In November 2015, Doctor of Philology Vladimir Eduardovich Chagall, a prominent Russian scholar who devoted his life to the study of the Arabic language and culture, celebrated his 90th anniversary. His scientific works devoted to the most important problems of the Arab East have always been characterized by a broad outlook and at the same time attention to the smallest details. The versatility of V. E. Chagall's views allowed him to successfully explore various issues of Arabic studies, while he described not only the revealed scientific facts, but also the unique features of the Arab mentality, the features of the Arab-Muslim worldview and worldview.

Vladimir Eduardovich is known not only in our country, but also in the Arab world. He always had a favorable attitude towards the Arabs, and they responded to him in return, considering him "an ambassador of Arab culture abroad". V. E. Chagall made a significant contribution to the Arabistic science, which is comparable to the contribution of such prominent scientists in this field as G. Sh. Sharbatov, B. M. Grande, Kh. K. Baranov, I. Yu. Krachkovsky and others. etc.

V. E. Chagall was born on November 22, 1925 in Moscow. In 1941, the war broke out, and after graduating from high school, he went to the front. After completing the course of accelerated training at the 1st Moscow Machine Gun School in 1943, he was sent to the 88th Guards Rifle Division, as part of which he participated in combat operations on the territory of Russia and Ukraine, liberated Ryazan, Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk and other cities of our Homeland.

At the age of 19, V. E. Chagall was awarded the officer rank of commander of a self-propelled artillery battery, and later he headed a separate self-propelled artillery division. In Manchuria, he participated in an offensive operation against the Japanese army. During the Great Patriotic War, V. E. Chagall was wounded several times and received more than 50 awards, including the Order of the Patriotic War of the 1st degree, the Order of the Red Star, the medals "For Valor", "For Honor and Valor", "For Bravery", etc.

The Arab world attracted Vladimir Eduardovich quite by accident. After the end of the Battle of Manchuria, he was going to enter the Armored Academy, but the recruitment there was already completed, and he was sent to study at the Military Institute of Foreign Languages. By this time, all the language groups at the Institute were already formed, but there was a free place in the Arabic language study group.

V. E. Chagall received excellent Arabic studies at the Military Institute of Foreign Languages. The teaching staff of the Institute consisted of such famous scientists as B. M. Grande, Kh. K. Baranov, I. S. Danilov, A. A. Kovalev, etc. The study of Arabic language and Arabic culture so interested him that when he received an invitation from the Armored Academy, he declined it, as he had already chosen Arabic studies as his life's work.

Vladimir Eduardovich graduated with honors from the Military Institute and was hired by the Main Intelligence Directorate. In addition, in 1951, he began teaching Arabic at the Military Diplomatic Academy, training and instructing military attaches and GRU officers to work in various Arab countries. In this respect, V. E. Chagall once again became a pioneer, since until that time Arabic had not been studied at the Military Diplomatic Academy. He worked here until 1978, lectured in Egypt, Kuwait, and Libya, and visited many countries of the Arab world during this period.

At the same time, Vladimir Eduardovich became seriously interested in scientific research. His attention was drawn to the problem of word combinations in the Arabic literary language, which had not previously been considered in the relevant works and was considered a rather complex topic for research. In 1958, the scientist successfully defended his dissertation on the topic "Structural and semantic characteristics of substantive phrases in the Arabic literary language",

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in which, for the first time, he presented a detailed description of substantive phrases in the grammar of the Arabic language, identified their grammatical and semantic features, and considered a number of related issues.

Further scientific activity of V. E. Chagall took place in several directions: composing textbooks and textbooks on the Arabic language; translating selected works of writers from the Middle East; writing monographs and scientific articles in certain areas of linguistics and cultural studies; participating in the preparation of books devoted to the general description of individual Arab countries. In particular, the range of his linguistic interests included the relationship between the Arabic literary language and local dialects and the problem of diglossia, the study of language policy and the language situation in the Arab world, the consideration of business-style speech patterns, the analysis of linguistic aspects of national processes in Arab countries, issues of areal linguistics, etc.

In 1978. Vladimir Eduardovich left the military service to devote himself entirely to science. He became a senior researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies, where he still works today. In addition, he gave lectures on the Arabic language and culture and taught at the largest universities in Moscow-MSU, MSLU, RSUH, etc.

In the mid-1970s, Vladimir Eduardovich began translating books by leading Arab writers, opening up many new names for the Soviet reader. Thanks to him, the works of the Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz, the Sudanese at-Tayyib Salih, the Syrian author Ali Okl Orsan and others first became known in the USSR. V. E. Chagall participated in the publication of translated collections of literature from Libya, Syria, Egypt and the Persian Gulf countries, published separate chapters in books devoted to Kuwait, Libya, Syria, Tunisia, Mauritania, Algeria, earning recognition in Arabist circles. His literary activity served as the basis for admission to the Union of Writers of the USSR in 1980.

In the 1980s, V. E. Chagall's academic publications covered actual problems of modern sociolinguistics, his articles were published in the best journals of the Union and became known outside the USSR, in particular in the Arab East.

His book "The Linguistic Aspect of National Processes in Arab Countries" (1987) became a welcome fact for Russian Arabic studies. In it, V. E. Chagall investigated the development of the ethnolinguistic situation in the Arab world from the point of view of migration and urbanization processes, described in detail the various forms of existence of the Arabic language (including their phonetic and grammatical features, as well as the use of foreign words) and paid special attention to the problems of language policy and the language situation in individual Arab countries. V. E. Chagall made a significant contribution to the study of regional variation of the Arabic literary language, for the first time raising the question of its territorial differentiation. In this monograph, he pointed out the facts of undoubted discrepancies in the literary forms of the Mashriq and Maghreb Arabic languages, highlighting the spelling, phonetic, lexical-semantic and grammatical features of territorial variants in these regions of the Arab world.

V. E. Chagall's book "The linguistic aspect of national processes in Arab countries", devoted to topical problems of sociolinguistics and cultural studies, which are of fundamental importance for modern Arabic studies, formed the basis of his doctoral dissertation (1989).

For most of the 1990s, Chagall lectured on Arabic at various universities in the United States and taught linguistics to local students. After returning to his homeland, V. E. Chagall turned to the problem of Arabization. The book "The Arab World: Language and Society" was dedicated to her, in which he examined the process of Arabization based on a comparison of the Maghreb and Mashriq countries, investigated the educational system in these regions and described the factors of the development of the Arabic language in these conditions, considering it an integral part and the most important component of Arab-Muslim culture. In addition, he provided a detailed overview of the history of the formation of the Arabic language in sub-Saharan Africa (Mauritania, Djibouti, Somalia), i.e. in those countries that are rarely mentioned in the relevant literature. This is another merit of Vladimir Eduardovich, who always tried to focus on poorly studied issues of Arabic philology.

V. E. Chagall chose cultural customs and ethical norms adopted by the Arabs as a new theme. In the book" The Arab World: ways of learning " (2001), he considered such problems as the difference in attitudes towards men and women in Arab countries, the increased importance of religion

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Here Vladimir Eduardovich showed the peculiarities of thinking and cultural attitudes of Arabs.

Currently, V. E. Chagall focuses on the cultural aspects of Arab studies, which include not only the study of etiquette, customs and traditions of the Arab world, but also the spread of Arab culture abroad, in particular the life of Arab diasporas in various countries of Europe and America and the problems of their assimilation.

The Department of Asian and African Languages of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the editorial board of the magazine "Vostok (Oriens)" cordially congratulate the hero of the day and wish him good health and new achievements in Arabic studies!

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