Sergei Ivanov
Biography
Sergei Ivanov is not only one of Russia’s most distinguished historians of Byzantium, but also a leading popular historian and columnist. Since receiving his PhD from Moscow State University in 1984, he has produced over 170 scholarly publications, including Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond, which was published in English translation by the Oxford University Press in 2006, and Byzantine Missions, which is currently being translated into English and Czech.
However, as well as his academic work (he is Professor of Byzantine Studies at Saint Petersburg State University, as well as a professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Russian State University for the Humanities and a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences), Ivanov is noted for his ability to communicate to the common reader his passion for and knowledge of history: this mission of enlightenment began in his long-running columns for publications such as Itogi, Vedomosti and, currently, Vokrug sveta, and has been continued in his books Byzantium (2001) and A Thousand Years of Inventions (2010), a collection of masterful essays detailing the fascinating stories behind the objects, both ordinary and extraordinary, that have made our modern life.
Books /selected/
1000 лет озарений / A Thousand Years of Inventions (2010)
Блаженные похабы. Культурная история юродства / Holy Fools. Cultural History of Idiocy (2005)
Византийское миссионерство / Byzantine Missioners (2003)
Византия / Byzantium (2001)
In Translation
in English
Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond (2006)