Dmitri Bondarenko is Deputy Director for Research of the Institute for African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Bondarenko graduated with the M.A. degree (cum laude) in 1990 from the Lomonosov Moscow State University Department of Ethnography, School of History. Since then he has been working for the Institute for African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences from which he holds the Ph.D. (1993) and D.Sc. (Doctor of Sciences, 2000). He has headed the Institute’s expeditions in the African states of Tanzania (thrice), Nigeria, Benin, Rwanda, and Zambia. Dmitri has been a visiting scholar with the Program of African Studies of Northwestern University (Evanston, USA), Max Plank Society Institute of History (Goettingen, Germany; twice), and Maison des sciences de l’homme (Paris, France), a guest lecturer at universities of Russia, the USA, Egypt, Tanzania, Slovenia, and Angola. He is Full Professor of the Center of Social Anthropology of the Russian State University for the Humanities at which he currently teaches Anthropology and History of Sub-Saharan Africa, Political Anthropology, and History of Anthropology. Bondarenko is a member of the African Studies Association (USA), Societe des Africanistes (France), European Association of Social Anthropologists, American Anthropological Association, International Economic History Congress. He is a member (the Chairperson in 2006–2008) of the European Association of Social Anthropologists Africanist Network Executive Committee and of the Russian Academy of Sciences Research Council for the Problems of Economic, Social, Political and Cultural Development of African Countries. Dmitri has participated in the international conferences held in Russia, Ukraine, USA, India, Egypt, Germany, Poland, Nigeria, Denmark, Lebanon, Austria, Finland, UK, South Africa, Switzerland, Slovenia, Ireland, Canada, Spain, France. He is a co-founder and co-editor of the international English-language “Social Evolution and History” journal. Among Bondarenko’s notable professional awards are the Grant of the Foundation for National Science Support for outstanding young D.Sc. holders (2008, 2009) and the European Academy prize for young Commonwealth of Independent States scholars (for the monograph Benin on the Eve of the First Contacts with Europeans: Personality. Society. Authority) (1997). The main spheres of Dmitri’s professional interests are the socio-cultural evolution theory, political anthropology, preindustrial societies, the ethno-racial, religious, and international dimensions of contemporary intercultural interaction, cultures and history of Sub-Saharan Africa. By now Dmitri Bondarenko has authored almost 400 publications, including 5 monographs.