The publication introduces the Russian reader to the work of the outstanding representative of French structuralism, ethnographer and sociologist Claude Lévi-Strauss (born 1908). Exploring the peculiarities of thinking, mythology and ritual behavior of people of “primitive” societies from the standpoint of structural anthropology, Lévi-Strauss reveals the laws of cognition and human psyche in various social, especially traditional, systems, in the cultural life of peoples. Among the published works are such well-known books as “Totemism Today” and “Untamed Thought”.[[Reconciliation with the original is required. Several diagrams and diagrams are missing. ]]