Dear Reader!

The archive of Yevgeny Maksimovich Primakov is kept by me; it represents an extensive collection of his notebooks, which he maintained throughout his entire professional life, beginning with his period of work as a journalist in the Middle East and continuing up to his very last years. These notes contain unique information about events of which he was both a witness and a participant. Yevgeny Maksimovich was born in 1929 in Kyiv, graduated from Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies, and then completed graduate studies at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, becoming a professional orientalist and specialist on the Middle East.

In the 1950s–1960s he worked within the Soviet radio broadcasting system and later at the newspaper Pravda, where he advanced from an observer on Asian and African countries to chief correspondent in the Middle East. Later he headed the Institute of Oriental Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences and Institute of World Economy and International Relations, served as Chairman of the Soviet of the Union of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, and Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation.

Yevgeny Maksimovich Primakov began his career as a genuine field journalist, which immediately tied him to the practical, real side of events and was reflected in his analytical style, which always proceeded from concrete events and processes. He possessed a rare ability to gain access to the most closed environments and to establish trusting contacts both among representatives of government institutions and among unofficial political actors, including leaders of Palestinian resistance organizations. Thanks to this, his notebooks constitute sources of exceptional value; they are living testimonies of an era and an insider’s view of key international events. The materials of the archive have never before been published in full; however, many of them formed the basis of Yevgeny Maksimovich’s autobiographical and scholarly works published in recent years.

Their transcription required extensive research and archival work: the notes were often made under difficult conditions, hastily—immediately after meetings or during conversations in the Middle East, in Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, and other countries of the region. At the same time, a significant portion of the notes made later in Moscow, during the period of his academic work and government service, is preserved in the personal archive. I express my deep gratitude to the staff of the journal Istorichesky Vestnik (Historical Reporter) for their invaluable assistance in deciphering and attributing these materials. This work has already produced outstanding results; nevertheless, much still lies ahead: a substantial part of the archival notebooks is still kept by me and awaits its time. I hope that the further transcription and publication of these notes will make it possible to introduce new, unique sources into scholarly circulation and to open up unknown pages of national and world history to researchers.

Yevgeny Primakov Jr.