August 20, 2000 marked the 80th anniversary of Georgy Knabe, Chief Researcher of the Institute of Higher Humanities Studies of RSUH. Anyone who knows and appreciates his work is always surprised by the breadth of interests and originality of approaches shown by him both in his monograph on Tacitus and in numerous studies of Roman life and culture in the broadest sense of the word. What Georgy Stepanovich writes and speaks from various departments is most often directly related to historical everyday life, to life "as it is" and at the same time is always filled with deep reflections on the problems and contradictions of modern socio - historical knowledge, on the responsibility of a scientist-historian before the objectivity of truth. Attention to historical detail, honed by the tools of a professional philologist, is inseparable for him from respect for high theory. Steadily following these principles of the humanities, Georgy Stepanovich significantly expanded the research field of our modern antiquity, introducing into the sphere of "big" history the everyday life, everyday life, behavior and actions of individuals who lived many centuries ago.

The new book published by him in 1999 - "Russian Antiquity. The content, role and fate of the ancient heritage in the culture of Russia". In this highly original work, we are not talking about the usual set of facts and phenomena that indicate the presence of individual elements of the heritage of ancient Greece and ancient Rome in the culture of Russia, but about those aspects of the ancient heritage that were assimilated by the national culture in accordance with its internal needs and became its organic component. In a small book, two sections are combined:-

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la: I. " From Sergius of Radonezh to the Nile of Sorsk. Ancient heritage in hesychasm of the XIV-XV centuries" (here the author, in particular, seeks to show the ancient Hellenic beginnings in the work of Andrey Rublev) and II. "Antiquity in Russia of the Petersburg-Imperial period (1700-1850)". It is significant that the XVI - XVII centuries, the period of intensive penetration of the ancient heritage into the culture of Russia, are considered by G. S. Knabe not as an independent stage of "Russian antiquity", but as a time "between two epochs", to which only one chapter is devoted.

Perhaps it is in this book that Georgy Stepanovich's ideas about the epochal character of the "romantic" turning point associated with the exhaustion of the ancient component of national culture, which have long been developed, are formulated in the most concentrated form. The values that determined the enduring role of the ancient heritage in the culture of subsequent centuries, both in Western Europe and in Russia, were based on some defining features of the ancient way of life and worldview: on the concept of norm as an internally experienced and unconditional duty of a person to society; on the concept of classical as a shaky, unstable balance between the personal and The concept of aesthetic form as a criterion and guarantee of a perfect, as a result of this, intelligible to citizens, to the collective, and therefore truly real existence is based on the concept of an objective form, which, as a rule, was violated in public practice, but as an ideal and norm has always been preserved in the life of the people and their art. The transition from this old, "ancient" system to a new, "existential" one began in the 19th century. the "Silver Age" with its "farewell" attitude to antiquity marked the epilogue, the end of "Russian antiquity" and the end of the "Russian antiquity", and the end of the "Russian antiquity" and the end of the "Russian antiquity" and the end of the "Russian antiquity" and the end of the "Russian antiquity" and the end of the "Russian antiquity" and the end of the "Russian antiquity" and the end of the "Russian antiquity" and the end of the "Russian antiquity" and the end of the "Russian antiquity" and the end of the "Russian antiquity" and the end of the "Russian antiquity" and the end of the "Russian antiquity". this is the completion of one of the system-forming processes of national culture.

The editorial board and editorial board of Vestnik Drevnoi Istorii congratulate Georgy Stepanovich on his anniversary and wish him good health and new creative success.

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