Yury Zuev

Who was Yury Zuev?

Yury Zuev was a Kazakh sinologist and turkologist of Russian origin.

Zuev was born on in the Siberian city of Tümen in a white-collar family. Zuev studied in Leningrad State University to major in the historical studies of the Eastern countries, successfully learning Classical Chinese, Middle Chinese, and modern Chinese. In 1955, Zuev received a B.A. diploma and was sent to work in the Institute of History, Archeology and Ethnography of the Kazakh SSR Academy of Sciences. He received his Ph.D. in 1967. His PhD thesis "Ancient Turkic genealogical legends as a source on early history of Turkic people" published a number of new discoveries about socio-political history of Turks, suggested etymology of the name of the Ashina tribe, traced historical past of the Turkic tribes in the Chinese genealogical legends, suggested a hypothesis about an ethnic triumvirate of Ashina-Ashide-Basmyl. It turned out that a main achievement in that publication became the etymology of the name of the Kagan tribe Ashina.

Zuev was a collaborator in fundamental editions of the USSR history: "Historical Atlas of the USSR peoples", "Historical atlas of the Kazakh SSR", and five-volume edition "History of the Kazakh SSR from most ancient times to the present". The mass of Yu.A.Zuev work included analysis of the Kazakhstan and Central Asia political history from the 3rd century BC to the 3rd century AD, history of ancient and medieval periods, ethnical composition and movement of tribes in the Western Turkic Kaganate, pre-Mongolian period history. Zuev wrote about genesis, ethnic composition and political history of the Türgesh Kaganate.