Andrey Zubov


Andrey Borisovich Zubov is a Russian historian, religion scholar and political scientist, Doctor of History, prominent public person, church figure, political activist and commentator. Vice-president of People's Freedom Party.
Former Professor of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. He temporarily lost his job after making a comparison of the deployment of Russian troops in Crimea with Hitler's annexation of Austria in the Russian Newspaper Vedomosti. One month later he was reinstated to his position until his contract at the MGIMO officially expired.

Biography

Andrey Zubov was born on January 16, 1952, in Moscow. He Graduated from Moscow School No. 56 in 1968. In the same year, he entered the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.
Upon his graduation in 1973, he started working at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
In 1978, he defended his candidate’s thesis on ‘Experience of parliamentary democracy research in Thailand’.
In 1989, he defended his doctoral thesis in history on ‘Parliamentary democracy and political tradition of the East’.
Between 1988 and 1994, he taught history of religions at the Moscow Theological Academy, where he was appointed associate professor in 1990.
From 1994 to 2012, he was Head of the Department of Religion Studies at the Faculty of Philosophy and Theology of the Russian Orthodox University.
In 2001, he resigned from the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and moved to MGIMO where he became professor at the Department of Philosophy and also headed the University Center on ‘Church and International Relations’.
In March 2014, Andrey Zubov was fired following his criticism of the actions of the Russian government in Ukraine and Crimea. However, the Presidential Commission to Protect Labour Rights declared the dismissal illegal and he was reinstated to his position on 11 April 2014 and continued to work until the formal expiration of his contract on June 30, 2014.
In 2009–2014, he was a member of the Synodal Biblical-Theological Commission of the Russian Orthodox Church and a member of its Inter-Council Presence. He is one of the authors of the ‘Basic Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church’.
In 2014–2018, he was a columnist at Novaya Gazeta.
Starting from 2014, he has been giving public lectures at various venues and on the Internet on history of philosophy, history of religious ideas, and on the Russian history.
He has edited two volumes of "Russian History: 20th Century."
He is one of leading members of People's Freedom Party. He ran for Duma in 2016 and came in the third place in the Moscow Center constituency.
Professor Zubov speaks English, Thai and French.

Academic Career and Publications

Initially, Andrey Zubov focused himself on the political history of Thailand and Asian parliamentary systems. Under the influence of the famous Russian indianist, Vsevolod Sementsov and his wife, Olga Zubova he became interested in comparative religious studies.
Since 1993, he has been lecturing and writing books on the history of religious ideas. He taught the history of religious ideas at Moscow Theological Academy, Russian Orthodox University, MGIMO, Russian State University for the Humanities, etc.
In 2006, he became the editor-in-chief of a multivolume book on Russian history, ’History of Russia. XX century.’ The writing team united more than 45 contributors from Russia, Russian diaspora, European and American specialists in Russian studies. The project was originally developed under the leadership of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who read and edited most of the manuscript, but in autumn 2007. Solzhenitsyn chose to take distance from it The book was published in two volumes in 2009. In 2016-17 a new three-volume edition came out.
The book was translated in Czech and published in two volumes in Prague.
Since his expulsion from the MGIMO, Professor Zubov has made frequent appearances in opposition media, expressing himself among other issues on historical matters.
In 2014, A.B.Zubov was awarded the title of Honorary Doctor of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, in 2019 he became an Honorary Doctor of Masaryk University.

Social, Political and Church Activities

Andrey Zubov is a practicing Orthodox Christian.
He is a member of the editorial board of the Kontinent journal. In 1998 he was awarded the Znamya Foundation Prize.
On July 16, 2005, by the decision of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, he was included in the working group for the development of ‘a conceptual document on the position of the Russian Orthodox Church in inter-religious relations’.
He has been a member of the National Alliance of Russian Solidarists since 2003.
Andrey Zubov was awarded the orders of Holy Prince Daniel of Moscow and St. Sergius of Radonezh in 2006 and 2008 personally by Patriarch Alexy II.
On June 29, 2009, by the decision of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill, Professor Zubov was included in the editorial board for writing a textbook for the course ‘Basics of Orthodox Christian Culture’ for high school.
On September 29, 2009, he took part in the conference ‘Religion and Political Culture’ organized in Rome by the Pontifical Gregorian University and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. He made a report on the relationship between the Church and the Russian State in the 20th century.
In March 2012, he publicly expressed his opposition to Pussy Riot trial: in his opinion, the punishment was disproportionate, and even in the Russian Empire sentences in similar cases were less severe.
In 2014, Professor Zubov sharply criticized Russia’s actions in Crimea.
In September 2014, he signed a statement demanding, ‘to put an end to the aggressive adventure: to withdraw Russian troops from Ukraine and to stop propaganda as well as material and military support to the separatists in southeastern Ukraine’.
In spring 2016, Andrey Zubov announced that he would take part in the State Duma elections as a member of the People’s Freedom Party. He came in the third place in his constituency.

Works

Professor Zubov has published eight major books and more than 300 articles.

Books