Lukonin Readings Conference

The Lukonin Readings Conference was held at the Hermitage from 25 to 26 January 2012. It was dedicated to the eightieth anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Lukonin (21 January 1932 - 10 September 1984), an eminent Russian orientalist and expert on the culture and art of Iran in ancient times and the middle-ages, who was a head of the Hermitage Oriental Department for twenty years (1964-1984).

Vladimir Lukonin was one of the most interesting characters in the history of the Hermitage. His works on art, culture and religion of Iran during the reign of the splendid Sassanid dynasty (3rd-7th centuries) greatly influenced Russian scholarship and he was well known by Western orientalists even during Soviet times. Vladimir Lukonin was not only a talented scholar but an open minded, artistic, charismatic person having a sparkling wit. He was one of the people who opened Russian science to the West, and one of those who brought the Hermitage great prestige. It is not an accident that the British Museum holds regular conferences on the history and culture of Iran in his name.

Lukonin Readings were established as an annual Hermitage conference dedicated to the problems of studying the Orient in the ancient and middle-ages. The topics of the lectures are traditionally as wide as the range of the Oriental Department’s studies. This year the lectures were particularly varied: culture, art and archaeology of Iran, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Central Asia and the Far East of ancient times and the middle ages. New Egyptian, Khwarezm, Tangut texts and new artefacts were introduced.

Every five or six years materials from the Lukonin Readings are published in the Works of the State Hermitage series. The next volume of conference material is due to be published next year

Anatoly Ivanov, Olga Deshpande

Anna Ierusalimskaia

Vladimir Lukonin (1932-1984)

Speech by Mikhail Piotrovsky

Veronika Aphanasieva

Andrey Bolshakov