Berezkin Yuri Yevgenyevich

27 December 1946 (1946-12-27), Leningrad

Biography, education, career:

In 1970 Yuri Berezkin graduated from the Department of Archaeology, Faculty of History, Leningrad State University, with a degree in historical archaeology. His teachers in science are V.M. Masson and V.A. Bashilov. In 1977, at the Institute of Ethnography, Berezkin defended his Candidate Dissertation, titled Mochica – Peru. Experimental Historical-Ethnographic Reconstruction. In 1990 he defended his Doctoral Dissertation, titled Ancient History of South America and Indian Mythology: From Foragers to Early Farmers. In 1973-1986 he was a research engineer, junior researcher, and then senior researcher at the Institute of Ethnography of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1986–2003 he worked as a leading researcher at the Leningrad Branch of the Institute of Archaeology – Institute of History of Material Culture of RAS. Since 2003 Berezkin is Head of the Department of America, Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology, Russian Academy of Sciences (Kunstkamera). Since 1997 – Professor at the Department of Anthropology, European University, Saint-Petersburg.

Areas of expertise: History and ethnography of the peoples of North and South America; Mythology; Folklore studies; areal distribution of folklore and mythological motifs as a source of data on the colonization of the New World and other ancient cultural and migration processes; early complex societies

Major scientific achievements:

Creation and regular updating of the electronic text catalogue and the digital database of the world’s folklore and mythology.

Awards and distinctions:

Academician V.P. Alekseev Award, Department of Historical and Philological Sciences of RAS (2011) for the book Siberia and the First Americans (Sibir’ I Pervye Amerikantsy) (co-authored with S.A. Vasilyev and A.G. Kozintsev; SPb: IHMC RAS, MAE RAS, 2009). A.N. Veselovsky Award of the Presidium of RAS (2011) for the Folklore and Mythology series of papers.

Membership in scientific organizations and unions:

Institute of Andean Studies (Berkeley); International Association for Comparative Mythology (Harvard University); Academy of Sciences, Estonia.

Major publications:

• Мочика. Цивилизация индейцев северного побережья Перу в I-VII вв. Л.: Наука, 1983; [Mochica Culture. The Indian Civilization of Peruvian Northern Coast in the 1st-7th Centuries. L.: Nauka, 1983.]

• «Город мастеров» на древневосточной периферии. Планировка поселения и социальная структура Алтын-депе в III тыс. до н.э. // ВДИ. 1994. № 3. С.14-27. ["The City of Masters" at the Periphery of the Ancient East. Settlement Planning and Social Structure of Altyn-Depe in the III Millennium B.C. // Vestnik Drevnei Istorii 3, 1994: 14-27.]

• Березкин Ю.Е. 2013. Африка, миграции, мифология. Ареалы распространения фольклорных мотивов в исторической перспективе. СПб: МАЭ РАН, 2013; [Africa, Migrations, Mythology: Distribution Areals of Folklore Motifs in Historical Perspective. SPb: MAE RAS, 2013.]

• Между общиной и государством. Среднемасштабные общества Нуклеарной Америки и Передней Азии в исторической динамике. СПб: МАЭ РАН; [Between the Community and the State. The Middle-Range Societies of Nuclear America and the Near East in Historical Dynamics. SPb: MAE RAS]

• Распространение фольклорных мотивов как обмен информацией, или Где запад граничит с востоком // Антропологический Форум. 2015, № 26. С. 153-170; [Spread of folklore motifs as information exchange, or Where the West meets the East // Anthropological Forum. 2015, № 26. P.p. 153-170.]

• Сибирский фольклор и происхождение на-дене // Археология, этнография и антропология Евразии. 2015, № 1(61). С.122-134 (с соавторами); [Siberian Folklore and the Na-Dene Origins // Archaelogy, Ethnography, and Anthropology of Eurasia. 2015, №1 (61). P.p. 122-134 (co-authored)]

• Заселение человеком Нового Света: опыт комплексного исследования. СПб: Нестор-История, 2015. [The Colonization of the New World. An Experimental Complex Study. SPb: Nestor-Istoiya, 2015.]

About Y. Berezkin:

• Антропологический форум. 2006, № 5. Стр. 443-458. [Anthropological Forum. 2006, № 5. P.p. 443-458]

• Personalia. Юрий Евгеньевич Березкин. Интервью с Юрием Евгеньевичем Березкиным (С.А. Боринская). [Personalia. Yuri Yevgenyevich Berezkin. An Interview with Yuri Yevgenyevich Berezkin. (S.A. Borinskaya).]