HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE HISTORY

The history of mankind has always been a chain of succession. It was exactly 120 years ago that the American expedition of Raphael Pumpelly conducted the first professional excavations in Anau. In the same year of 1904, future archaeologist Alexander Marushchenko was born in the Russian city of Samara. He was destined to become the discoverer of almost all the now famous ancient monuments on the territory of Turkmenistan. A quarter century later, academician Mikhail Masson visited the young Turkmen Republic for the first time. It was he who managed to organize the Central Asian largest archaeological complex expedition that was active in the southern regions of Turkmenistan for forty years. It became an excellent school of professionalism for a galaxy of outstanding scientists - mainly graduates of the Department of Archaeology established by the same Mikhail Masson at the Tashkent University. Notable among them was Viktor Sarianidi, one of the most famous archaeologists in the world of the second half of the 20th century, who glorified Turkmenistan as a country whose current territory was one of the five centers of civilization of the Ancient East. From Sarianidi, the chain of succession goes to Nadezhda Dubova, who was his closest associate. When he passed away, she headed the Margiana Archaeological Expedition established by Sarianidi in 1974. The half-century anniversary of this informal scientific organization coincided with the 75th birth anniversary of its leader. Doctor of Historical Sciences Nadezhda Anatolyevna Dubova is an anthropologist by education and profession. Her first scientific degree was in the field of biological sciences. She is the author of some five hundred publications on the anthropology and archeology of Eurasia, craniology, somatology, odontology, ethnic ecology, human ecology, paleoanthropology, migrations of people in the Bronze Age, on the modern population of Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. She boasts over sixty expeditions not only to Central Asia but also to Chukotka, Kamchatka, Transcaucasia and the North Caucasus, Moldova, Western Siberia, the Urals, the Central Black Earth and Northern Russia. Turkmenistan however is her special focus and, perhaps, her most sincere love. Writer Konstantin Paustovsky has one interesting observation. “People working in any field are noticeably divided into three categories – those who are narrower than their profession, those who surely fit their profession, and, finally, those who are much broader than their profession. The latter are traditionally restless and ebullient people. They are true creators” he wrote. Likewise, Nadezhda Dubova is much broader than her profession as an anthropologist and, of course, it should be clarified, as a physical anthropologist. Anyone who knows her well as a person and a scientist will confirm the truth of what the Russian classic said, who characterized people of this type in the best possible way. This amazing woman is endowed not only with incredible creative energy but also with inexhaustible optimism, with which she involuntarily charges those around her. Where others give up and retreat before a seemingly insurmountable obstacle, she achieves her goal! Her determination, persistence and faith in herself are manifestations of the integrity of Dubova’s character. The nature of this integrity comes from everything that surrounded her since childhood, from the environment in which she grew up. She was born in Moscow, where she graduated from a specialized «biological» school on Mosfilmovskaya Street. She entered the biology department of the Moscow University headed at that time by Professor Nikolai Naumov – zoologist, ecologist, expert in gamekeeping and one of the pioneers of bionics. The anthropology department, where Dubova studied, was headed by another outstanding scientist and teacher, Professor Yakov Roginsky, one of the largest researchers of anthropogenesis. He was the supervisor of her brilliant thesis on the anthropology of some groups of the population of Northern Tajikistan. Nadezhda Anatolyevna developed this topic in her PhD thesis that she defended seven years after graduating. It was at the university, largely thanks to lectures on the ethnography of the peoples of the world taught by Professor Sergey Polyakov, an erudite expert on Central Asia, that Dubova developed a keen interest in this region, which over time turned into a real passion. Her postgraduate supervisor, a scientist with an unusually wide range of interests, anthropologist, historian and archaeologist, academician Valery Alekseev, and his wife, professor of anthropology and also academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Tatyana Alekseeva, undoubtedly had a certain influence on the formation of Dubova as a specialist, setting the vectors of her scientific research. But a special place in her life was occupied by Victor Sarianidi. For him, Dubova became not only a reliable support in his last years, but also, perhaps, his closest friend and associate. Nadezhda Dubova emerged quite early as a unique scientist who made an indisputable contribution to the study of humans and their migratory movements across Eurasia at different stages of world history. Her in-depth studies of genetic and sociocultural stratification of human populations have long been on the radar of domestic and foreign specialists, causing not only praise but also polemics. Like Viktor Sarianidi, Nadezhda Dubova has been associated with Turkmenistan since her youth, but their paths did not cross for a long time. The scientists met only in 2000, and the reputable archaeologist invited her to join his expedition. For him, it was truly a fateful choice, because it was Dubova who took on the whole load of logistical issues, when Sarianidi himself by virtue of advanced age and health lost his energy. It was she who prolonged his scientific life, became a full-fledged co-author and editor of his works, not to mention how much effort she put and continues to put into the scientific processing of the materials he had obtained over many years of excavations that are now scattered among Turkmen museums and partly not yet published. All those associated with the Margiana expedition know very well that without Dubova, Sarianidi would have had to wrap up his field work much earlier. And there would have been no impressive discoveries that multiplied the glory of the brilliant Margiana of the Bronze Age. Without Dubova, there would have been no regular publication of the works of this expedition, not to mention the team of professionals of various profiles from scientific centers of Russia and Europe. Sarianidi passed away at the age of 85, two months after returning from his last expedition in the fall of 2013. Starting the following spring, Nadezhda Dubova took on the heavy burden of continuing his research. The task was a difficult one. It was necessary to do everything to ensure that the archaeological work in Turkmenistan, primarily at Gonur-Depe, was not interrupted but continued at least at the same level as before. Having no experience in management of archaeological excavations, Nadezhda Anatolyevna enthusiastically took up a new task. The National Administration of Turkmenistan for the Protection, Study and Restoration of Historical and Cultural Monuments naturally provided her with great assistance and support. A new agreement was signed between the Institute of Anthropology and Ethnology of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Ministry of Culture of Turkmenistan, which allowed excavations to continue at Gonur-Depe. And one can only marvel at her courage and determination, taking on personal responsibility for conducting field research on a unique cultural heritage site. Every year of research at Gonur-Depe brings new discoveries, and everything found in the ground is carefully preserved in three national museums. The richest main part of them (more than 20 thousand items) is stored at the Mary Museum of History and Local Lore and its branches. The second, comparable in number collection is displayed at the State Museum of Turkmenistan – the largest museum in the country. The Museum of Fine Arts of Turkmenistan has got the part of the archaeological finds from Margiana, which are vivid evidence of the ancient roots of modern Turkmen art. Yet, the exhibitions of these large modern museums can show only a small part of the finds. Archaeological publications also most often include single, most striking artifacts. In the meantime, scientists from around the world are showing increasing interest in Margiana collections. That is why Nadezhda Dubova initiated a full inventory of all the material accumulated over forty years. The team she leads has already prepared for publication the first volume of a multi-volume work dedicated to the stone products of Margiana. It summarizes information on three groups of objects that are characteristic of the BMAC – miniature stone columns, disks and scepters (staffs) stored in museums of Turkmenistan and Russia. It also provides brief information about ancient Margiana itself, the history of its study, and the main monuments known so far. In the following volumes, scientists will also have to thoroughly describe ceramics, metal products, animal bones and mixed technique items. Such, for example, are the decorative panels discovered during excavations of the royal necropolis of Gonur-Depe. They are decorated with skillfully executed ornamental and plot multifigure compositions. Their main part was pictorial, and some elements were executed in the mosaic technique. Alas, all these are only fragments of irretrievably lost paintings, but together with a huge collection of pictorial seals-amulets they still give us a glimpse into the world of legends, myths and rituals of the inhabitants of Gonur and the whole country of Margush. Pairs of griffins and winged lions, snakes swallowing argali, scenes of dragons fighting with snakes demonstrate, as Victor Sarianidi repeatedly noted, one of the leading ideas of the time – the struggle between good and evil. Of course, there are similar motifs in the art of the Ancient East, but on the Gonur samples real and fantastic animals are depicted much more professionally, with greater expression and naturalism. Invaluable information for understanding the technique of making these mosaics was provided by the restoration works carried out at the Museum of Fine Arts of Turkmenistan by specialists of the highest category Natalia Kovaleva and Galina Veresotskaya - employees of the State Research Institute of Restoration of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation. On the day of her recent anniversary, Nadezhda Anatolyevna received many congratulations and warm words from friends and colleagues, who expressed their respect and admiration for her. And very accurate words were found by Alexey Fribus, an archaeologist from St. Petersburg, who is now her deputy at the Margiana expedition: “I would like to sincerely thank her for the fact that I was lucky enough to find myself in the magical company united by Gonur. Apart from the sands and the unique monument, people are the main thing here. Gonur gave me new friends, such that for the first time in many years I felt at home in the expedition. The credit naturally goes to her. I think that the most important things are still ahead of us: both extraordinary finds and remarkable discoveries!” Finally, it is only thanks to her initiative and persistence and under her direct editorship that the academic series “Peoples and Cultures” run by the Moscow Miklukho-Maklai Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology featured the fundamental volume “Turkmens” – the most complete ethnographic description to date of the people with whom she is connected (in addition to the current archaeological epic) by the anthropologist’s field work that began in the 1970s. The same institute also publishes the series “Ethnography of Turkmens” initated by Dubova, each issue of which is devoted to separate, previously completely unexplored aspects of folk traditions, beliefs and spiritual culture of the Turkmen people. The diversity, or rather multi-vector nature of Nadezhda Dubova’s scientific creativity and organizational work puts her among those figures of science and culture who are best characterized by one succinct word – selfless devotion to a cause. In other words, this is about selfless work aimed at achieving high goals. And it is amazing that she has managed to bring up worthy students who are capable of becoming the same strong links in the unbreakable bond of generations.
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