Alexander III

One senses from the emotional tribute he delivered to Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Amosov after his sudden death in 1996 that Amosov was like the son whom Shmidt never had, whose talents and scholarly achievements most closely matched Shmidt's ideal.

For example, himself tireless and constantly at work, Hellie expressed considerable admiration for Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Zimin, who, he wrote, "was able to generate such prodigious output because he was able to remember all that he read, and he had extraordinarily disciplined work habits under all conditions." (17) Reviewing the work of Nikolai Aleksandrovich Rozhkov, Hellie noted that Rozhkov viewed history "as a concrete science applying sociological principles to the study of a particular people ....

(1) Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Zimin, Slovo o polku Igoreve, ed.

I must confess to having experienced a moment of nostalgia upon being asked to review the present volume by Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Zimin (1920-80), one of whose earlier works was the subject of my first publication in this field, almost all of whose work I have read, with whom I once enjoyed a continued--if graphically exceedingly challenging--correspondence, and in whose footsteps I have repeatedly found myself treading.