Ascending the heights of academy (Toshchenko is 90)

The article, which could not avoid few elements of memories, was intended to outline the path of Zh. T. Toshchenko in the academic profession as climbing the eight–thousandth peak to membership in the Academy of Sciences of Russia – war, school, university, two dissertations, etc. For almost 20 years, the Academy of Social Sciences of the Central Committee of the CPSU became his main place of work, where he was entrusted first with the creation of a department, and eventually a Center for sociological research and sociologists’ training. Considerable attention is paid to characterizing the environment and contexts of his activies. One of the sections of the article is devoted to the characteristics of Zh. T. Toschenko as a leader of research teams. Yet, the central topic of the article is Toshchenko’s contribution to important sections of sociological knowledge, to formation of a considerable group of his followers, and more and more new research in key issues of social and sociological knowledge, the preparation of scientific monographs, election to the Academy and conquering thus heights of theoretical sociology in the form of offering to the scholarly community a “grand”, or general, sociological theory, ripe by the early 1990s, the “sociology of life” theory.