Old Ladoga. The Viking Age in Northern Europe Nikolai Vladimirovich Belyak

Gleb Lebedev. Scientist, citizen, knight

Preliminary Note

When Gleb Lebedev died, I published obituaries in two magazines - “Clio” and “Stratum-plus”. Even in Internet form, their texts were quickly torn to pieces by many newspapers. Here I combined these two texts into one, since these were memories of different sides of Gleb’s multifaceted personality.

Gleb Lebedev - just before the “Norman battle” of 1965, he served in the army

Scientist, citizen, knight

On the night of August 15, 2003, the eve of Archaeologist Day, Professor Gleb Lebedev, my student and friend, died in Staraya Ladoga, the ancient capital of Rurik. Fell from the top floor of the dormitory of archaeologists who were excavating there. It is believed that he climbed the fire escape so as not to wake up his sleeping colleagues. In a few months he would have turned 60 years old.
After him, more than 180 printed works remained, including 5 monographs, many Slavic students in all archaeological institutions of the North-West of Russia, and his achievements in the history of archaeological science and the city remained. He was not only an archaeologist, but also a historiographer of archeology, and not only a researcher of the history of science - he himself took an active part in its creation. Thus, while still a student, he was one of the main participants in the Varangian discussion of 1965, which in Soviet times marked the beginning of an open discussion of the role of the Normans in Russian history from a position of objectivity. Subsequently, all his scientific activities were aimed at this. He was born on December 28, 1943 in exhausted Leningrad, just liberated from the siege, and brought from his childhood a readiness to fight, strong muscles and poor health. After graduating from school with a gold medal, he entered our Faculty of History at Leningrad University and passionately became involved in Slavic-Russian archeology. The bright and energetic student became the soul of the Slavic-Varangian seminar, and fifteen years later - its leader. This seminar, according to historiographers (A. A. Formozov and Lebedev himself), arose during the struggle of the sixties for truth in historical science and developed as a center of opposition to the official Soviet ideology. The Norman question was one of the points of clash between freethinking and pseudo-patriotic dogmas.
I was then working on a book about the Varangians (which never went into print), and my students, who received assignments on particular issues of this topic, were irresistibly attracted not only by the fascination of the topic and the novelty of the proposed solution, but also by the danger of the task. I later took up other topics, and for my students of that time this topic and Slavic-Russian topics in general became the main specialization in archeology. In his coursework, Gleb Lebedev began to reveal the true place of Varangian antiquities in Russian archeology.

Having served three years (1962-1965) in the army in the North (at that time they took him from his student days), while still a student and Komsomol leader of the faculty student body, Gleb Lebedev took part in a heated public discussion in 1965 (“Varangian Battle”) at Leningrad University and was remembered for his a brilliant speech in which he boldly pointed out the standard falsifications of official textbooks. The results of the discussion were summed up in our joint article (Klein, Lebedev and Nazarenko 1970), in which for the first time since Pokrovsky the “Normanist” interpretation of the Varangian question was presented and argued in Soviet scientific literature.
From a young age, Gleb was accustomed to working in a team, being its soul and center of attraction. Our victory in the Varangian discussion of 1965 was formalized by the release of a large collective article (published only in 1970) “Norman antiquities of Kievan Rus at the present stage of archaeological study.” This final article was written by three co-authors - Lebedev, Nazarenko and me. The result of the appearance of this article was indirectly reflected in the leading historical magazine of the country, “Questions of History” - in 1971, a small note appeared in it signed by deputy editor A. G. Kuzmin that Leningrad scientists (our names were called) showed: Marxists can admit “the predominance of Normans in the dominant stratum in Rus'.” It was possible to expand the freedom of objective research.
I must admit that soon my students, each in their own field, knew Slavic and Norman antiquities and literature on the topic better than I did, especially since this became their main specialization in archeology, and I became interested in other problems.
In 1970, Lebedev's diploma work was published - a statistical (more precisely, combinatorial) analysis of the Viking funeral rite. This work (in the collection “Statistical-combinatorial methods in archeology”) served as a model for a number of works by Lebedev’s comrades (some published in the same collection).
To objectively identify Scandinavian things in the East Slavic territories, Lebedev began to study contemporaneous monuments from Sweden, in particular Birka. Lebedev began analyzing the monument - this became his diploma work (its results were published 12 years later in the Scandinavian Collection of 1977 under the title “Social topography of the Viking Age burial ground in Birka”). He completed his university course ahead of schedule and was immediately hired as a teacher in the Department of Archeology (January 1969), so he began teaching his recent classmates. His course on Iron Age archeology became the starting point for many generations of archaeologists, and his course on the history of Russian archeology formed the basis of the textbook. At different times, groups of students went with him on archaeological expeditions to Gnezdovo and Staraya Ladoga, to excavation of burial mounds and reconnaissance along the Kasple River and around Leningrad-Petersburg.

For eleven years (1985-1995) he was the scientific director of the international archaeological and navigation expedition "Nevo", for which in 1989 the Russian Geographical Society awarded him the Przhevalsky Medal. In this expedition, archaeologists, athletes and sailor cadets explored the legendary “path from the Varangians to the Greeks” and, having built copies of ancient rowing ships, repeatedly navigated the rivers, lakes and portages of Rus' from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Swedish and Norwegian yachtsmen and history buffs played a significant role in the implementation of this experiment. Another leader of the travelers, the famous oncologist surgeon Yuri Borisovich Zhvitashvili, became Lebedev’s friend for the rest of his life (their joint book “Dragon Nevo”, 1999, sets out the results of the expedition). During the work, more than 300 monuments were examined. Lebedev showed that the communication routes connecting Scandinavia through Rus' with Byzantium were an important factor in the urbanization of all three regions.
Lebedev's scientific successes and the civic orientation of his research aroused the tireless fury of his scientific and ideological opponents. I remember how a signed denunciation from a venerable Moscow professor of archeology (now deceased), sent by the ministry for analysis, arrived at the faculty academic council, in which the ministry was informed that, according to rumors, Lebedev was going to visit Sweden, which cannot be allowed, bearing in mind his Normanist views and possible connection with anti-Soviet people. The commission formed by the faculty then rose to the occasion and rejected the denunciation. Contacts with Scandinavian researchers continued.
In 1991, my theoretical monograph “Archaeological Typology” was published, in which a number of sections devoted to the application of theory to specific materials were written by my students. Lebedev owned a large section on swords in this book. Swords from his archaeological materials were also featured on the cover of the book. Lebedev's reflections on the theoretical problems of archeology and its prospects resulted in major work. The big book “History of Russian Archeology” (1992) was Lebedev’s fourth monograph and his doctoral dissertation (defended in 1987). A distinctive feature of this interesting and useful book is its skillful linking of the history of science with the general movement of social thought and culture. In the history of Russian archeology, Lebedev identified a number of periods (formation, the period of scientific travels, Olenin, Uvarov, Post-Varov and Spitsyn-Gorodtsov) and a number of paradigms, in particular the encyclopedic and specifically Russian “everyday descriptive paradigm”.

I then wrote a rather critical review - I was disgusted by a lot of things in the book: the confusion of the structure, the predilection for the concept of paradigms, etc. (Klein 1995). But this is now the largest and most detailed work on the history of pre-revolutionary Russian archeology. Using this book, students at all universities in the country understand the history, goals and objectives of their science. One can argue with the naming of periods based on personalities, one can deny the characterization of leading concepts as paradigms, one can doubt the specificity of the “descriptive paradigm” and the success of the name itself (it would be more accurate to call it historical-cultural or ethnographic), but Lebedev’s ideas themselves are fresh and fruitful, and their the implementation is colorful. The book is written unevenly, but with a lively feeling, inspiration and personal interest - like everything that Lebedev wrote. If he wrote about the history of science, he wrote about his experiences, from himself. If he wrote about the Varangians, he wrote about close heroes of the history of his people. If he wrote about his hometown (about a great city!), he wrote about his nest, about his place in the world.
If you read this book carefully (and it is a very fascinating read), you will notice that the author is extremely interested in the formation and fate of the St. Petersburg archaeological school. He tries to determine its differences, its place in the history of science and its place in this tradition. Studying the affairs and destinies of famous Russian archaeologists, he tried to understand their experience in order to pose modern problems and tasks. Based on the course of lectures that formed the basis of this book, a group of St. Petersburg archaeologists specializing in the history of the discipline (N. Platonova, I. Tunkina, I. Tikhonov) formed around Lebedev. Even in his first book (about the Vikings), Lebedev showed the multifaceted contacts of the Slavs with the Scandinavians, from which the Baltic cultural community was born. Lebedev traces the role of this community and the strength of its traditions right up to the present day - his extensive sections in the collective work (of four authors) “Foundations of Regional Studies” are devoted to this. Formation and evolution of historical and cultural zones" (1999). The work was edited by two of the authors - professors A. S. Gerd and G. S. Lebedev. Officially, this book is not considered Lebedev’s monograph, but in it Lebedev contributed about two-thirds of the entire volume. In these sections, Lebedev attempted to create a special discipline - archaeological regional studies, develop its concepts, theories, methods, and introduce new terminology (“topochron”, “chronotope”, “ensemble”, “locus”, “semantic chord”). Not everything in this work by Lebedev seems to me to be thoroughly thought out, but the identification of a certain discipline at the intersection of archeology and geography has long been planned, and Lebedev expressed many bright thoughts in this work.

In 2000, the fifth monograph by G. S. Lebedev was published - co-authored with Yu. B. Zhvitashvili: “The Dragon Nebo on the Road from the Varangians to the Greeks,” and the second edition of this book was published the following year. In it, Lebedev, together with his comrade-in-arms, the head of the expedition (he himself was its scientific director), describes the dramatic history and scientific results of this selfless and fascinating 11-year work. Thor Heyerdahl greeted them. Actually, Swedish, Norwegian and Russian yachtsmen and historians, under the leadership of Zhvitashvili and Lebedev, repeated Heyerdahl’s achievement, making a journey that, although not as dangerous, was longer and more focused on scientific results.
While still a student, enthusiastic and captivating everyone around him, Gleb Lebedev won the heart of a beautiful and talented student of the art history department, Vera Vityazeva, who specialized in studying the architecture of St. Petersburg (there are several of her books), and Gleb Sergeevich lived with her all his life. Vera did not change her last name: she really became the wife of a knight, a Viking. He was a faithful but difficult husband and a good father. A heavy smoker (who preferred Belomor), he consumed incredible amounts of coffee, working all night long. He lived to the fullest, and doctors more than once pulled him out of the clutches of death. He had many opponents and enemies, but his teachers, colleagues and numerous students loved him and were ready to forgive him ordinary human shortcomings for the eternal flame with which he burned himself and ignited everyone around him.
During his student years, he was the youth leader of the history department - the Komsomol secretary. By the way, being in the Komsomol had a bad influence on him - the constant ending of meetings with drinking bouts, accepted everywhere among the Komsomol elite, accustomed him (like many others) to alcohol, which he later had difficulty getting rid of. It turned out to be easier to get rid of communist illusions (if there were any): they were already fragile, corroded by liberal ideas and rejection of dogmatism. Lebedev was one of the first to tear up his party card. It is no wonder that during the years of democratic renewal, Lebedev entered the first democratic composition of the Leningrad City Council - the Petrosoviet and was in it, together with his friend Alexei Kovalev (head of the Salvation group), an active participant in the preservation of the historical center of the city and the restoration of historical traditions in it. He also became one of the founders of the Memorial society, whose goal was to restore the good name of the tortured prisoners of Stalin’s camps and fully restore the rights of those who survived, to support them in the struggle of life. He carried this passion throughout his life, and at the end of it, in 2001, extremely ill (his stomach was cut out and all his teeth fell out), Professor Lebedev headed the commission of the St. Petersburg Union of Scientists, which for several years fought against the notorious dominance of Bolshevik retrogrades and pseudo-patriots at the Faculty of History and against Dean Froyanov - a struggle that ended in victory several years ago.

Unfortunately, the named disease, which had stuck with him since the days of Komsomol leadership, undermined his health. All his life Gleb struggled with this vice, and for years he did not take alcohol into his mouth, but sometimes he broke down. For a wrestler this is, of course, unacceptable. His enemies took advantage of these disruptions and achieved his removal not only from the City Council, but also from the Department of Archeology. Here he was replaced by his students. Lebedev was appointed leading researcher at the Research Institute of Complex Social Research of St. Petersburg University, as well as director of the St. Petersburg branch of the Russian Research Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage. However, these were mostly positions without a permanent salary. I had to live by teaching hourly at different universities. He was never reinstated in his professorial position at the department, but many years later he began teaching again as an hourly worker and toyed with the idea of organizing a permanent educational base in Staraya Ladoga.
All these difficult years, when many colleagues left science to earn money in more profitable industries, Lebedev, being in the worst financial conditions, did not stop engaging in science and civil activities, which did not bring him practically any income. Of the prominent scientific and public figures of modern times who were in power, he did more than many and gained NOTHING materially. He remained to live in Dostoevsky's St. Petersburg (near the Vitebsk railway station) - in the same decrepit and unsettled, poorly furnished apartment in which he was born.

He left his library, unpublished poems and good name to his family (wife and children).
In politics, he was a figure in Sobchak’s formation, and naturally, anti-democratic forces persecuted him as best they could. They do not leave this evil persecution even after death. Shutov’s newspaper “New Petersburg” responded to the death of the scientist with a vile article in which he called the deceased “an informal patriarch of the archaeological community” and composed fables about the reasons for his death. Allegedly, in a conversation with his friend Alexei Kovalev, in which an NP correspondent was present, Lebedev revealed certain secrets of the presidential security service during the city anniversary (using the magic of “averting eyes”), and for this the secret state security services eliminated him. What can I say? Chairs know people intimately and for a long time. But it's very one-sided. During his life, Gleb appreciated humor, and he would have been very amused by the buffoon magic of black PR, but Gleb is not there, and who could explain to the newspapermen all the indecency of their buffoonery? However, this distorting mirror also reflected reality: indeed, not a single major event of the city’s scientific and social life took place without Lebedev (in the understanding of the buffoonish newspapermen, congresses and conferences are parties), and he was indeed always surrounded by creative youth.
He was characterized by a sense of mystical connections between history and modernity, historical events and processes with his personal life. Roerich was close to him in his way of thinking. There is some contradiction here with the accepted ideal of a scientist, but a person’s shortcomings are a continuation of his merits. Sober and cold rational thinking was alien to him. He was intoxicated by the aroma of history (and sometimes not only by it). Like his Viking heroes, he lived life to the fullest. He was friends with the Interior Theater of St. Petersburg and, being a professor, took part in its mass performances. When in 1987, cadets of the Makarov School on two rowing yawls walked along the “path from the Varangians to the Greeks,” along the rivers, lakes and portages of our country, from Vyborg to Odessa, the elderly Professor Lebedev dragged the boats along with them.
When the Norwegians built similarities to the ancient Viking boats and also took them on a journey from the Baltic to the Black Sea, the same boat “Nevo” was built in Russia, but the joint journey in 1991 was disrupted by a putsch. It was carried out only in 1995 with the Swedes, and again Professor Lebedev was with the young rowers. When this summer the Swedish “Vikings” arrived again on boats in St. Petersburg and set up a camp, simulating the ancient “Vicks”, on the beach near the Peter and Paul Fortress, Gleb Lebedev settled in tents with them. He breathed the air of history and lived in it.

Together with the Swedish “Vikings”, he went from St. Petersburg to the ancient Slavic-Varangian capital of Rus' - Staraya Ladoga, with which his excavations, reconnaissance and plans to create a university base and museum center were connected. On the night of August 15 (celebrated by all Russian archaeologists as Archaeologist's Day), Lebedev said goodbye to his colleagues, and in the morning he was found broken and dead near the locked archaeologists' dormitory. Death was instant. Even earlier, he bequeathed to bury himself in Staraya Ladoga, the ancient capital of Rurik. He had many plans, but according to some mystical plans of fate, he arrived to die where he wanted to stay forever.
In his “History of Russian Archaeology” he wrote about archeology:
“Why has it retained its attractive power for new and new generations for decades, centuries? The point, apparently, is precisely that archeology has a unique cultural function: the materialization of historical time. Yes, we are exploring “archaeological sites,” that is, we are simply digging up old cemeteries and landfills. But at the same time we are doing what the ancients called with respectful horror “The Journey to the Kingdom of the Dead.”
Now he himself has departed on this final journey, and we can only bow in respectful horror.

Quote

Gleb Sergeevich Lebedev(December 24, 1943 - July 15, 2003, Staraya Ladoga) - Soviet and Russian archaeologist, leading specialist in Varangian antiquities.
Professor of Leningrad / St. Petersburg University (1990), Doctor of Historical Sciences (1987). In 1993-2003 - head of the St. Petersburg branch of the RNII of Cultural and Natural Heritage of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation and the Russian Academy of Sciences (since 1998 - Center for Regional Studies and Museum Technologies "Petroscandica" NIICSI St. Petersburg State University). He is considered the creator of a number of new scientific directions in archeology, regional studies, cultural studies, semiotics, and historical sociology. Deputy of the Leningrad City Council (Petrosoviet) in 1990-1993, member of the presidium 1990-1991.

Bibliography
Archaeological monuments of the Leningrad region. L., 1977;
Archaeological monuments of Ancient Rus' of the 9th-11th centuries. L., 1978 (co-author);
Rus' and the Varangians // Slavs and Scandinavians. M., 1986. P. 189-297 (co-author);
History of Russian archaeology. 1700-1917 St. Petersburg, 1992;
Dragon "Nebo". On the Road from the Varangians to the Greeks: Archaeological and navigational studies of ancient water communications between the Baltic and the Mediterranean. St. Petersburg, 1999; 2nd ed. St. Petersburg, 2000 (co-author);
The Viking Age in Northern Europe and Rus'. St. Petersburg, 2005.

Klein L. S. Gleb Lebedev. Scientist, citizen, knight(disclose information)

Lebedev’s first monograph was the 1977 book “Archaeological Monuments of the Leningrad Region.” By this time, Lebedev had already led the North-Western archaeological expedition of Leningrad University for a number of years. But the book was neither a publication of the results of excavations, nor a kind of archaeological map of the area with a description of monuments from all eras. These were an analysis and generalization of the archaeological cultures of the Middle Ages in the North-West of Rus'. Lebedev has always been a generalizer; he was attracted more by broad historical problems (of course, based on specific material) than by specific studies.
A year later, Lebedev’s second book was published, co-authored with two friends from the seminar “Archaeological Monuments of Ancient Rus' of the 9th-11th Centuries.” This year was generally successful for us: in the same year my first book, “Archaeological Sources,” was published (thus, Lebedev was ahead of his teacher). Lebedev created this monograph in collaboration with his fellow students V.A. Bulkin and I.V. Dubov, from whom Bulkin developed as an archaeologist under the influence of Lebedev, and Dubov became his student. Lebedev tinkered with him a lot, nurtured him and helped him comprehend the material (I am writing about this to restore justice, because in the book about his teachers the late Dubov, remaining a party functionary to the end, chose not to remember his nonconformist teachers at the Slavic-Varangian seminar). In this book, the North-West of Rus' is described by Lebedev, the North-East - by Dubov, the monuments of Belarus - by Bulkin, and the monuments of Ukraine are analyzed jointly by Lebedev and Bulkin.
In order to present weighty arguments in clarifying the true role of the Varangians in Rus', Lebedev from a young age began studying the entire volume of materials about the Norman Vikings, and from these studies his general book was born. This is Lebedev’s third book - his doctoral dissertation “The Viking Age in Northern Europe,” published in 1985 and defended in 1987 (and he also defended his doctoral dissertation before me). In the book, he moved away from the separate perception of the Norman homeland and the places of their aggressive activity or trade and mercenary service. Through a thorough analysis of extensive material, using statistics and combinatorics, which were then not very familiar to Russian (Soviet) historical science, Lebedev revealed the specifics of the formation of feudal states in Scandinavia. In graphs and diagrams, he presented the “overproduction” of state institutions that had arisen there (the upper class, military squads, etc.), which was due to the predatory campaigns of the Vikings and successful trade with the East. He looked at the differences in how this "surplus" was used in the Norman conquests in the West and in their advance into the East. In his opinion, here the conquest potential gave way to more complex dynamics of relations (the service of the Varangians to Byzantium and the Slavic principalities). It seems to me that in the West the destinies of the Normans were more diverse, and in the East the aggressive component was stronger than it seemed to the author then.
He examined social processes (the development of specifically northern feudalism, urbanization, ethno- and cultural genesis) throughout the Baltic as a whole and showed their striking unity. From then on he spoke about the “Baltic civilization of the early Middle Ages.” With this book (and previous works) Lebedev became one of the leading Scandinavians in the country.
For eleven years (1985-1995) he was the scientific director of the international archaeological and navigation expedition "Nevo", for which in 1989 the Russian Geographical Society awarded him the Przhevalsky Medal. In this expedition, archaeologists, athletes and sailor cadets explored the legendary “path from the Varangians to the Greeks” and, having built copies of ancient rowing ships, repeatedly navigated the rivers, lakes and portages of Rus' from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Swedish and Norwegian yachtsmen and history buffs played a significant role in the implementation of this experiment. Another leader of the travelers, the famous oncologist surgeon Yuri Borisovich Zhvitashvili, became Lebedev’s friend for the rest of his life (their joint book “Dragon Nevo”, 1999, sets out the results of the expedition). During the work, more than 300 monuments were examined. Lebedev showed that the communication routes connecting Scandinavia through Rus' with Byzantium were an important factor in the urbanization of all three regions.
Lebedev's scientific successes and the civic orientation of his research aroused the tireless fury of his scientific and ideological opponents. I remember how a signed denunciation from a venerable Moscow professor of archeology (now deceased), sent by the ministry for analysis, arrived at the faculty academic council, in which the ministry was informed that, according to rumors, Lebedev was going to visit Sweden, which cannot be allowed, bearing in mind his Normanist views and possible connection with anti-Soviet people. The commission formed by the faculty then rose to the occasion and rejected the denunciation. Contacts with Scandinavian researchers continued.
In 1991, my theoretical monograph “Archaeological Typology” was published, in which a number of sections devoted to the application of theory to specific materials were written by my students. Lebedev owned a large section on swords in this book. Swords from his archaeological materials were also featured on the cover of the book. Lebedev's reflections on the theoretical problems of archeology and its prospects resulted in major work. The big book “History of Russian Archeology” (1992) was Lebedev’s fourth monograph and his doctoral dissertation (defended in 1987). A distinctive feature of this interesting and useful book is its skillful linking of the history of science with the general movement of social thought and culture. In the history of Russian archeology, Lebedev identified a number of periods (formation, the period of scientific travels, Olenin, Uvarov, Post-Varov and Spitsyn-Gorodtsov) and a number of paradigms, in particular the encyclopedic and specifically Russian “everyday descriptive paradigm”.

A small section of it is also in the collective work “Essays on Historical Geography: North-West Russia. Slavs and Finns" (2001), with Lebedev being one of the two responsible editors of the volume. He developed a specific subject of research: the North-West of Russia as a special region (the eastern flank of the “Baltic civilization of the early Middle Ages”) and one of the two main centers of Russian culture; St. Petersburg as its core and special city is the northern analogue not of Venice, with which St. Petersburg is usually compared, but of Rome (see Lebedev’s work “Rome and St. Petersburg. The Archeology of Urbanism and the Substance of the Eternal City” in the collection “Metaphysics of St. Petersburg”, 1993). Lebedev starts from the similarity of the Kazan Cathedral, the main one in the city of Peter, to Peter's Cathedral in Rome with its arched colonnade.
A special place in this system of views was occupied by Staraya Ladoga - the capital of Rurik, in essence the first capital of the Grand Ducal Rus' of the Rurikovichs. For Lebedev, in terms of concentration of power and geopolitical role (the access of the Eastern Slavs to the Baltic), this was the historical predecessor of St. Petersburg.
This work by Lebedev seems to me weaker than the previous ones: some of the reasoning seems abstruse, there is too much mysticism in the texts. It seems to me that Lebedev was harmed by his passion for mysticism, especially in recent years, in his latest works. He believed in the non-coincidence of names, in the mysterious connection of events across generations, in the existence of destiny and missionary tasks. In this he was similar to Roerich and Lev Gumilev. Glimpses of such ideas weakened the persuasiveness of his constructions, and at times his reasoning sounded abstruse. But in life, these whirlwinds of ideas made him spiritual and filled him with energy.
The shortcomings of the work on historical geography were apparently reflected in the fact that the scientist’s health and intellectual capabilities were by this time greatly undermined by hectic work and difficulties of survival. But this book also contains very interesting and valuable thoughts. In particular, speaking about the fate of Russia and the “Russian idea,” he comes to the conclusion that the colossal scale of the suicidal, bloody turmoil of Russian history “is largely determined by the inadequacy of self-esteem” of the Russian people (p. 140). “The true “Russian idea,” like any “national idea,” lies only in the ability of the people to know the truth about themselves, to see their own real history in the objective coordinates of space and time.” “An idea detached from this historical reality” and replacing realism with ideological constructs “will only be an illusion capable of causing one or another national mania. Like any inadequate self-awareness, such mania becomes life-threatening, leading society... to the brink of disaster” (p. 142).
These lines outline the civic pathos of all his scientific activities in archeology and history.
In 2000, the fifth monograph by G. S. Lebedev was published - co-authored with Yu. B. Zhvitashvili: “The Dragon Nebo on the Road from the Varangians to the Greeks,” and the second edition of this book was published the following year. In it, Lebedev, together with his comrade-in-arms, the head of the expedition (he himself was its scientific director), describes the dramatic history and scientific results of this selfless and fascinating 11-year work. Thor Heyerdahl greeted them. Actually, Swedish, Norwegian and Russian yachtsmen and historians, under the leadership of Zhvitashvili and Lebedev, repeated Heyerdahl’s achievement, making a journey that, although not as dangerous, was longer and more focused on scientific results.
While still a student, enthusiastic and captivating everyone around him, Gleb Lebedev won the heart of a beautiful and talented student of the art history department, Vera Vityazeva, who specialized in studying the architecture of St. Petersburg (there are several of her books), and Gleb Sergeevich lived with her all his life. Vera did not change her last name: she really became the wife of a knight, a Viking. He was a faithful but difficult husband and a good father. A heavy smoker (who preferred Belomor), he consumed incredible amounts of coffee, working all night long. He lived to the fullest, and doctors more than once pulled him out of the clutches of death. He had many opponents and enemies, but his teachers, colleagues and numerous students loved him and were ready to forgive him ordinary human shortcomings for the eternal flame with which he burned himself and ignited everyone around him.
During his student years, he was the youth leader of the history department - the Komsomol secretary. By the way, being in the Komsomol had a bad influence on him - the constant ending of meetings with drinking bouts, accepted everywhere among the Komsomol elite, accustomed him (like many others) to alcohol, which he later had difficulty getting rid of. It turned out to be easier to get rid of communist illusions (if there were any): they were already fragile, corroded by liberal ideas and rejection of dogmatism. Lebedev was one of the first to tear up his party card. It is no wonder that during the years of democratic renewal, Lebedev entered the first democratic composition of the Leningrad City Council - the Petrosoviet and was in it, together with his friend Alexei Kovalev (head of the Salvation group), an active participant in the preservation of the historical center of the city and the restoration of historical traditions in it. He also became one of the founders of the Memorial society, whose goal was to restore the good name of the tortured prisoners of Stalin’s camps and fully restore the rights of those who survived, to support them in the struggle of life. He carried this passion throughout his life, and at the end of it, in 2001, extremely ill (his stomach was cut out and all his teeth fell out), Professor Lebedev headed the commission of the St. Petersburg Union of Scientists, which for several years fought against the notorious dominance of Bolshevik retrogrades and pseudo-patriots at the Faculty of History and against Dean Froyanov - a struggle that ended in victory several years ago.

In memory of Gleb Sergeevich Lebedev // Russian Archeology. 2004. No. 1. P. 190-191.

Gleb Sergeevich Lebedev passed away. He died on the night of August 15, 2003 in Staraya Ladoga, during the anniversary season for the ancient Russian city: Lebedev devoted a lot of energy to the study of Ladoga and its surroundings. That same summer, Gleb enthusiastically participated in the preparation of the next conference of the Association of European Archaeologists, which was scheduled for September 2003 in Lebedev’s hometown of St. Petersburg...

G.S. Lebedev was born in besieged Leningrad on December 28, 1943. He studied at the Department of Archeology, Faculty of History, Leningrad State University and
always demonstrated his commitment to the Leningrad - St. Petersburg traditions, the “St. Petersburg school.” He became involved in the scientific life of this school while still a student and was left as a teacher at the Department of Archeology upon graduation in 1969. In 1977 G.S. Lebedev became an associate professor, and in 1990 he was elected professor in the same department; Whatever positions Lebedev held, he remained tied to the university environment - the environment of scientists, teachers and students.

In this environment, new methods and approaches to historical and archaeological problems have been developed since the 1960s. In Leningrad, Gleb (we all still called each other by name then - we will not refuse this now) became an active participant, an undoubted leader and generator of ideas among his peers - members of the “Varangian” seminar, then led by L.S. Klein. The work of a recent student based on the results of this seminar, written jointly with L.S. Klein and V.A Nazarenko in 1970 and dedicated to the Norman antiquities of Kievan Rus, not only broke with the official stereotypes of Soviet historiography, but also opened up new perspectives in the study of both Slavic-Russian and Scandinavian antiquities of the Viking Age. Both Leningrad and Moscow archaeologists, primarily participants in the Smolensk seminar D.A., took part in the debate related to these prospects with enthusiasm. Avdusina; The focus of this controversy was the Scandinavian conferences, the archaeological sections of which then attracted researchers of all specialties. This debate, which continued not only at conferences and in the scientific press, but also in Moscow and St. Petersburg kitchens, united rather than separated its participants, and friendship with opponents was very productive for representatives of different “schools.” The loss of Gleb is all the more sad for those who knew him from those years and who are now signing his obituary.

Gleb Sergeevich remained devoted all his life to his scientific and at the same time romantic love - love for the Viking Age. He, like no one else, was familiar with the “heat of cold numbers”: he used statistical and combinatorial methods to analyze funeral rites, studied structural typology, and at the same time was fascinated by the romantic images of “Viking kings”, and quoted skaldic verses in his lectures. His book “The Viking Age in Northern Europe” (L., 1985) combined essays on “material” and “spiritual” culture (Lebedev defended it as a doctoral dissertation in 1987). The book also included a fundamentally important section about the Varangians in Rus'. Based on archaeological material, G.S. Lebedev, for the first time in Russian historiography, demonstrated the unity of the historical destinies of Northern and Eastern Europe, the openness of Rus' to the “Baltic civilization,” and the significance of the path from the Varangians to the Greeks for the formation of Ancient Rus'. This was not only the result of objective scientific research. Gleb dreamed of an open civil society, contributed to its formation, working in the first democratic council of his city, and took an active part in international enterprises that became possible only in the 1990s. The result of these efforts were international expeditions on the way from the Varangians to the Greeks on models of early medieval boats: here Lebedev’s scientific interests were embodied in the realities of “druzhina” expedition life (a fascinating book about expeditions - “The Dragon Nebo: on the way from the Varangians to the Greeks” - was written Gleb in collaboration with his travel companion Yu.B. Zhvitashvili).

Remembering Gleb, one cannot help but say something special about his other love - his love for St. Petersburg and everything connected with this city. Evidence of this love is a small popular book “Archaeological Monuments of the Leningrad Region” (L., 1977) and historiosophical articles that certainly include archaeological aspects of the life of St. Petersburg (Rome and St. Petersburg: the archeology of urbanism and the substance of the eternal city // Metaphysics of St. Petersburg. St. Petersburg, 1993 ). In the early 1990s, Gleb dreamed of returning not only the “sacred” name, but also the capital status of his city.

At Leningrad State University - St. Petersburg University, Lebedev became one of the initiators of an interdisciplinary seminar on the problems of ethnogenesis, which he led in 1980-1990. together with ethnolinguist A.S. Gerdom. The final result was the inter-university collection “Slavs: ethnogenesis and ethnic history” published by them (L., 1989); in the collection for the first time (including in an article by Lebedev himself), the problem of Balto-Slavic unity as the basis for Slavic (and Baltic) ethnogenesis was clearly posed on archaeological material. A continuation of interdisciplinary research was the collective monograph “Foundations of Regional Studies: Formation and Evolution of Historical and Cultural Zones” (St. Petersburg, 1999, co-authors V.A. Bulkin, A.S. Gerd, V.N. Sedykh). The introduction into science of such a macro-unit of humanitarian research as a historical-cultural zone, which is isolated on the basis of an archaeological structural typology, a system of “cultural types of artifacts” (“topochrons” in the terminology of G.S. Lebedev), as well as the experience of isolating historical-cultural areas presented in the monograph. cultural zones of North-West Russia, need further understanding and discussion, like everything that Gleb did.

An equally important result of the scientific activity of G.S. Lebedev became a course on the history of Russian archeology, which he taught at Leningrad State University from 1970 and published in 1992 (History of Russian Archeology. 1700-1917). Lebedev's lectures and his ideas not only attracted, but also captivated more than one generation of students. He was generally an open, sociable person, and his students loved him very much.

Gleb's works on Scandinavian and Slavic-Russian archeology have acquired well-deserved international fame. Archeology was not a subject of dry academic or educational interest for Gleb: for him it was the universal “Science of the Beginning,” without comprehending which it is impossible to understand the meaning of modern historical and cultural processes. Interest in the life of distant ancestors, as well as in the scientific methods and worldview of his predecessor colleagues, led G.S. Lebedev to the “ultimate statement”: “as in primordial, archaic cultures, the living must seek an answer about the meaning of their existence by turning to the dead” (Foundations of Regional Studies. pp. 52-53). We are talking, of course, not about magical necromancy in the spirit of Gleb’s favorite Eddic “Divination of the Seer,” but about “the unity of self-consciousness of humanity in space and time.” Gleb left a bright and living legacy, the appeal to which will be a necessary and living matter in the science of the past.

Last year marked the 70th anniversary of the birth of Gleb Sergeevich Lebedev (12/28/1943) and 10 years since his untimely death (08/15/2003). A group of colleagues and friends of G. Lebedev is preparing for publication a collection of memories and materials in his memory. Here are some of the texts from this collection.

From the editor:

I thank Sergei Vasiliev, one of the collectors of materials and compiler of the collection in memory of G.S. Lebedev for making this publication possible. Below are the memories of A.D. Margolisa, O.M. Ioannisyan and N.V. Belyaka about G.S. Lebedev. - A. Alekseev.

Information

From January 13 to 19, 2014, an exhibition dedicated to the memory of the famous archaeologist and public figure, professor at St. Petersburg University Gleb Sergeevich Lebedev, 1943-2003, was held in the Smolny Cathedral concert and exhibition hall.
The exhibition presented materials from the researcher’s archive, documents and photographs, publications, and the results of G.S.’s excavations. Lebedev and his students, the scientific, teaching and social activities of the scientist are covered.

Memories

Alexander Davidovich Margolis

We met in the fall of 1965, when he was 22 years old and I was 18. Gleb had just returned from the army to the university and immediately found himself one of the main participants in the famous “Varangian discussion.” I was lucky enough to be at the history department that day, and I heard his brilliant report, in which he analyzed the statements of the classics of Marxism on the Varangian question. Soon we were introduced. From then on, we met quite often until my departure to Novosibirsk in the summer of 1966. Every time I came from Akademgorodok, where I studied at the university, we communicated intensively. After returning to our hometown in 1972, our friendship continued and strengthened.

In the second half of the 60s - early 70s, I did not notice that Gleb was specifically involved in the history of St. Petersburg. He was passionate about his main scientific topics - the Varangian question and the archeology of the North-West. Perhaps his first work on the history of the city was participation in the restoration of Sampsonievsky Cathedral on the Vyborg side. An article about this research, co-authored, appeared in the September 1975 issue of the journal Construction and Architecture of Leningrad. At that time I served in the Museum of the History of Leningrad, in the Peter and Paul Fortress. In the late 70s, some excavation work was carried out on the territory of Hare Island, and archaeologists led by Gleb Lebedev were invited to accompany them. They carried out successful excavations in the area of the Naryshkin Bastion, discovering materials characterizing the original wood-earth fortress of 1703. I think that his conviction that the archeology of St. Petersburg has a right to exist, that the St. Petersburg cultural layer is of great scientific value, that it needs to be protected and explored, was finally formed as a result of these excavations in the Peter and Paul Fortress. Twenty years later, Professor Lebedev will publish “Methodological foundations for the archaeological study, protection and use of the cultural layer of St. Petersburg” - a project that provided for taking under state protection the cultural layer of the northern capital, the most important historical and cultural monument, barbarously destroyed during construction work. If today the concept of “archaeological monument” has become firmly established in the understanding of the cultural heritage of St. Petersburg, this is, first of all, the merit of G.S. Lebedev (today there are already more than 20 archaeological monuments in the city under state protection).

The author of fundamental scientific works, one of the best teachers at the university, who trained several generations of archaeologists, Gleb Sergeevich had a bright social temperament, which manifested itself with particular force during the years of perestroika. One of the activists of the Leningrad Popular Front, in 1990 he was elected to the democratic Leningrad City Council, where he headed the permanent commission on culture and cultural-historical heritage. To understand his moral and socio-political position, it is important to remember that in 1988 he was one of the organizers and leaders of the Leningrad branch of the Memorial Society, which arose on the basis of the movement to create a monument to the victims of political repression of the Soviet regime. Many people remember his speech on June 14, 1988 in the Yusupov Garden at the first mass meeting dedicated to the victims of terror.

In the early 90s, Professor Lebedev had to leave his favorite job at the history department. His forced transition to NIIKSI, where he headed the Center for Regional Studies and Museum Technologies "Petroscandica", turned out to be an irreparable loss for higher historical education in our city. He had an amazing talent for organizing collective work, leading like-minded people, infecting them with his enthusiasm and energy, and leading them to victory. In the last decade of his life, Gleb sorely missed the faculty environment that was familiar to him, work among undergraduates, graduate students, and young people. After all, he was a passionate man, he was carried away by his ideas and was able to captivate those around him with them. I fully experienced this quality of his when we, together with the Interior Theater, were preparing for the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg.

Research and understanding of the life and work of Gleb Sergeevich Lebedev is just beginning. But it is already clear that he forever entered the history of our city as one of the most prominent representatives of the St. Petersburg intelligentsia of the last third of the twentieth century.

February 2014

Oleg Mikhailovich Ioannisyan

We met Gleb Lebedev at the very end of the 60s, when I was still a student and he was already a graduate student. Moreover, the acquaintance immediately took place in the field. Everyone at the faculty heard and knew about Gleb. But, naturally, we haven’t met yet. Still, the difference in age and courses had an effect. It was the summer of 1969, we worked on the expedition of Mikhail Konstantinovich Karger to the Rurik settlement. The Rurik settlement then, as well as now, was cut off from the mainland. Suddenly some kind of landing party on boats lands on us. We were always wary of such landings because the locals on the other side were annoying. We got ready to fight back. Suddenly those who already knew Gleb well screamed: “Oh, this is Gleb Lebedev!” Naturally, all the prepared sticks and stakes flew to the sides. And here the first acquaintance really happened, which then somehow very quickly, despite the difference in age, very quickly grew into friendship. In general, I must say that the history department of those times was different in that there was no such age difference as there is now, when a second-year student does not know a third-year student at all. Then those who were engaged in the same specialty knew each other - from the first year to the pre-defense state in graduate school. Everyone felt that they were doing the same thing and were united by some purely professional interests. And here a lot was checked. Then we worked together on other expeditions together. Well, since everyone was engaged in Ancient Russia, despite the fact that everyone had a rather narrow circle of interests, nevertheless, the common problem - what is ancient Russian civilization in general - was faced by everyone. And here somehow the breadth of Gleb’s views on the era in which he was engaged somehow very quickly became clear. For him, everything was interesting: from the Viking era, that is, from the era of the birth of Russian statehood, to the era that I was already involved in, that is, the established Ancient Rus' from the moment I was baptized, since I was engaged in ancient Russian architecture before the Mongol invasion. And further, and wider. Gleb somehow knew how to accumulate people around him, he was fantastic at it. Even then it became clear that he perceived Ancient Rus' not locally, not as something isolated in itself, cut off from the rest of the European world. For Gleb, that's why he got into the Viking Age. This was important for him, because it was at this time that Rus', as soon as it began to take shape as a state, it became part of the common world, the Northern European one, let’s say so. After all, before this, the disputes around the Vikings and in general on the Varangian issue - they have been going on for as long as our historical science has existed, and they either subside or re-emerge. Moreover, they always had a pronounced ideological character: how come some people came from overseas and created us like this. And we are not like anyone else, we are ourselves. And Gleb all the time adhered to the position, and he expressed it more clearly than anyone else, that this was one world. Despite the fact that these people spoke different languages: Slavs, Scandinavians, Balts, Finns, it was one world, at the same level of development, at the same stage of development. And this is why this era turned out to be interesting for Northern Europe. Of course, there were differences here with other European regions. This is not classical Western Europe, not Germany and France, especially Italy, and especially not Byzantium, which trace their tradition back to Rome, but this is the world of barbarians, the world of medieval barbarians, which at this moment is forming very quickly and begins to instantly catch up with everything the rest of the European world. At the same time, Rus' turns out to be part of this world. Therefore, there was no need to be afraid that some overseas Varangians came and created something, it was one world. And Rus', by the way, even began to overtake other territories. After all, for example, Rus' became Christianized earlier than the same Scandinavians. The Scandinavians were the catalyst for the development of, well, one might say, the whole of Europe at the turn of the first and second millennium AD. If you look at where these Normans made their mark, even where there was an old tradition of medieval civilization, from Rome, even from Greece, which covered a huge piece of Byzantine civilization, if you take the same Sicily, the Normans also end up there. And Gleb very clearly, perhaps more clearly than anyone, formulated this concept of a single world, but he went even further. Rus' is Rus', but Rus' later found its continuation in Russia. Moreover, Russia also had its own stage of the Middle Ages, its own stage of the birth of Russia as Russia. When did it happen? This question interested Gleb very much. That is why he was so interested, for example, in those subjects that we, his younger colleagues and friends, began to explore. For example, what happened to Russia, the one that grew out of the first statehood that emerged at the turn of IX-X. And in the 10th century it became ancient Russia itself, which finally became the state of Rus'. But then the Mongols came. What happened to Russia after this? By the way, this moment, not Viking Age Rus', but this moment after Mongolian Rus', is what we now call the dark ages. First of all, there is very little evidence left of the culture of this time. It was a very difficult time when I had to start all over again. But at this moment other interesting processes began to take place - different East Slavic peoples began to crystallize from Rus', while they were still crystallizing. It was then, somewhere after the 14th-15th centuries, that what we now call Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians began to emerge; all this arose from Rus'. And when, in fact, did Russia begin? This is the question that Gleb constantly asked all of us. He kept it in his field of vision, but was not interested in it himself. He jumped even further than all of us and saw the continuation of Rus' already in the new Russia, in the formed Russia - already under Peter, in Peter’s time. This was the range of his interests - this brilliant 18th century. Gleb was simply in love with him. It would seem that Rus' is the Viking Age and the 18th century. Gleb was the first of all to make a connection between these two eras, jumping through the truly dark ages and some kind of rollback in the 16th-17th centuries. The idea was, of course, in many ways still absolutely utopian in those days, and even now. Gleb Lebedev and Dmitry Machinsky - this is exactly the idea that was constantly preached. And even now there is such a direct connection, I really want everyone to see it, but it doesn’t exist. These intermediate stages in the history of Rus' affected the formation of Russia itself. But what these two eras have in common is the era of the formation of a completely new world. And again a new world among European peoples. And that’s why Gleb paid attention to St. Petersburg. Back then, we didn’t even really know what actually remained in St. Petersburg from that time of Peter the Great. After all, what we see now: a few buildings that have survived, the layout has been preserved from Peter’s time - this is not Peter’s Petersburg. Petrovsky Petersburg has become archaeological. And it was then that Gleb said that this should be done, that we would get here an archaeological monument of modern times, then no one had thought about this yet. And then, somewhere in the late 60s, completely by accident, Alexander Danilovich Grach discovered a well-preserved cultural layer of the 18th century on Vasilyevsky Island near the Kunstkamera. Gleb seized on this and began to involve us all in the study of St. Petersburg. I must say that we kicked pretty hard back then - why are we bothering with the 18th century, there’s enough of everything else. But Gleb, thanks to his completely catchy character, simply started, and inevitably they got involved in it. I even remember now the first objects that began to be studied stably and permanently. This was the Summer Garden. Those fountains that Pyotr Yegorovich Sorokin recently explored almost all of them were first excavated with the participation of Gleb Sergeevich Lebedev. Then Sampson's Cathedral. The monument is very interesting because it personifies the connection between that pre-Petrine Rus' and the absolutely new Russia. Gleb Lebedev also initiated its study. Well, the first excavations in the Peter and Paul Fortress. This is also Gleb Lebedev. True, all these excavations were carried out quite sporadically. It had not yet been integrated into the system at that time. Gleb constantly impressed upon everyone that this needed to be done as a system. That is why, on his initiative, the St. Petersburg archaeological expedition was created, which was then headed by Peter Sorokin, a direct student of Gleb Lebedev. Gleb constantly supervised the activities of this expedition, and he oriented the laboratory he himself created for the study of monuments towards the same activities, which, by a strange, or rather not strange, coincidence of circumstances - Gleb’s relations with the leadership of the department then became quite strained. Thanks to his complex and tough character, despite the fact that he was a very open person, but very impulsive. And that’s why he created this laboratory not at the history department, but at the sociology department. The laboratory was created then and continues to operate to this day, it works now and is actively engaged in the study of St. Petersburg. The Sorokin expedition continues to study St. Petersburg - this is the main expedition now that is engaged specifically in the scientific study of St. Petersburg. Well, since Gleb and I went through these very initial stages of the formation of St. Petersburg archeology, for a long time later I tried to stay away from this, studying ancient Russia, working mainly not in the northwest, but in the northeast, in Ukraine, in Belarus. When work began here in the courtyard of the Hermitage, we saw with our own eyes how St. Petersburg is a unique archaeological site. He was mothballed. Yes, some trenches, some sewers, some cables were laid here, but on the whole the cultural layer of the city, despite the seemingly complete digging up, remained intact. It was the end of the 90s, when this happened for the first time, with great resistance, by the way, and not quite understanding of their own bosses, that is, the Hermitage, they began to slow down the production of all sorts of earthworks in the yard, so Gleb was very actively involved in the study then and our territories. Unfortunately, here fate has not given him so much to participate in these matters. But what else did Gleb manage to do? He managed to initiate the legislative approval of St. Petersburg as an archaeological site, and the project of protective zones, which was developed on his initiative and with his participation, had to be finalized by us - Pyotr Sorokin, me, Yuri Mikhailovich Lesman, and several other colleagues. But it was Gleb Lebedev’s idea that formed the basis of this project. This was largely influenced by the fact that by this time Gleb had gained more brilliant experience, already working in the legislative sphere, becoming a deputy. True, the moment of his deputyship is a completely special story. Gleb was, after all, the most important thing in his nature was that he was a romantic. An absolutely amazing romantic, he also wrote poetry, and in general he was a wonderful person in this regard. He also treated his parliamentary activities very romantically. True, this was an era of euphoria after post-perestroika euphoria, and it was dangerous for people of such a romantic nature to come into contact with this kind of activity. Either this activity will break them, or they will simply lead it to a dead end. Not everyone understood this then. In the first few years, this activity was active, but I had to face boring, boring economic activities in general. You see, the laws that arose at that time, as it turned out now, work poorly or do not work at all. They were done in a state of euphoria, and this affected the fact that it so happened that Gleb actually parted with this activity. There were many other things here that no longer depended on him. Everyone knows the story of how he was openly framed. But, in general, this is thank God, because it was no longer possible for him to continue doing this. Perhaps, unfortunately, he realized this a little late, but he understood. And then, further on, he was already engaged in exactly the same activities, but as a professional. That’s when this project of protected zones arose and then Gleb was one of the initiators of the creation of a federal law on monument protection. Or rather, it was not federal yet; it began to be developed in the last years of the Soviet Union, but many of the ideas put into this law by Gleb Lebedev were continued in the activities of his student, Alexei Kovalev. Well, then we all found ourselves simply involved in the sphere of this activity because it became clear to everyone that it was no longer possible to engage in pure science without doing this, because then we would lose everything. And now we are constantly faced with this. So Gleb’s legacy continues to live on. Well, in recent years, Gleb, he just went back into pure science. And again, here are his best books, they probably appeared at this time.

Nikolai Vladimirovich Belyak

-How did you meet Gleb Sergeevich?

I'll start with some general words. For me, Gleb Sergeevich is a very close friend, a person whom I met far from the beginning of my life’s journey. This happened in 1990, after the first democratic elections to the Leningrad City Council. I must note that our friendship lasted until 2003, until Gleb’s death. That is, a whole 13 years. We saw each other almost every day, he was often at my place, I was at his place. In addition to the fact that he was my friend, he was my comrade-in-arms, like-minded person. At some point, Gleb became the founder of the Interior Theater. He and Alexey Anatolyevich Kovalev were the founders of a branch of the Likhachev Institute of Culture and Natural Heritage, and as the head of this branch, he became the founder of the theater, moreover, he was a member of the theater’s artistic council. Of course, Gleb Sergeevich was involved in almost all the plans that arose at that time. There were a lot of projects: a carnival, French joint projects, there were a lot of them. Gleb was connected with them conceptually and organizationally. Therefore, it is difficult for me to talk about him objectively. This is an outstanding person and scientist, his contribution to the history and culture of St. Petersburg is still unappreciated and his memory will return to him many times, and everyone will gradually understand his role in the formation of the culture of St. Petersburg. There are scientists, writers, outstanding people, the fruits of which are obvious to everyone who honors them. And there are people whose significance and impact on the sociocultural environment is associated not only with the fruits of their professional activities, but also with daily living interaction with this environment. Gleb was like that. We cannot talk only about his books and individual articles. He participated every day in the life of the city, in the formation of a new culture. In his office at home there was a photograph of him and Academician Sakharov on the podium discussing the draft charter of the Memorial Society. He was one of its founders, together with Sakharov. Standing at the origins. Archaeologists will talk about its significance in discussions about the Norman origins of Russia and urban archaeology. Old Ladoga knows and remembers Gleb as its explorer, its apologist, its herald, poet, and ultimately the creator of the very important Ladoga Institute. He did a lot to ensure that the role of Ladoga was appreciated on an all-Russian scale.

He became the chairman of the Lensovet Culture Commission, created a number of documents, projects, formulated a number of legislative initiatives, and carried out a number of resolutions that still determine many of the processes taking place in St. Petersburg culture. This is difficult to overestimate. As for personal qualities: he was a very ardent, open person, unusually intellectual, spiritually agile, always at a very high spiritual and intellectual level. Amazing fire and temperament. At any moment he was always in a state of constant work. Not only research, but also active, prophetic, in relation to the problems that concerned him. And this was the problem of democracy, science, archeology, the state of modern culture, the state of society. He became fully involved in this revolutionary process of change.

I met him at the first session of the new Leningrad City Council. Before that, I did not know him and, even moreover, in the circle of my friends and our mutual friends, attention was never focused on him. The meeting was very unexpected, almost anecdotal. On the same day it grew into love at first sight, into reverence and respect for him that still lasts. I was invited as a guest to the first session of the Leningrad City Council. While everyone at the Mariinsky Palace was very excited and in a festive state before the start of this session, there was a place near the elevator not far from the large hall where smokers “hanged out.” In those days I was a smoker, I smoked Belomor. And either I had run out of cigarettes, or I didn’t have them at all, but next to me I saw a short, very dry, collected, bright-looking, memorable man, with an almost caricatured face, from whom I simply asked for a smoke. I immediately received an offer to take a whole pack of Belomor as a gift. Moreover, in a slightly guttural voice, with very hard consonants, with a hard letter “r”. I said that I would not refuse, but only with a dedicatory inscription. To which I immediately received Gleb Lebedev’s signature on the package. We smoked together, then we went into the hall together and sat next to each other, talking about something, and his first phrase that was etched in my memory: Gleb looked at the chandeliers that were in the meeting room. In the center, where earlier, before the revolution, Repin’s painting “Meeting of the State Council” hung, there was a large bas-relief depicting Lenin, and huge chandeliers hung above the hall. And on the chandeliers there are double-headed eagles that held the lamps. Gleb looked up and said quite loudly: “But the birds outlasted the Bolsheviks.” The symbols of Tsarist Russia remained there after all the years... it was funny. On the same day, after the meeting, we walked to his house in Kazachy Lane and that same evening fantasized about possible actions related to the new cultural policy in the city, then still Leningrad. Then the meetings were almost daily. We dreamed a lot, sometimes fantasized, did a lot of things, almost all projects could not be done without his advice. Once a month, the two of us simply got together and discussed what had happened during the month, planned and guessed the events that were destined to happen in the next month.

-During your communication with him, were there any moments that you especially remember?

There were plenty of them, almost all of them, that’s the whole point. Here we can talk endlessly. This man was remembered every day, in any manifestation. When he passed by the sphinxes of the Academy of Arts, standing on the Neva, he read some hymn in ancient Egyptian and saluted the pharaohs. Crossing the Lieutenant Schmidt Bridge, I read poems about St. Petersburg. He was a unique person in many of his manifestations. He laid the foundation of urban culture and the legislative framework. He was quite diplomatic: a special attitude towards the war, towards veterans, towards people of the older generation, even if they belonged to a different political paradigm.

He participated in all the events of the Interior Theater, not as one of the consultants, but as an actor. We had a special theatrical costume for him (the costume of the standard bearer in the St. Petersburg Mystery). This was the ensemble of the Spit of Vasilievsky Island, the Rostral Columns, and the image of Peter and Paul Fortress. The event that he organized and which he was very proud of as the culmination of his activities made a tremendous impression on me - the visit of Scandinavian guests on longships to the beach of the Peter and Paul Fortress. He talked about it a lot and participated in it as a reenactor, rune stones were exhibited; those who came on drakkars in Viking clothes participated in certain rituals, and 60-year-old professor-historian Gleb Lebedev sat with them on the oars. Participation and initiative in creating a board of trustees for the Derzhavin House on Fontanka (the first board of trustees that arose in the country in relation to architectural monuments!), constant active meetings in the Derzhavin House. Participation in a number of theatrical ceremonies in the city - Gleb took an active part in this; theater trips to Staraya Ladoga, events in various significant places of the city. He was involved in many excavations in the city: in the Peter and Paul Fortress, excavations of the front porch of the Big University, in parallel with the development of legislative norms related to the protection of the culture of St. Petersburg.

- Do you think he was more of a man of politics or a man of history and science?

This is the case when the meaning of human existence in social, cultural and scientific life are linked together. First of all, he considered himself a historian and archaeologist; everything else came from basic ideas about how people lived, how they should live and how they would live. This was a man who looked incredibly rationally and soberly at the world, like any archaeologist who knows that everything eventually turns into bones, that everything is finite - he looked at everything through the well of time, and on the other hand, he was incredibly romantic and admiring. And he was very, very passionate about it. Engagement in politics was the result of his deeply scientific views on the place of man in the world, the duty of man. This is not just a separate area. Everything in the personality was connected, consciously. He was also a poet, he wrote poems about Ladoga.

The fact that 10 years have already passed and the initiative to honor his memory is much wider than when he passed away... is already an indicator. Gleb dreamed about a lot and made a lot of discoveries. Many of his colleagues, who were perhaps quite good scientists, but worked in a narrow corridor from now to now, treated him with some skepticism. Gleb was a man of great interdisciplinary knowledge, because archeology requires a synthesis of many sciences. His political and cultural interests made him a man of wide range; he knew foreign languages and knew Russian literature well. A very important initiative - the restoration of the Delphic Games - is directly related to its translation into Russian by the German initiator Kirsch (the conceptual part of his work). And since he was chairman of the commission for some time, a whole series of impulses depended on him. His period was a time of a large number of impulses, which were realized for many years after he left this post.

He spoke about Meta-Petersburg, took part in returning the city to its historical name, in the creation of a pantheon for the burial of the Grand Duke's tomb. This was Likhachev’s initiative, but Lebedev was one of the guides, a collector of information.

Our interaction went primarily along the lines of the City Mystery, because for him St. Petersburg was a special phenomenon of world culture and history, Gleb well understood and promoted its role and functioning in this capacity.

- Were there people who were skeptical of Lebedev? In particular, the example with Nevzorov?

Nevzorov is not a man of science. He's just a journalistic hitman. The episode that happened was simply a disgusting and monstrous story that deeply hurt not only Gleb, but also his friends. Nevzorov, who was then very active in his criticism of deputies (Sobchak, democratic processes), spoke out quite a lot and sharply, noting any moments that could be caught on and made public: all the flaws, positions, behavior of those who found themselves in politics . The following episode was connected with Gleb: someone let Nevzorov know, and he came with a camera and filmed Gleb at the moment of absolutely uncontrolled behavior. Gleb was a drinker, like many Russian people, it was an illness that he fought and coped with, several times I helped him do this. This was due to colossal overload and lack of energy, plus there was a serious illness that needed to be fought. On this day, Gleb had all his teeth removed; he was born in 1943, in a besieged city, this is a special generation and the health of these people is different from those who were born later. As he said: at least we are without strontium in our blood, like those who were born after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He had a serious operation under anesthesia, after which he took alcohol and got carried away. He walked from the doctor to Petropavlovka, and there, near the monument to Shemyakin, where he was practically unconscious, Nevzorov’s team immediately appeared, and he photographed the chairman of the cultural commission in this form. It was disgusting.

By the way, we took good revenge on him: our artist made him a mask of the elements of earth or death, in addition, we had a suit with a bag of bones on the back, we put this mask there. We held an art event related to the masks of Lenin and Peter, and these two people were in rivalry. Lenin had a tango with death, and during this dance, we called the Telecourier team and showed a number with a Nevzorov mask, which we stuffed into this bag of bones. Since then, Nevzorov removed his vile paws from Gleb and from us, because he understood that we would not just leave it like that. Agree, in that political situation, with so many contradictions, it was an extremely unpleasant moment in Gleb’s biography. But this in no way denigrated his real image and what he did for the city and for science. This is entirely on the conscience of those people who did it. Nevzorov carried out a certain political order. No more.

- Were there people who did not support Lebedev in his political activities?

Yes, and a lot. People for whom the concept of norms of political behavior, systemic averageness, lack of individuality was a principle - these people always had a negative attitude towards bright behavior, as well as towards bright and talented people in general. People with talent always accepted and respected Lebedev - the same Sobchak, Likhachev. With all this, Lebedev’s position and statements were quite eccentric, very bright, original, but people were aware that this brightness was associated with giftedness, and not with disability. What is allowed to Jupiter is not allowed to the bull. Bulls have always had a complex towards Jupiter. It is not respectable for a professor or scientist to dress in a Viking costume and sit on oars with reenactors on longships... There is a normative idea of how professors and politicians should behave. This is possible, but this is not possible, all this is multiplied by the ideas of “homo soviticus”, about how everything should be. The ideology is patriotic, society is one-dimensional. And Gleb was multidimensional and did not fit into routine ideas. And the Faculty of History, for example, is an incredibly routine scientific environment, even to this day. Moreover, the person took such a post. This was surprising to many...

CONCLUSION

The Viking Age in Northern Europe is one of the most important stages in the historical past of the Scandinavian countries. It separates ten thousand years of primitiveness from the beginning of the historical period proper, which in the north of the European continent opens with the formation of early feudal society as the first class socio-economic formation.

A consistent analysis of all aspects of the economy, socio-political structure, material and spiritual culture accessible to study, based on a comprehensive study of data from different groups of sources (written, archaeological, numismatic, linguistic), and a generalization of the results of this analysis against a comparative historical background and in specific historical relationship with the development of neighboring states in the region allows us to reconstruct the main stages of this revolutionary process, which spanned the 9th - first half of the 11th centuries.

The prerequisites for the development of class relations based on the social division of labor in Northern Europe took shape in the second half of the 1st millennium AD. e., after the creation of the northern system of integrated farming, based on the use of iron tools and adapted to the environmental conditions of Scandinavia. Until the 8th century. social development was hampered by the institutions of the traditional tribal system that continued to function and slowly evolved. Social stability was ensured by the mechanism of “forced emigration” characteristic of barbarian society, the essence of which was revealed by Marx: “... the surplus population was forced to make those great migrations full of dangers that marked the beginning of the formation of the peoples of ancient and modern Europe” note 724.

In its social content, the Viking Age represents the finale of the pan-European era of the Great Migration of Peoples (V-VI centuries), but the finale was belated, unfolding in different political conditions. In Scandinavia, he gave rise to a special social phenomenon - the “Viking movement”, which covered wide and varied social strata and developed new, specific organizational forms. The Viking movement ensured (through military campaigns and foreign trade) the entry into Scandinavia of a significant amount of material assets. In the course of the movement, new social groups differentiated and consolidated: the military-military layer, merchants, artisans. On the basis of accumulated material and social resources, the political institutions of early feudal statehood and royal power were formed, which successively subjugated the bodies of tribal self-government, destroyed or adapted the tribal nobility, consolidated military-feudal elements, and then eliminated the Viking movement. The correlation of all these social forces over the course of two and a half centuries predetermined the characteristic features of the Scandinavian medieval statehood, unknown in other feudal countries of Europe (the preservation of the institutions of peasant self-government, the people's armed force - ledung, the absence of serfdom). At the same time, it was towards the end of the Viking Age that the main institutions of early feudal statehood took shape and functioned: royal power, based on a hierarchically organized armed force (practically coinciding with the feudal class and opposed to the armed organization of the free population); legislation regulated by this power, ensuring state control over taxes, duties, and the courts; a Christian church that sanctified the social system and political system of the feudal formation. These fundamental elements of medieval class society matured throughout the Viking Age, and by its end they already determined the social, political and cultural structure of each of the Scandinavian countries. Following Lenin’s definition: “The state is a product and manifestation of the irreconcilability of class contradictions. The state arises where, when and insofar as class contradictions cannot be objectively reconciled. And vice versa: the existence of the state proves that class contradictions are irreconcilable,” note 725, it must be stated that it was the Viking Age in Northern Europe that became the era of the maturation and development of irreconcilable class contradictions, culminating in the establishment of a class, feudal state.

The specifics of this process in Scandinavia in the 9th-11th centuries. consisted in the widespread use of additional, external resources, amounting to at least 7-8 million marks of silver and ultimately redistributed in favor of the emerging class of feudal lords (comprising no more than 2-3% of the population with families and numbering 12-15 thousand armed people) . The initial concentration of these funds was carried out by the Viking forces. This movement, the number of which reached 50-70 thousand people at different stages, led to a kind of “overproduction of the superstructural element” in the form of military squads that broke away from the tribal organization and were not included in the feudal class. Gradual (and incomplete) differentiation of the Vikings, their dissolution into different social groups of medieval society (in Scandinavia and beyond); The methodical struggle of the royal power against them, and most importantly, the withdrawal of accumulated surplus funds in favor of the state, the feudal class, undermined the socio-economic basis of the Viking movement and led to its cessation.

This movement was brought to life by the political conditions of the era. Unlike the Germanic and Slavic tribes of the 4th-6th centuries, the Scandinavians dealt not with a decaying ancient, slave-owning empire, but with a system of feudal states - either established (Carolingian Empire, Byzantium, Arab Caliphates) or emerging (Ancient Rus', Poland , Polabian and Baltic Slavs). In the West, where the Normans were opposed by established states, the Vikings were able to obtain a certain amount of material wealth (through military plunder), take part in feudal wars, partially become part of the ruling class, and at the same time assimilate some of the political and cultural norms of feudal society. These relations were of particular importance in the early stages of the Viking Age (793-891), for the maturation of organizational forms of the movement (Viking squads) in the brutal military confrontation. Subsequently, having suffered a military defeat, the Scandinavians entered the Western European arena only after the construction of the early feudal states in Northern Europe was completed.

Relations in the East developed differently. The necessary material assets (at least 4-5 million marks of silver came to the North through Rus', i.e. more than half of the funds used for the “feudal revolution”) could not be obtained directly through plunder, since they accumulated here as a result of multi-stage, transit trade of the Slavs with the Muslim world and Byzantium. The Varangians were forced to get involved in the construction of a system of state communications, territories, centers, institutions, and because of this, to a large extent subordinate their interests and goals to the interests and goals of the Slavic ruling class of Ancient Rus'. Relations between the Varangians and Russia took on the character of long-term and multilateral cooperation. It began in the early era and developed most fruitfully during the Middle Viking Age (891-980), during the most crucial period of their own state building for the Scandinavian countries.

These relations, which covered the sphere of material production (craft), trade exchange, social institutions, political connections, cultural norms, ensured the entry into Scandinavia not only of material values, but to a large extent also of socio-political experience developed by the ruling class of Kievan Rus, which, in turn, was closely connected with the largest and most authoritative of the feudal states of the era - the Byzantine Empire. At this time, the Normans, faced with the states of the “Roman-German synthesis” in an unsuccessful military confrontation, were to some extent drawn into the orbit of a different path of building feudalism - based on the interaction of the communal, “barbarian” orders of the Slavic and other tribes with the ancient tradition, which in Byzantium successively developed from a slave-owning formation to a feudal one. Some norms and values of this Eastern European world were deeply rooted in the society of the Viking Age and for centuries predetermined the uniqueness of the spiritual culture of the Scandinavian countries.

Feudalism’s own, “northern” path of development was finally determined in the late Viking Age (980-1066), when diverse relations with the outside world were gradually curtailed. In the middle of the 11th century. The Scandinavian countries relied mainly on internal, limited resources, which later determined their role in the history of Europe in the Middle Ages.

SOURCES CITED

Sources are given according to the way they are cited in the text and are placed in the following sequence: works of ancient and medieval authors; epic works (including sagas); codes of laws, chronicles.