Professor Y.D. Serovaisky: scientist and teacher

The article reveals the scientific heritage of the Medievalist-historian, researcher of agricultural history of medieval France, Professor Y.D. Serovaisky. His scientific researches enriched the historiography of universal history, namely the early medieval and developed period of feudalism of Western Europe, which remain relevant in regional and world medieval studies. The article is devoted to the scientific heritage of doctor of historical sciences, Professor Yakov Davidovich Serovaisky (1912-1997), the Medievalist-historian, naturalist and teacher. As an educator, he worked for more than 45 years at the Department of General history of the Kazakh State University named after S.M. Kirov (currently Al-Farabi Kazakh National University). He is an author of more than 150 scientific publications, which were published in editions across the Soviet Union and in Kazakhstan, and as a scientist he was widely recognized and in demand. He was approached with various questions regarding the field of agrarian history of medieval Europe, about writing reviews of the works of prominent Medievalists (M. Block, F. Gunther, J. Duby, A.R. Korsunsky, A.I. Neusykhin, S.M. Stamm). His doctoral dissertation on “Problems of a development of the feudal property in France in the IX-XIII centuries” was successfully defended by him in 1970 in front of the Dissertation Council of Leningrad State University and became a major scientific discovery in the field of evolution of feudal property in medieval France. Based on the analysis of the primary sources concerning agrarian history of the Kingdom of France, YakovSerovaisky characterized its medieval agriculture as biological and ecological process where the working personassists the independently operating forces of the nature. The interest of the scientist was also in the formation of ownership over forests, pastures, wastelands and other landscapes of the environment. It is noted in the article that studying the agrarian history of the early and developed middle ages of FranceProfessor Serovaisky drew attention to the social status of forests in the context of the development of the surrounding landscape. Having published a number of significant works, Y.D. Serovaisky was the first in medieval studies in the Soviet period to substantiate the value of forest history as a science. The article states that Serovaisky’s formulation of the problem of forest history coincided with the ideas of European researchers, who in the 1970s justified an emergence of the new section of historical science devoted to the history of the forest. Professor YakovSerovaisky was a true scientist, a respected teacher who made a valuable contribution to the development of historical science in the field of the middle ages.

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