Tragically, not just a core employee of the editorial board of the journal "Vestnik Drevnoi Istorii"died. Although that alone would be enough to consider the loss irreparable.

No. The era of the Russian classical historical and philological school of ancient studies has passed away. It is marked by the names of such titans as F. F. Sokolov, V. V. Latyshev, M. I. Rostovtsev, B. N. Grakov. Thanks to Yu. G. Vinogradov, it lasted for 30 years and now covers more than a century and a half. It could have crossed the line (as the deceased emphasized) of the millennium. It didn't work out.

Paradoxically, his entry into the humanities was largely an accident. In his early youth, he was very interested in chemistry. Fate was decided by the unfortunate outcome of one experiment, during which a young experimenter received a slight injury. The doctors who treated his wound were impressed by the fact that during the procedure, he recited the chemical formulas of the medications used by heart.

However, this incident discouraged the student from continuing his career as a chemist. And all the power of systematic thinking and the inherent causticity of applied sciences, he brought down on the study of archeology and ancient Greek philology. However, the first one requires a serious scientist to be able to understand not only chemistry, but also biology, botany, soil science, zoology, climatology, ecology, hydrology, etc. So we were presented with the Vinogradov phenomenon. He was distinguished by a rapid calculation of all imaginable options for interpreting the material, choosing the optimal solution from them, and paying the closest attention to detail.

Thanks to these qualities, he quickly established a reputation as a lucky person. I don't agree. Lucky is the one who does everything necessary to bring good luck. A world genius like Mozart once said: "Talent is talent plus hard work." Both Yu. G. were busy.

We met in October or November (I don't remember exactly) 1970, when I decided, on the advice of my uncle, to take up the study of ancient Greek without delay. The head of the archaeological circle in which I studied at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, I. R. Pichikyan, also found a teacher who agreed to teach me for two and a half a week (one lesson). The baronet, as he put it. I later learned that it was a student nickname. And then (I'll explain why later) I took the title at face value. So the first (D. B. Shelov) and last (Yu. G. Vinogradov) students of B. N. Grakov determined my future for a long time.

For a novice researcher, this was the period of writing a PhD thesis on the classification of Phasos brands, which immediately became a classic, and one of the most popular in the world.

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the first publications are about the famous Chalcedonian psephism. In which he boldly and thoroughly offered his own interpretations, which were soon recognized by the world scientific community. He immediately struck with two qualities that he carried through his entire life - a phenomenal ability to work and a pronounced aristocracy of spirit. The second was manifested not only in a completely irrepressible openness to positive knowledge, but also a willingness, without hesitation, to share their own, most often not yet published, conclusions with everyone who was willing to listen to it.

There is no need to give a systematic review of his scientific activities. Fortunately, in addition to the monograph "Political History of the Olvian Polis" (this topic has always played a special role in his work), he managed to publish a voluminous volume of his small works Pontische Studien. His autobiography is also published above. Sapienti sat. I want to say something more important.

Yu. G. ' s erudition is truly amazing. How many of the living graduates of classical departments have read the works of F. F. Sokolov, N. A. Novosadsky, and other specialists of the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries? And he studied everything. He was equally well versed in the subtleties of epigraphy, numismatics, and archeology. Including such sections of the latter as ceramics (even stucco), fortification, toreutics, architecture, glyptics, metal, weapons and much more. He knew ancient authors very well. Many, like, for example. Scythian logos of Herodotus, literally by heart. And not only those that the profession required to study. Epics, tragedians, lyricists, comediographers, philosophers, rhetoricians, grammarians, geographers... He was quite good at writing Greek in verse and prose. In Russian, too. But more on that later.

As I. R. Pichikyan told me, their common teacher, B. N. Grakov, once, while evaluating his students, remarked: "But Yurochka will be an academician." His prediction came true. Even if not in the way he might have thought. Many foreign academic societies considered it an honor to include Vinogradov in their ranks. But not RAN. Pudeat te.

In his epigraphy, he thrilled with the works of Adolphe Wilhelm and Louis Robert. And above all, he admired not large-scale articles, but tiny essays in which they studied inconspicuous fragments or language facts with jewel-like accuracy, bringing the researcher, thanks to his skill, to a qualitatively new level of understanding of well-studied, or even stamped topics.

In his relations with his colleagues, he was a man of extremes. He highly valued the creative, searching natures, not allowing themselves to rest on their laurels, closely following everything new that appears in science, and integrating it into their own research, constantly expanding their horizons thematically. He reached the point of adoration, when an honest and stubborn scientific search was complicated by the state of information in provincial in the scientific sense centers (A. S. Rusyaeva, V. V. Krapivina), museum (Ya.V. Domansky, N. L. Grach, N. A. Frolova, N. P. Sorokina), administrative (E. D. Frolov, S. D. Kryzhitsky, Yu. V. Andreev) or other non-core (N. S. Belova, I. S. Sventsitskaya) workload, material and domestic difficulties, the need for ideological cover for employees (S. L. Utchenko) or all of these combined (P. O. Karyshkovsky). The opportunity to communicate with such people was very precious to him, he longed for every new meeting with them, lovingly nurtured and cultivated connections. He especially appreciated those who knew something unknown to him. For them, he recklessly and without a trace plowed the placers of his intellectual generosity. He was more pleased with each of their successes than with his own - to the point of exultation. No wonder the circle of genuinely loving friends around the world was indescribably wide.

He was equally irrepressible in his dislike of those who, with their talents, allowed themselves to be lazy, work carelessly, do not follow the discoveries in their field, do not strive for perfection, neglect details, or, as he said, "soar above the crowd" and "broadcast ex cathedra". Or, referring to circumstances, he "betrayed - again his expression-the Titanic truth" (since childhood, the Greek myths arranged by Y. Golosovker sunk into his soul) and turned into a simple craftsman from science. With such people, he sometimes reached the stages of scornful coldness and violent rejection. Since the Soviet Department was poisoned by lead smog, due to his sociability, he came across quite a few, then he had enough enemies and envious people. But enough about them.

However, the list of topics that Yu. G. Vinogradov paid attention to already gives an idea of the cosmic scale of his talent without exaggeration. Starting with the Phasian stamps and emendations of some famous epigraphic monuments, he first focused on publishing the Olvian inscriptions, which became one of the main tasks of his life. Here we should immediately note the correct interpretation of one early graffiti as

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excerpt of a cyclic poem. His special attention has always been drawn to documents that reflect the political history of Olbia and its surrounding areas. At that time, such recognized authorities of the Russian school of Greek epigraphy as A. I. Dovatur, A. I. Boltunova, E. I. Levi, N. S. Belova, E. I. Solomonik, P. O. Karyshkovsky were still working in full force. However, soon the impression of Yu. G. ' s first steps became so pervasively strong that new finds from Chersonesus, the entire Northwestern Black Sea region, Georgia, Central Asia, and the Bosporus were given to him for publication. Thus, the scope of his scientific activity expanded to the extreme limits of the Greek ecumene on the territory of the former USSR.

Throughout his life, Vinogradov was fascinated by the Archaic era, the reflection of the cultural upheaval, the "Greek miracle" on the periphery of the Hellenic world, and the unsolved mysteries of the Greek colonization of the northern coast of the Euxine Pont, Greek-Barbarian interactions. Monographic generalizations based on a thorough study of epigraphic, numismatic, and narrative sources, coupled with a filigree study of the available archaeological material, were not long in coming. Thanks to them, the history of the Northern Black Sea region in the pre-Hellenistic period appeared in a completely new light.

But skeptical of speculative constructions not based on authentic facts, he was never afraid to follow the processed inscriptions to where they led him. It was equally at home among the lapidary heritage, graffiti, brands of various centers and lead plaques. Well-classified official documents and often the most difficult to understand due to the uniqueness of each case of private correspondence. The research of the last class of inscriptions, which was unprecedented in Russian science, opened up the almost unknown world of private life of Hellenism and barbarism of Northern Pontus. In obscure formulas of "minor" epigraphy, he was able to examine and identify evidence-based correlates with information from long-known literary texts-from the Orphics and Herodotus to Dio Chrysostomus and Plotinus.

By the mid-1980s, the chronology of Yu. G. ' s work had expanded, first to the Hellenistic and then Roman periods. And geography-to the entire Euxine Pontus, and then - Transcaucasia, Asia Minor, the Middle East, the Aegean and Great Greece, the Western and Southern Mediterranean. Being particularly devoted to political history, he began to write more and more about cultural, religious, social life, the structure and functioning of polis corporations, military history, onomastics and prosopography. At the same time, he worked on the corpus of Olvian inscriptions and was already thinking about reprinting in corpore the Chersonesos and Bosporan heritage. And all this - on a truly global level. He was treated in the same way as the representatives of Russian science before the October revolution. God took him away when the range of his talent was equal to the scope of V. V. Latyshev and M. I. Rostovtsev.

This is a contribution that is obvious to any unbiased antiquarian. Few people know about the anonymous contribution to the progress of Russian science. I'm talking about his support for VDI authors. To those who were devoted to science, he literally rushed to the rescue, often opening up horizons that they did not even know about. He reported on the latest discoveries, new literature, gave books and unpublished materials, pushed (in the difficult Soviet times!) publications and trips abroad. He was happy as a child when it was possible to arrange corresponding member status of the German Archaeological Institute for D. B. Shelov, P. O. Karyshkovsky, S. D. Kryzhitsky, N. L. Grach tour or A. von Humboldt Foundation scholarships for young scientists. He returned not individual works, but Russian science as a whole to the world classification. Few "organizers of science" can boast of something comparable. In addition, he creatively reworked, and even conceptually added articles by publishers who lacked clarity of style or breadth of vision. And not only about co-authorship - about the written expression of elementary gratitude began to stutter barely in the last 10 years. Thanks to all that is mentioned above, his authority among the authors of VDI was huge. Nothing can make up for it. Without it, Vestnik will never be the same.

And readers don't recognize the quality of many scientists ' work. Just as there is no such specialist with all his working capacity, who could compare with his versatile qualifications.

The role of Yu. G. Vinogradov in my life was a key one. I'm the lucky one. Only the awakening of the country from the ideological dope opened up the possibility for him to teach at the historical and philological faculties of Moscow University.

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As it turned out, it was too late for him to leave the school behind. Which he deserved more than most. For many years, I was his only student. And I had the good fortune to feed myself daily from the spiritual source of this great man. From him, in addition to the secrets of the craft, the benevolent support of my first scientific experiments, the equally interested criticism in the future and introduction to the scientific world, I received the most important thing-I learned not to neglect particulars, not to consider anything a priori secondary, not to exchange on trifles, not to fuss, to appreciate the moment of communication with the wise, to constantly expand my knowledge to question stereotypes, look for non-trivial ways out of any situation, learn a lesson and benefit from the need to retreat, variable and combinatorial thinking, independence and responsibility for others, the priority of ethics in any business. In short, he finally formed my attitude to life and a system of values that never failed me in any circumstances.

A special theme is the archaeological expeditions of Yu. G. In addition to intense professional work, there is a whole firework display of plays, operas, and poems. productions, the center and soul of which he always acted. Stimulated the writing of employees. I was very upset if someone did not have enough ingenuity. And also - after the season on the Berezan, annual sightseeing trips to excavated monuments from Odessa to Batumi for a number of years, where he took after him anyone - even a professional, even an amateur. He was great at the symposia. He poured out sincere, inventive, grandiloquent and sparkling toasts in honor of the guests dear to his heart. He started choral and individual singing (depending on the genre of the work). Benevolently and directly listened to the elogies in his address.

But its fiftieth anniversary was somehow unnoticed by the public. He himself did not celebrate it widely. I gathered only my closest friends. Sorry. There would be a reason to write all the same on a happy occasion. I thank the Lord that I managed to tell him this at the feasts. Often even more emotionally charged.

Goodbye, Teacher-see you later!

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