Sergey Pavlovich Tolstov (; 7 February 1907 – 28 December 1976) was a Russian and

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

archaeologist and ethnographer. Tolstov was the organizer and the first director (between 1937 and 1969) of the Chorasmian Expedition credited with discovery and investigation of archeological monuments of

Khwarezm Khwarazm (; ; , ''Xwârazm'' or ''Xârazm'') or Chorasmia () is a large oasis region on the Amu Darya river delta in western Central Asia, bordered on the north by the (former) Aral Sea, on the east by the Kyzylkum Desert, on the south by ...

. He is also the author of the book Old Khwarezm, the seminal work in the field. In 1953, Tolstov was elected the corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union. Tolstov was born in Saint Petersburg, his father was a military officer. In 1930, he graduated from

Moscow State University Moscow State University (MSU), officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,. is a public university, public research university in Moscow, Russia. The university includes 15 research institutes, 43 faculties, more than 300 departments, a ...

, where he studied at two faculties simultaneously: Physics and mathematics, and History and ethnology. Between 1929 and 1936 he was a researcher at the Museum of Peoples of the Soviet Union. In 1939, Tolstov was appointed the head of the newly created Department of Ethnography at Moscow State University, and in 1942 he became the director of the Ethnography Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union. This made him the highest ranked ethnographer in the Soviet Union.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tolstov, Sergey Pavlovich 1907 births 1976 deaths Moscow State University alumni Soviet archaeologists Soviet ethnographers Corresponding Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Members of the German Academy of Sciences at Berlin Etnograficheskoe Obozrenie editors