Ovdey Shlomov

Ovdey Yovovich Shlomov, PhD (b. 31 May 1952, Sverdlovsk, then Soviet Union), Jewish name Ovadiah bar Yoav, is a Uralican politician, Chair of the Department Of History at Uralikan Yliopisto, and one of the founding fathers of Uralica. He is also among Uralica's best-known Jews.

A product of the anti-Semitism of the Stalinist era and the failed attempt to relocate Jews to the far east of Russia, Shlomov was born to Yov Shlomov and Rakhil Shlomova in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg) in central Russia, when his family was returning to their hometown of Izhevsk in Udmurtiya from a government ordered travel to Khabarovsk.

Stalin died when Shlomov was only a year old, so young Ovdey was not under as much of a shadow as his parents were, however life was not always easy for him. Being both a Jew and an ethnic minority (his mother is half-Udmurt as his maternal grandfather converted to Judaism), he was the target of persecution growing up in Izhevsk.

By the time of Khrushchyov's removal in 1964, Ovdey was old enough to start developing his opinions of matters on life, and he found the Brezhnev government's suppression of the Udmurt and Yiddish languages frustrating, since those were languages in which he preferred to communicate. At the age of 15 (nearly 16), he was arrested in Izhevsk for protesting the Soviets' actions in Czechoslovakia. Upon his release a year later, Shlomov decided he'd had enough and made his best efforts to get out of the nation, stowing away on a government flight to West Germany. The risk paid off as he begged the West German government for asylum, and was given thus out of pity. He completely re-did his schooling from grades 1 to 10 in the German education system, at first by correspondence, then by high school in his adopted hometown of Rheinbach, Germany.

With his exceptional intelligence, he was able to get back on par with his age peers by the time he graduated from Grade 13 in June of 1971. By then he was completely fluent in German, still spoke Udmurt around the home, and was enrolled in the University of Bonn, where he spent five years. At first, he wanted to go into political science, but found history far more interesting, so he studied that and got a BA. But he also remembered his homeland and his Uralic roots, and so he moved as close to it as he could get without actually being in the Soviet Union - Finland. After working as a high-school history teacher for seven years, he left Rheinbach for Helsinki, where he would do a Master of Arts in History.

After finishing this, Brezhnev and two other interim leaders had died, and Gorbachev's policy of glasnost struck a chord with Shlomov, who was, as a former fugitive for political reasons, invited back into the nation by the same. 1985 proved to be a happy 30th year indeed for Shlomov, who was reunited with his family for the first time in 16 years. They remarked that he spoke Udmurt with "a slight German accent" but were overjoyed to see him.

Not long after his return, he met his now-wife, then Tamara Koreshkova, and they were married in Izhevsk after two years of dating. By now, the cracks were already well-formed in the Communist bloc, and as a former fugitive from this system, Shlomov helped it along by sending letters to prominent Jews throughout the Warsaw Pact showing his solidarity and giving words of encouragement.

However despite his efforts, he was rather appalled at the methods used during the coup in the Soviet Union at the beginning of the 1990s, so he threw his support behind the Communists (for the first and only time in his life, he swore). Upon the ending of the Soviet Union in late 1991, Shlomov championed the rights of Udmurts and Jews in post-Communist Russia, which often put him at odds with several racial discrimination groups.

In 1993, he began studies at Perm' State University, feeling that Izhevsk State Technical University was inadequate for his History endeavours, and earned his PhD in 1998.

1999 came around and Shlomov was immediately offered tenure at Perm' State because of his brilliance in the field. His prime topics to this day include Russian History and the History of the Uralic People.

Before the (rather cataclysmic) end of the Pre-Robertian Era in 2006, he had convinced the Russian Government to change the university in Izhevsk to a full one, and it became Izhevsk State University, of which he was Dean of Humanities for its first year and a half.

However events in the area that was now "former Russia" during that time made him wonder if what remained of it could be trusted with the welfare of Uralic people, particularly after the Uralic Purges of early 2007. He and a few others met in Syktyvkar to discuss the possibility of a pan-Uralic movement, however most of the people interested were Christian, which had him nervous at first. However, following the arrival of the Christian doctrines set forward by Lech Bekesza and Matthew Rumley, and with them, Jarkko Salomäki, this anxiety eased considerably. In March 2008, Shlomov was in Syktyvkar when Uralica's formation was announced.

Always wanting to help out, Shlomov quickly became a Tribal Council member, representing the Udmurt Tribe, and not one yearly election has gone by where the Udmurts have not voted him in. He is particularly noted for being the person whose educational suggestions culminated in the foundation of Uralikan Yliopisto, of which he is currently president and Dean of Humanities.

Now 54, Shlomov has three children, Danyil Shlomov, 22, Asya Shlomova, 20, and Semyon Shlomov, 17. He lives in Syktyvkar.