anywhere, and his evening in the institute hall (he talked about the harassment organized against him, and read chapters from the Cancer Corps) was the last appearance in public before being expelled from the country.

By the beginning of Perestroika, Pyotr Mikhailovich became quite clear that the so-called socialist system and the Soviet Union as a conglomerate of peoples, held together only by force, could not be preserved. And he did not consider it necessary to hide this position. After the famous events in Vilnius, when the troops were shooting at the people, Pyotr Mikhailovich wrote a letter to his former graduate student Romualdas Neimantas, expressing solidarity with the Lithuanian people. Neimantas responded with a postcard with a very heartfelt text. And relatively recently, Pyotr Mikhailovich wrote a letter to Mikhail Khodorkovsky in prison in Krasnokamensk. And I got an answer. In recent years, Pyotr Mikhailovich often spoke in the press, responding to topical topics.

Let's return to the academic career of Peter Shastitko. Work on his dissertation became impossible after his exclusion from graduate school. But ten years later, the materials collected at that time were issued in the book " Nana Sahib. (A story about the popular uprising of 1857-1859 in India) " (1967). It is easy to read and gives a complete picture of the events of the mid-19th century. It is a pity that many other bright pages of Indian history have not become the subject of such detailed studies.

Another vivid episode attracted the attention of Pyotr Mikhailovich. Small book " Talvar raises the flag. The story of the Bombay Sailors ' Revolt in 1946 "(1982), written by him together with V. V. Vykhukholev, unfortunately went unnoticed. I regret that this event was significantly mythologized in Soviet works, and the pamphlet could have overcome this myth. But the story of real events did not fit the concept of the growing "revolutionary situation" in India, and the book was not noticed.

Pyotr Mikhailovich received his PhD for the book " One Hundred Years of Disenfranchisement (The Situation of Indians in the Union of South Africa. 1860-1960)" (1963). It was conceived as the first part of a fundamental monograph on the personality and activities of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. It is known that M. K. Gandhi began his political activity in South Africa, giving the struggle for the equality of Indians who lived there not only a new scope, but also new forms that had never been seen in political practice before. Then Pyotr Mikhailovich intended to thoroughly cover the next stages of the Gandhian movement. But the fate of the Indians in South Africa itself interested him, and he traced it back to the last (for that time) years. This is no longer a story about a certain event, but an analysis of the entire process of combating apartheid over a hundred years. It seems that this topic was not subsequently continued in Russian science.

Among the historical works of Pyotr Mikhailovich, one should also mention the popular book " Let not hope deceive!.." The Life and Struggle of Jawaharlal Nehru " (1990) (co-author A. G. Volodin). A lot has been written about Nehru in our country and in different genres. I will not compare it with others-

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However, I will only say that this is a very good book, giving a vivid picture of the life of an outstanding person, devoid of lisp, but at the same time imbued with respect for him. The book was published in Politizdat in a huge circulation and sold instantly.

The above-mentioned works represent one of the directions of P. M. Shastitko's creative work - the historical one itself. The second direction can be called theoretical: the national question and Lenin's approaches to it, as well as those of his successors. This topic was so politicized in Soviet times that the scientific approach to it seemed to be completely excluded. However, Shastitko's book "Lenin's Theory of the National-Colonial Question (History of Formation)" showed the actual history of the formation of a complex of ideas based on the study of documents, against the background of the events of the first decades of the XX century, with a clear presentation of not only Lenin's views, but also the theses of his opponents, the European social Democrats, which at that time as "social traitors", and an objective presentation of their views was considered superfluous. This may explain why the book proved to be in demand and was already published in the second, expanded and revised edition during the Perestroika period (1988).

P. M. Shastitko's second book on the national question ("Doomed Dogmas: Bolshevism and the National Question" (2002)) serves both as a continuation of the first one and as its negation. It also covers the pre-revolutionary period of the formulation of the Bolshevik national program, but its main focus is on national policy in the Soviet Union. The book contains a lot of new facts, archival and published in open publications, and the figures of the Soviet state received more objective coverage.

The third area of work of P. M. Shastitko is the relations of our country with the countries of the East. When he was appointed head of the Department of Historical and Cultural Relations of the USSR with the countries of the foreign East, he decided to create a series "Russia and the countries of the East". In this series, under his editorship, 10 volumes were published.

Pyotr Mikhailovich introduced a group of young employees to work in the archives, becoming the initiator of the archival direction in the research of the Institute of Oriental Studies. As a result, two volumes of documents "Russian-Indian relations in the XIX century" (1997) and "Russian-Indian relations in 1900-1917" (1999) were published, then translated into English and published in Calcutta. The result of this work was the foundation of the magazine "Eastern Archive" in 1998. P. M. Shastitko was a member of its editorial board.

Finally, the fourth area of research interests of Pyotr Mikhailovich is historiography, the history of our science, and Oriental studies. On his initiative and under his leadership, work was started on the multi-volume "History of Russian Oriental Studies". Only two volumes were published (1990, 1997). Perestroika began, the usual estimates became controversial, and the publication remained incomplete. In addition, Pyotr Mikhailovich himself, I think, was not satisfied with the published volumes. Because they talked about institutions, ideas, and monographs, and least of all about people. And he was most interested in people's fates.

That is why he conceived the idea of publishing collections of essays about individual scientists. A collection dedicated to the first generation of Soviet Orientalists ("A Word about Teachers. Moscow Orientalists of the 30s-60s", 1988), aroused great reader interest. And then he compiled a second book - about colleagues who are closer to us in time "About colleagues and comrades: Moscow Orientalists of the 60-80s", 1994).

For many years, Pyotr Mikhailovich was confined to a wheelchair, but he retained sparkling optimism and enviable efficiency. During his enforced seclusion, he wrote two books and numerous articles. A story about himself in science and about colleagues with whom his fate brought him together is contained in his last book " The Century is Gone: scenes from the history of Russian Oriental Studies "(Moscow, 2009), which he managed to hold in his hands. It is imbued with kindness and humor.

In the memoirs of Pyotr Mikhailovich, there is such a "revealing" phrase: "I belong to the type of people who accept life through communication." He had a talent for loving others and making others fall in love with him.

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