Dameshek Lev Mikhailovich
Dr. Sci. (Hist.), Prof., Head of the Chair of Russian History of Historical Faculty
Dameshek Lev Mikhailovich is a Soviet and Russian historical political scientist. He was born on April 2, 1948, in the settlement of Mishelevka, Usolsky Destrict of Irkutsk region.
His father Dameshek Mikhail Leontievich was a participant of the Great Patriotic War in the rank of troop commander of the tank reconnaissance. He was in the Battle of Berlin and the Prague Offensive. Dameshek M.L. inspired the main character in the movie «At War as at War». After the War he worked as a history school teacher.
His mother Dameshek (Zhmakina in girlhood) Liudmila Maksimovna was a daughter of the political exile. She worked as a school teacher of Russian language and Literature.
In 1966 Dameshek Lev Mikhailovich finished the secondary school of Bohan with distinction. In 1977 he graduated with honors from Historical Faculty of Irkutsk State Pedagogical University.
From 1970 to 1973 he was a postgraduate student of the ISU. From 1989 till the present time he has been the head of the Department of History of Russia.
Since 1970 Lev Mikhailovich has been working at Irkutsk State University, where he started as a postgraduate student in1970 - 1973 and has worked his way up to the Head of the Department of History of Russia since 1989 up to the present.
In 1974 he received a Candidate of Sciences Degree in History. In 1987 he obtained a Doctor of Sciences Degree in History. In 1988 he got an Academic Rank of Professor. Since 1996 he has been a member of the Russian Academy of Humanitarian Sciences. Since 1998 he has been a Distinguished Academic of the Republic of Buryatia. Since 2007 he has been a Distinguished Academic of the Ust-Ordyn Buryat Autonomous Area. Since 2008 he has been a Distinguished Academic of Russia.
In 2007 Lev Mikhailovich was awarded the title of an Honored Worker in General Education. He received the title of Laureate of the Irkutsk Region Governor’s Award three times: in 2003, 2010, and 2014. He received the title of Laureate of the State Award of the Republic of Buryatia in 2014.
He was a student of the Professors F.A. Kudryavtsev and V.G. Tyukavkin, with whom he maintained friendly relations up to the time of their death. His main research interests are peripheral policy of the Empire in the XIXth – the early XXth centuries, imperial regionalism, history of law, history of reforms of the government, history of the peoples of Siberia.
He is the author of twenty three monographs which were published in Moscow, Novosibirsk, Tomsk, Irkutsk, Ulan-Ude, Chita and Germany, two textbooks for high school and secondary school, over three hundred fifty scientific articles including encyclopedias edited in Moscow, Novosibirsk, Ulan-Ude, etc.
He lectured and made reports in universities and scientific organizations of Canada, France, Poland, Israel, Ukraine, Georgia, Mongolia and China.
L. M. Dameshek has supervised 39 completed Doctoral and Candidate’s theses. At Historical Faculty of the ISU he is teaching the courses of Russian history from the ancient times to the end of the XIXth century, social history of the Empire, history of power and reforms in the Imperial Russia, historiography of Siberian history, administrative organization and government of the Asian part of Russia.
He participates actively in scientific-pedagogical personnel appraisal.
L.M. Dameshek has been an official opponent at the University Thesis Committees in St. Petersburg, Ekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Ulan-Ude, Yakutsk, Tomsk, Omsk, Vladivostok, Irkutsk.
He is a member of the specialized councils at the Thesis Committees in Irkutsk and Buryat State Universities.
L.M. Dameshek is Editor-in-Chief of «The Bulletin of Irkutsk State University». Series «History». He is Editor-in-Chief of the journal «Asian Russia», editorial board member of the «Siberian Exile» and «Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University Bulletin», various peer-reviewed journals listed by the State Commission for Academic Degrees.
L.M. Dameshek is a Chairman of the Irkutsk Region Expert Council for Confessions, a member of the Board of Overseers of the East Siberian Branch of the Russian Geographical Society, a member of the Academic Council of the Irkutsk Museum of Local history.
Under the guidance of L.M. Dameshek historians of Irkutsk carried out major ambitious scientific-theoretical and scientific-practical research projects that were widely appreciated by scientific society and public. His outstanding students are: Ch.G. Andreev (Ulan-Ude), A.V. Gimelshtein (Irkutsk), L.V. Kuras (Ulan-Ude), D.V. Kolupaev (Barnaul), S.A. Paichadze (Novosibirsk), Yu. A.Petrushin (Irkutsk).