Собрание трудов в 3-х тт. Т. 3. Кавказские мифы, языки, этносы

Ardzinba V.

Collected Works in Three Volumes. Vol. 3. Caucasian Myths, Languages, Peoples

Еditor: Anatolij Vyatkin
Compilator: Vyacheslav Chirikba

Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences,

Москва; Сухум, 2015, 320 p.

The third volume of the collection is devoted to those works of V.G. Ardzinba, which touch upon various aspects of history and culture of the peoples of Caucasus. However, the scholar was also a recognized expert on linguistics, and this made it possible for him to conduct quite successfully, using his knowledge of the old folk legends, a comparative analysis of ancient languages of the Asia Minor and those of modern Caucasian peoples. Some works of V.G. Ardzinba deal with the history of the Abkhazian people and some contemporary issues of Abkhazia – his native land (“Stages of Ethnic and Political History of Abkhazia”, “On the Study of the Ancient History of Abkhazia” and some other publications). The “biographical” dynamics of this collection is of particular interest. The edition comprises papers of different years, ranging from good-quality article written by the student about his native village Eshera (1965) to the considered program of humanities development in Abkhazia (1989). At that time V.G. Ardzinba was a Director of the D.I. Gulia Abkhazian Institute of Language, Literature and History (Georgian Academy of Sciences). His program remains relevant even today. As a kind of conclusion, the third volume contains a paper of one of the followers of V.G. Ardzinba, a well-known linguist academician Vyacheslav Chirikba, who has made an attempt to provide a general evaluation of contribution of V.G. Ardzinba to the international scholarship. The Appendix includes List of the published works of V.G. Ardzinba (prepared by V. Chirikba), Names Index and Index of Geographical Names, as well as Summary to this three-volume edition. All the papers are supplied with the information about the time and place of their first appearance.