Anisimov Arkadiy (1910–1968) – ethnographer, historian of religion, specialist in the culture of Evenks.

In 1927, he entered the Social Disciplines Faculty of the Leningrad State University. From 1932 till 1935, studied at the post-graduate courses of the Institute of the Peoples of the North; his supervisor was Ya. P. Koshkin. In 1935, A. defended his thesis ‘The ancestral society of Evenks’ on the base of materials gathered in the course of his work together with Koshkin in the Turukhansk Region.

From 1935 till 1941, A. worked at the Institute of the Peoples of the North, he was the head of the Historical and Ethnographic Section, and the Research Secretary of the Association of researchers of the peoples of the North. In 1941, he went to the military service; in 1942 he was demobilized because of his illness and evakuated from the blockade zone of Leningrad. Returning to Leningrad, he worked at the State Ethnographic Museum (1945-1946), at the Institute of Language and Thinking (1946-1949), at the Institute of Ethnography of the Ac. of Sc. of the U.S.S.R. (1949-1954) where he was the head of the Sector of Siberia; since 1953, he has been researcher of the Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism of the Ac. of Sc. of the U.S.S.R.

He was a specialist in the origin of religious beliefs, early forms of religion, and Shamanism. In 1948, A. got the Doctor degree for his thesis ‘Points of the Genesis of the Evenks’ Religion’.