Kirill Yuryevich Eskov (russian: Кири́лл Ю́рьевич Есько́в; born 16 September 1956) is a Russian writer,

biologist A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual Cell (biology), cell, a multicellular organism, or a Community (ecology), community of Biological inter ...

and

paleontologist Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

. As an author he is known for '' The Gospel of Afranius'' in which he presents an atheistic interpretation of the events of the Gospel, and ''

The Last Ringbearer ''The Last Ringbearer'' (russian: Последний кольценосец, italic=yes, ''Posledniy kol'tsenosets'') is a 1999 fantasy fan-fiction book by Russian author Kirill Eskov. It is an alternative account of, and an informal sequel t ...

'' in which he retells

J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlins ...

's ''

The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's boo ...

'' from a

Mordor In J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional world of Middle-earth, Mordor (pronounced ; from Sindarin ''Black Land'' and Quenya ''Land of Shadow'') is the realm and base of the evil Sauron. It lay to the east of Gondor and the great river Anduin, and to t ...

ian point of view.

Career

In biology

Eskov graduated from the Department of Biology of

Moscow State University M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...

in 1979. In 1986 he defended a dissertation for the Candidate of Biological Sciences at the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Animal Evolutionary Morphology and Ecology of the

USSR Academy of Sciences The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991, uniting the country's leading scientists, subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (until 1946 ...

, the theme being "

Spider Spiders ( order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species ...

s of Northern

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...

(

horology Horology (; related to Latin '; ; , interfix ''-o-'', and suffix ''-logy''), . is the study of the measurement of time. Clocks, watches, clockwork, sundials, hourglasses, clepsydras, timers, time recorders, marine chronometers, and atomic cl ...

analysis)". His main scientific interests as a biologist focus on the

spider Spiders ( order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species ...

s of Siberia and the

Russian Far East The Russian Far East (russian: Дальний Восток России, r=Dal'niy Vostok Rossii, p=ˈdalʲnʲɪj vɐˈstok rɐˈsʲiɪ) is a region in Northeast Asia. It is the easternmost part of Russia and the Asian continent; and is admini ...

and, as a paleontologist, on the

Paleozoic The Paleozoic (or Palaeozoic) Era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. The name ''Paleozoic'' ( ;) was coined by the British geologist Adam Sedgwick in 1838 by combining the Greek words ''palaiós'' (, "old") and ' ...

and

Cenozoic The Cenozoic ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterised by the dominance of mammals, birds and flowering plants, a cooling and drying climate, and the current configura ...

eras Eras is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Albert Boton and Albert Hollenstein and was released by the International Typeface Corporation (ITC) in 1976. Eras is licensed by the Linotype type foundry. A distinct and curious feature of E ...

. he is the Senior Researcher at the Laboratory of

Arthropods Arthropods (, (gen. ποδός)) are invertebrate animals with an exoskeleton, a Segmentation (biology), segmented body, and paired jointed appendages. Arthropods form the phylum Arthropoda. They are distinguished by their jointed limbs and Arth ...

of the

Paleontological Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences The Paleontological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences (PIN; russian: Палеонтологический институт РАН) in Moscow is among the world's largest paleontological institutes. An affiliate of the Russian Academy of Scienc ...

and vice-president of the Eurasian Arachnological Society. He has worked at the institute since 1988. he had 86 scientific publications. Eskov has discovered several new genera of spiders. Among seven discovered by him in 1988 is ''

Kikimora palustris ''Kikimora'' is a monotypic genus of dwarf spiders containing the single species, ''Kikimora palustris''. It was first described by K. Y. Eskov in 1988, and has only been found in Finland, Norway, and Russia. Derivation of name When Eskov disc ...

'' Eskov, 1988 It belongs to the family

Linyphiidae Linyphiidae, spiders commonly known as sheet weavers (from the shape of their webs), or money spiders (in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and in Portugal, from the superstition that if such a spider is seen running on you, ...

, and is found in

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

and

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

. The name translates from

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

as "marsh Kikimora". ( Kikimora is a female spirit in Slavic

mythology Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrat ...

and the Russian phrase ''кикимора болотная'' (''kikimora bolotnaya'', "marsh kikimora") is well known in the

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

language.) He is also the author of the book ''History of the Earth and its lifeforms'' ( ru , Удивительная палеонтология: История Земли и жизни на ней, Moscow, 2008), intended as a biology textbook for high schools.

As an author

As a fiction writer he has published several books, one of the most famous being ''

'' (russian: Последний кольценосец), an alternative retelling of (or sequel to)

's ''

'', as told from the point of view of

Sauron Sauron (pronounced ) is the title character and the primary antagonist, through the forging of the One Ring, of J. R. R. Tolkien's ''The Lord of the Rings'', where he rules the land of Mordor and has the ambition of ruling the whole of Midd ...

's forces in light of the

proverb A proverb (from la, proverbium) is a simple and insightful, traditional saying that expresses a perceived truth based on common sense or experience. Proverbs are often metaphorical and use formulaic speech, formulaic language. A proverbial phra ...

History is written by the victors Philosophy of history is the philosophical study of history and its discipline. The term was coined by French philosopher Voltaire. In contemporary philosophy a distinction has developed between ''speculative'' philosophy of history and ''crit ...

." The book was "published to acclaim" in his homeland in 1999. Translations of the book have also appeared in other European nations, but fear of the vigilant and litigious

Tolkien estate The Tolkien Estate is the legal body which manages the property of the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien, including the copyright for most of his works. The individual copyrights have for the most part been assigned by the estate to subsidiary ent ...

has heretofore prevented its publication in English." In late 2010, however, an English translation approved by Eskov was posted on

LiveJournal LiveJournal (russian: Живой Журнал), stylised as LiVEJOURNAL, is a Russian-owned social networking service where users can keep a blog, journal, or diary. American programmer Brad Fitzpatrick started LiveJournal on April 15, 1999, as ...

. The American journalist

Laura Miller Laura Miller (born November 18, 1958) is an American journalist and politician who served as the 58th mayor of Dallas, Texas from 2002 through 2007. She decided not to run for re-election in 2007. She was the third woman to serve as mayor of Da ...

characterised ''The Last Ringbearer'' as "a well-written, energetic adventure yarn that offers an intriguing gloss on what some critics have described as the overly simplistic morality of Tolkien's masterpiece." Other books by Eskov include '' The Gospel of Afranius'' (russian: Евангелие от Афрания), a dramatic portrayal of Jesus. In the novel he attempts to construct a demythologised account of the events of the

Gospels Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...

Selected scientific publications

* *

Footnotes

Lib.ru Lib.ru, also known as Maksim Moshkow's Library (russian: link=no, библиотека Максима Мошкова, started to operate in November 1994) is the oldest electronic library in the Russian Internet segment. Founded and supported ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Eskov, Kirill 1956 births Moscow State University alumni Arachnologists Russian fantasy writers Russian science fiction writers Russian biologists Russian paleontologists Soviet biologists 20th-century biologists Soviet paleontologists Tolkien fandom Writers from Moscow Living people

Career

In biology

As an author

Selected scientific publications

Footnotes

External links