Writer Ostrovsky Alexander Vladimirovich: biography with photo

Ostrovsky Alexander Vladimirovich is a well-known Russian writer and historian, professor, doctor of historical sciences, the author of several popular books on the recent history of Russia related to the events that took place in the country in the 20th century.

Biography of the writer

Ostrovsky Alexander Vladimirovich was born in 1947 in the Kalinin region. He was born in a small village of Ulin in the West-Dvina region. The future scholar graduated from high school in Velikie Luki, near Pskov.

At the age of 18, Alexander Vladimirovich Ostrovsky entered the Pskov Pedagogical Institute. I began to study at the Faculty of History. After graduation with honors, he was transferred to the post-graduate course at the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, located in Leningrad. His direct scientific adviser was the Soviet historian Valentin Dyakin, known for his detailed study of the autocracy crisis at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the author of the fundamental work The Crisis of Autocracy in Russia.

Having received the initial scientific degree, Ostrovsky Alexander Vladimirovich taught at the pedagogical institutes, first in Vologda, and then in Yaroslavl, for almost 10 years. At that time he worked hard at his own scientific works, in particular, defended his thesis. The subject of his study was a coup in Russia on June 3, 1907, which led to the early dissolution of the second State Duma.

Teaching career

Ostrovsky Alexander Vladimirovich, whose biography was closely connected with history, since 1984 he taught at the Electrotechnical Institute of Communications in Leningrad.

Since 1997 he worked at the Humanitarian Institute of Trade Unions in St. Petersburg. He was in charge of the history department. In this school he spent four years. In 2001, he entered into an open conflict with the rector Alexander Zapesotsky. By the way, Zapesotsky still leads the university. Since 1991. Today he is the oldest rector in Russia by the term of his tenure. As a result of the conflict, Alexander Vladimirovich Ostrovsky, whose photo is in this article, left the post of head of the department. And five years later he was dismissed from the university.

With his dismissal, he did not reconcile, he challenged him in court and won. A year later the servants of Themis canceled the dismissal order, Ostrovsky was reinstated.

Soon the hero of our article left this university on his own, moving to work at the University of Telecommunications named after Bonch-Bruevich, also located in the city on the Neva. At present he is the head of the department of history and regional studies at the Faculty of Humanities in the post of professor at this university.

Scientific work

After the defense of the candidate's historian, Alexander Vladimirovich Ostrovsky began work on his doctoral dissertation. In 1982, he made a study on the capitalist restructuring of agricultural production in the European part of Russia, which occurred in the late XIX - early XX centuries. In his work, Ostrovsky tried to refute the idea that was formed by that time about an exclusively agrarian system in pre-revolutionary Russia.

From the first time to defend the thesis failed. It was sent for recycling. In December 1983, he presented an updated version, which this time was called "Grain production in European Russia at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries." But this work was not accepted by the scientific community.

Defense of the thesis

Ostrovsky defended his doctoral thesis only from the third time. The work was published in an even more restricted version. Ultimately, it formed the basis of his book on agriculture in the European North of Russia, beginning with the abolition of serfdom and ending in 1914.

For more than 10 years (from 1992 to 2005) Ostrovsky edited the popular science almanac "From the depths of time." During these years, 13 issues were issued, an average of one per year.

Books of Alexander Vladimirovich Ostrovsky

One of Ostrovsky's most monumental works is the novel "Who was behind Stalin's back: Secrets of the revolutionary underground". In it, the historian made the main emphasis on previously unknown documents, most of which were not even published. Ostrovsky considered his task to be the exposure of secret ties between Stalin and the representatives of the Armenian and Georgian aristocracy.

In his work, the author carefully followed the path of the future generalissimo, beginning in March 1917, when Joseph Dzhugashvili returned from the Turukhansk exile and again actively began to engage in the revolutionary movement, soon gaining popularity under the pseudonym of Stalin.

Investigating previously unknown archival information, Ostrovsky reveals a lot of mysterious details from the prerevolutionary biography of the leader of the Soviet people. At the same time, he manages to prove that before the October Revolution he could not cooperate with the tsarist secret police, which some historians accused him of. But the writer Ostrovsky Alexander Vladimirovich demonstrates the whole essence of the revolutionary underground, proving that it had its representatives at all levels of power, even in the police department and the nearest encirclement of the emperor.

Books on the history of modern Russia

In 2000, Mikhailov's publishing house published Ostrovsky's textbook The History of Civilizations. In it, he argues that the history of society is closely linked with the history of the economy, because in production, to some extent even now employs more than half of the country's able-bodied population. Therefore, it comprehensively analyzes the economy, education, struggle of parties, classes and peoples in the development of civilizations.

In 2004, he released another important work "Solzhenitsyn: Farewell to the myth". The book was timed to the 10th anniversary of the return of the writer and prisoner of the Gulag to his homeland. In the book Ostrovsky traces the whole life path of the Nobel laureate. Particular attention is paid to the contradictoriness of his nature. Calling in his novels not to live by lies, Solzhenitsyn himself often did not adhere to these principles. In this respect, many facts of his biography look quite different.

The death of the USSR

Several historical books are devoted to the collapse of the Soviet Union. In 2008, the book "1993: The Execution of the White House" is published, it contains the memories of those who defended the White House, as well as those who shot it, curse each other, justify themselves, and many deliberately keep silent about certain facts. Archival materials, checks the testimony of the participants, literally restoring the course of events by the minute.

In 2010, Ostrovsky publishes a study "Who put Gorbachev?". In it he tries to open the veil of secrecy of the arrival of the last secretary general of the USSR to power. For many, it really remains surprising how he managed so easily to crack down on all his opponents in 1985. According to Ostrovsky, this is a real political detective, in the details of which he is trying to figure out.