Alexander Gordon

Alexander V. Gordon (Russian: Гордон, Александр Владимирович) is a Russian historian, historiographer, socio-anthropologist, and culturologist. He is the author of important works on European history, modern civilization, peasant studies, historiography. His major areas of research are the history and historiography of French revolution, mass-movements in traditional and modern cultures, and peasant culture. Through his work at the Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, he has considerably affected the exchange of information between Western and Russian academies and societies. He also authored several popular books on history and culture. Early life and education Alexander V. Gordon was born in Dnepropetrovsk (USSR, currently in Ukraine) in 1937, in the family of a military engineer. The family moved to Slonim (USSR, currently in Belarus), where Gordon graduated from high school in 1954. Gordon had successfully passed difficult entrance exams and was admitted to the Department of History at Saint Petersburg State University. He graduated in 1959, majoring in history, with the specialist diploma (equivalent of Bachelor of Arts). His development as an historian was influenced by such Soviet historians as S.N.Valk, Ya.M.Zacher, and E.E.Pechuro. He spent next three years at an obligatory position as a school history teacher in Kaliningrad (in Moscow region) Academic career Writing and research