Murzaev, Eduard

Murzaev, Eduard Makarovich 

Born May 19 (June 1), 1908, in Simferopol’. Soviet physical geographer and topony-mist. Doctor of geographic sciences (1949); professor (1956). Honored Scientist of the RSFSR (1970).

Murzaev graduated from the department of geography of Leningrad State University in 1930. In 1931 he began working at the Geographic Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. He has taken part in expeditions to Middle Asia, Central Asia, Mongolia, and Vietnam. His principal works deal with the development of the terrain of arid regions, regional geography, the origin and development of geographic names, popular geographic terminology, and the history of geographic exploration in Asia. He has edited and commented on the works of L. S. Berg, N. M. Przheval’skii, and P. K. Kozlov. Murzaev is an academician of the German Leopoldine Academy of Researchers in Natural Sciences (1961) and an honorary professor of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences (1961). He has received the State Prize of the USSR (1951), the V. A. Obruchev Prize of the presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1963), the N. M. Przheval’skii Gold Medal (1947), and the A. Humboldt Medal (1959). Murzaev has been awarded two orders, various medals, and the Mongolian Order of the Polar Star.

WORKS

Geograficheskie issledovaniia MNR. Moscow-Leningrad, 1948.
Mongol’skaia Narodnaia Respublika: Fiziko-geograficheskoe opisanie, 2nd ed. Moscow, 1952.
Severo- Vostochnyi Kitai: Fiziko-geograficheskoe opisanie. Moscow, 1955.
Zarubezhnaia Aziia: Fizicheskaia geografiia. Moscow, 1956. (Coauthor.)
Vladimir Afanas’evich Obruchev. Moscow, 1959. (Coauthor.)
Slovar’mestnykh geograficheskikh terminov. Moscow, 1959. (Coauthor.)
Sredniaia Aziia, 3rd ed. Moscow, 1961.
Priroda Sin ’tsziana i formirovanie pustyn’ Tsentral’noi Azii. Moscow, 1966.
Puteshestvie v zharkuiu zimu. Moscow, 1967.
Istoriia otkrytiia i issledovaniia Sovetskoi Azii. Moscow, 1969. (Coauthor.)
Turkmenistan. Moscow, 1969. (Series Sovetskii Soiuz; coauthor.)
Gody iskanii v Azii. Moscow, 1973.
Toponimika—populiarnaia. Moscow, 1973.