In honour of the anniversary of Professor N.I. Vorobyev’s birth: introduction

The article opens a special issue of the Historical Ethnology journal dedicated to the 130th anniversary of the outstanding scholar Nikolay Iosifovich Vorobyev, geographer, historian and Turkologist, Honored Scientist of the Tatar ASSR, Honorary Member of the USSR Geographical Society, founder of ethnographic Tatar studies and one of the leading researchers of the ethno- and cultural genesis of the Chuvash people. Professor Vorobyev is the author and editor of such fundamental works as the Fundamentals of Physical Geography of the Tatar Republic (Kazan, 1936); The Kazan Tatars: Ethnographic Study of the Material Culture of the Pre-October Period (Kazan, 1953); The Chuvashes. Ethnographic Study (Cheboksary, 1956); Tatars of the Middle Volga and Ural Regions (Moscow: Nauka, 1967), as well as other academic publications. The paper outlines important milestones in the biography, the main areas of the scientist’s research activities, starting with his student passion for the ethnic culture of the peoples of Siberia to academic maturity – fundamental research on the ethnography of the Turkic peoples of the Volga and Ural regions. The article presents vectors of his teaching work at Kazan State University, at the Kazan Eastern Pedagogical Institute (KSPI), as well as administrative and expeditionary practice within the walls of the Central Museum of the Tatar ASSR and the Institute of Language, Literature and History of the Kazan branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences.