Date and Time: Feb. 25, 2007, Sunday, 10:00-16:30
Venue: Seminar Room No.4, National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, Japan
Language: Russian, Mongolian, Japanese, English (simultaneous translation: JP-MN, JP-RU)

Andrei Dmitriyevich SIMUKOV (1902-1942) was a Russian geographer who visited Mongolia initially as a researcher on the archeological team led by P. K. KOZLOV. This visit indicated the start of his activities in Mongolian Studies and in 1926 he started to live in Mongolia and became a chief of the department of Geography what later developed into a department of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences. He got deeply involved in determining the country borders, formulation of administrative centers in countryside and devoted much of his time to making maps and the founding of the meteorological institute and its observation points. His many activities served both the public administration in Mongolia as well as academic research culminating in the foundation of the current Mongolian Academy of Sciences. As foreign scholar he played a vital role in the process of socialist modernization of Mongolia. In the light of his significance in this period, the National Museum of the Ethnology, Japan will soon complete publishing his collected works in 3 volumes. At this symposium, we look forward to discuss the value of his achievements for the study of modernization under socialism.

Program