[KS] Passing of Dr. Yuri Vasilyevich Vanin

[Vladimir Tikhonov]

Dear colleagues,

Sadly enough, I have to inform you about the passing of one of Soviet Union/Russia's veteran Korea historians, Dr. Yuri Vasilyevich Vanin (1930-2017). He passed away on October 21, 2017, leaving after himself important scholarly legacy. After having graduated from Moscow State University in 1954 (being one of the first students of Mikhail Nikolaevich Park, the pioneer of the studies on Korean history in post-war USSR) and received his doctorate in 1963, Yuri Vasilyevich - who had spent all his academic life at the Institute of Oriental Studies (under the aegis of the Soviet/Russian Academy of Sciences) in Moscow - worked on a plethora of topics, from KoryO's socity, economy and politics (his PhD thesis was on KoryO during the Mongol invasions) to the socio-economical changes in late ChosOn era, and later to the issues of modern and contemporary history. His last book, on the Soviet military administration in 1945-8 North Korea, was indeed published last year (http://www.rauk.ru/index.php?option=com_jdownloads&Itemid=4&task=view.download&catid=855&cid=4683&lang=ru ). One famed episode of interaction between Russian and South Korean historical circles was the polemics between Yuri Vasilyevich and Prof. Yi Kibaek in 2004, following the publication of Yi Kibaek's New History of Korea in Russian (http://www.rauk.ru/index.php?option=com_jdownloads&Itemid=4&view=viewdownload&catid=855&cid=4194&lang=ru ). While advising a number of PhD students from South Korea, Yuri Vasilyevich concurrently served as vice-chairman of the Russian-North Korean Friendship Association, doing his best to preserve the important traditional connections with North Koreans scholars that Soviet/Russian academia used to possess. He was known for his sharp criticisms of the lop-sided "pro-Southern" diplomatic interactions of Russia in the 1990s and his deeply interested attitude towards Russia's North Korean ties. More on his biography and works is available here in Russian - http://www.rauk.ru/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1099%3A2011-04-02-193316&catid=126%3A2011-04-02+19%3A33%3A16&lang=ru&Itemid=143 . And here is an interview his former South Korean student took with him and then had translated into English - http://www.dbpia.co.kr/Journal/ArticleList/VOIS00057017 

I would like to express my condolences to the remaining family, relatives, former and current students and friends of Yuri Vasilyevich Vanin.

Vladimir Tikhonov (Pak Noja)