Profile Information

The Laboratory of Ancient and Medieval History is the first scientific department in the city of Novosibirsk, which is specialised in history, and at the same time has nothing to do with the history of Siberia. Studying history of Western European and Eastern countries in ancient and medieval era is relevant in order to enhance research area in history in Novosibirsk Akademgorodok, where monopoly for historical scholarship is traditionally hold by historians specialised in the history of Siberian region.
Research fellows of the laboratory are the following scholars: Arkady E. Demidchik, D. Hab., have done his PhD in Moscow State University, specialist in Ancient Egypt, author of many papers published in Western countries; Timofey G. Miakin, PhD, specialist in ancient Greek and Roman history and literature, studied classical philology at Moscow State University; Gennady G. Pikov, Dr. Hab., author of many works on medieval history, teaches medieval history at Novosibirsk State University for about forty years.
The laboratory is lead by Valentin L. Portnykh, Dr., Hab., specialist in medieval history, studied in France (Lyons), author of articles in Western journals, and awarded the Medal of the Russian Academy of Sciences for young scholars (2019). The first Russian historian who published a volume of a prestigious series Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Medievalis (Brepols).
Activities of the laboratory are done in multiple directions at the same time, depending on specialisations of each research fellow. However, it is possible to say, that almost all of them are focused on the history of spiritual life of ancient and medieval societies. Considerable attention is always given to preparation of critical editions of sources and translations of sources into Russian.