About author
Abstract. The article is dedicated to the memory of the famous Russian researcher of the Caucasus, Viktor Vladimirovich Chernous. Viktor Vladimirovich Chernous is a graduate of the historical faculty of the Rostov State University (1973). In 1974–1991 he worked in the North-Caucasian Scientific Center of Higher School, in 1992–1999 – in the North Caucasus Academy of Civil Service. In 1999 he defended his thesis for the degree of candidate of political science. Since 1999, he worked at the Institute of Sociology and Regional Studies of the RSU (since 2014, the Institute of Sociology and Regional Studies of the SFedU), deputy director for Science (until 2014), the Head of the Department of Conflict Studies and National Security (until 2016), the Head of the Center for Regional Studies. In 2014–2016 he has been employed at the Black Sea-Caspian Regional Information and Analytical Center of the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies. His scientific interests were geopolitics and ethnopolitics in the South Russia and the Caucasus, civilizational and cultural interaction in the Caucasus, the Russian question in the North Caucasus, the elitogenesis of Russia, including the South, ethnosociology of the Cossacks and diasporas in the Rostov region. Besides this, he was the head and co-executor of foreign funds grants, RGNF, RFBR, contracts with federal and regional authorities. He was a member of expert councils of the Southern Federal District, the North Caucasus Federal District, the Rostov Region, and others. He was the author of more than 400 research and educational publications, responsible or scientific editor of 80 books. The main scientific achievements of Chernous are substantiation of the concept of Caucasian mountain civilization (since 1992), identification of stages and interaction (dialogue) with Russian) civilization, civilizational paradigm of elitogenesis in pre-revolutionary Russia, analysis of post-Soviet regional and ethnic elites (ethnoclanocracy) in the South Russia.
Keywords: V.V. Chernous, Northern Caucasus, Russian civilization, elitology, ethnopolitics, Caucasus studies.