On July 13, 1977, Naum Yefimovich Zastenker, a prominent Soviet historian, former employee of the magazine "Voprosy Istorii", the oldest teacher of the Department of Modern and Contemporary History of the Moscow State University Faculty of History, died.

N. E. Zastenker was born on April 11, 1903 in Voronezh. In 1919, he joined the Komsomol, and in 1920 became head of the political department of the Voronezh City Committee of the RKSM. In 1923, he joined the RCP (b). After graduating from the Y. M. Sverdlov Communist University in 1923, N. E. Zastenker devoted himself to party work. He was head of the propaganda department of the Ivanovo-Voznesensky Uyezd and City Party Committee, head of the science sector of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus(b), head of the party cadres sector and deputy head of the department of leading party bodies of the Sverdlovsk Regional Committee of the CPSU(b). From 1928 to 1931, N. E. Zastenker studied at the Institute of the Red Professorship and at the same time taught Lenin's School at the Comintern. Since that time, his almost half-century of activity in higher education begins. In 1931, he became the head of the Department of General History of the Belarusian Communist University named after V. I. Lenin, then he was the dean of the History Department of the Sverdlovsk Pedagogical Institute. From 1948 until the end of his days, he worked (since 1949 - Associate Professor) at the Department of Modern and Contemporary History of the Faculty of History of Moscow State University, having trained dozens of highly qualified specialists during this time. Many Soviet historians currently working in the fields of the workers ' and Communist movement, the history of the Paris Commune, the Resistance movement, and post-war French history are his students. A great achievement was the creation by N. E. Zastenker of the first special university course on the history of socialist thought, which he systematically taught at the History Department of Moscow State University.

N. E. Zastenker's scientific activity covered a wide range of problems of modern and contemporary history. He owns more than 90 published works on the history of France, Germany, Italy, and the history of socialist thought, many of which have been translated in France, Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and other countries. N. E. Zastenker paid special attention to the study of the revolutionary and socialist movement in Germany and France. In 1934, his first monograph "The Bavarian Soviet Republic" was published, on the basis of which he defended his PhD thesis in 1935. In the 1940s, the book "The Revolution of 1848 in France" and a number of other studies by N. E. Zastenker on the history of France in the XIX century were published. N. E. Zastenker worked extensively and fruitfully in the field of the history of socialist thought, becoming one of the greatest specialists in this field. A series of works devoted to utopian socialists, from More to Proudhon, brought him fame in the USSR and abroad. N. E. Zastenker paid much attention to the problems of historiography and methodology of history. He was a member of the editorial board and one of the authors of the first Soviet collective work "Historiography of Modern Times in Europe and America".

For a number of years N. E. Zastenker was the head of the Department of General History of the magazine "Voprosy Istorii". He actively participated in the creation of such major collective works as "Revolutions of 1848-1849", "World History", "Urban middle Strata of modern capitalist Society", "History of France", "History of the International Labor Movement", etc. With his participation, many textbooks on modern history were created for universities and pedagogical institutes.

A man of high party principles, deep knowledge and exceptional scientific integrity, a great expert in his field and an excellent teacher - this will remain Naum Yefimovich Zastenker in the memory of his colleagues and comrades.

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