Kirill Yeskov
Encyclopedia
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
) is a Russian writer, biologist
Biologist
A biologist is a scientist devoted to and producing results in biology through the study of life. Typically biologists study organisms and their relationship to their environment. Biologists involved in basic research attempt to discover underlying mechanisms that govern how organisms work...
and paleontologist.
Eskov graduated from the Department of Biology of Moscow State University
Moscow State University
Lomonosov Moscow State University , previously known as Lomonosov University or MSU , is the largest university in Russia. Founded in 1755, it also claims to be one of the oldest university in Russia and to have the tallest educational building in the world. Its current rector is Viktor Sadovnichiy...
in 1979. In 1986 he defended a dissertation for the Candidate of Biological Sciences
Kandidat
The Candidate of Sciences degree is a first post-graduate scientific degree in some former Eastern Bloc countries, such as Russia and Ukraine, which is awarded for original research that constitutes a significant contribution to a scientific field. The degree was first introduced in the USSR on...
at the A.N.Severtsov Institute of Animal Evolutionary Morphology and Ecology of the USSR Academy of Sciences, the theme being "Spider
Spider
Spiders are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, and chelicerae with fangs that inject venom. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species diversity among all other groups of organisms...
s of Northern Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
(horology
Horology
Horology is the art or science of measuring time. Clocks, watches, clockwork, sundials, clepsydras, timers, time recorders and marine chronometers are all examples of instruments used to measure time.People interested in horology are called horologists...
analysis)". His main scientific interests as a biologist are the spider
Spider
Spiders are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, and chelicerae with fangs that inject venom. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species diversity among all other groups of organisms...
s of Siberia and the Russian Far East
Russian Far East
Russian Far East is a term that refers to the Russian part of the Far East, i.e., extreme east parts of Russia, between Lake Baikal in Eastern Siberia and the Pacific Ocean...
and, as a paleontologist, the Paleozoic
Paleozoic
The Paleozoic era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic eon, spanning from roughly...
and Cenozoic
Cenozoic
The Cenozoic era is the current and most recent of the three Phanerozoic geological eras and covers the period from 65.5 mya to the present. The era began in the wake of the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous that saw the demise of the last non-avian dinosaurs and...
eras. he is the Senior Researcher at the Laboratory of Arthropods of the Paleontological Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences and vice-president of the Eurasian Arachnological Society. He has worked at the institute since 1988. As of 2002 he had 86 scientific publications.
Eskov discovered several new genera of spiders. Among seven discovered by him in 1988 is Kikimora palustris Eskov, 1988 It belongs to the Linyphiidae
Linyphiidae
Linyphiidae is a family of spiders, including more than 4,300 described species in 578 genera worldwide. This makes Linyphiidae the second largest family of spiders after the Salticidae. New species are still being discovered throughout the world, and the family is poorly known...
family, is found in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
and Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
, and the name translates from Latin as "marsh Kikimora". Kikimora
Kikimora
Kikimora is a legendary creature, a female house spirit in Slavic mythology, fin: Kikke Mörkö , sometimes said to be married to the Domovoi...
is a female spirit in Slavic
Slavic peoples
The Slavic people are an Indo-European panethnicity living in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. The term Slavic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people, who speak languages belonging to the Slavic language family and share, to varying degrees, certain...
mythology
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
and the Russian equivalent of the phrase, "кикимора болотная", is well-known in Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
common language.
He is also the author of the book "History of the Earth and its lifeforms", intended as a cutting edge biology textbook for high schools.
As a fiction writer he published several books, one of the most famous being The Last Ringbearer
The Last Ringbearer
The Last Ringbearer is a 1999 fantasy book by Russian author Kirill Eskov. It is an alternative account of and an informal sequel to the events of J.R.R...
, an alternative retelling of J. R. R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
's The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit , but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in...
, as told from the point of view of Sauron
Sauron
Sauron is the primary antagonist and titular character of the epic fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien.In the same work, he is revealed to be the same character as "the Necromancer" from Tolkien's earlier novel The Hobbit...
's forces, based on the proverb
Proverb
A proverb is a simple and concrete saying popularly known and repeated, which expresses a truth, based on common sense or the practical experience of humanity. They are often metaphorical. A proverb that describes a basic rule of conduct may also be known as a maxim...
: "History is written by the victors." The book was "published to acclaim in his homeland in 1999. Translations of the book have also appeared in other European nations, but fear of the vigilant and litigious Tolkien estate has heretofore prevented its publication in English." In late 2010, however, an English translation approved by Eskov was posted on LiveJournal
LiveJournal
LiveJournal is a virtual community where Internet users can keep a blog, journal or diary. LiveJournal is also the name of the free and open source server software that was designed to run the LiveJournal virtual community....
. Critics have called The Last Ringbearer "a well-written, energetic adventure yarn that offers an intriguing gloss on what some critics have described as the overly simplistic morality of Tolkien's masterpiece." In October 2010, "The Last Ringbearer" was translated into English, and made available under non-commercial license.
Among his other books is The Gospel of Aphranius , a dramatic portrayal of Jesus. In the novel he attempts to construct a demythologised account of the events of the Gospels.
External links
- The Last Ringbearer translated into English (PDF).
- The Back Story to the Last Ring-bearer, by Dr. Kirill Eskov
- Translator's blog Kirill Eskov's blog Short biography at the Paleontological Institute (scroll the page) List of publications on his personal page at the Laboratory Critique His books in the Lib.ruLib.ruLib.ru, also known as Maksim Moshkow's Library is the oldest electronic library in the Russian Internet segment.Founded and supported by Maksim Moshkow, it receives contributions mainly from users who send texts they scanned and processed...
.