Battle for the Truth (Marking the 85th Birth Anniversary of Evgeny Petrovich Kazakov)

This paper is devoted to the 85th birth anniversary of Evegeny Petrovich Kazakov, a Kazan archaeologist, Leading Research Fellow at the A.H. Khalikov Institute of Archaeology of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tatarstan, as well as the famous specialist in the Middle Ages and prehistory of the Volga-Kama region. The main milestones of his life and research were discussed. The research interests of E.P. Kazakov are the early Volga Bulgarians, the material culture of the Volga Bulgaria, and the ethnocultural interaction between the Finnish, Ugric, and Turkic peoples in the Volga-Kama region during the Middle Ages. Notably, E.P. Kazakov was the first to investigate the rural settlements of Volga Bulgaria and to draw attention to the problems of their emergence and early stages of existence. He studied a huge number of archaeological sites (many of which were discovered by E.P. Kazakov himself). The results of these studies are published on a regular basis, thereby providing his colleagues with the full complexes for further research discussion.