The “Book of Memoirs” by the famous Russian orientalist, scientist-historian, specialist in Sumerian, Assyrian and Semitic culture and languages, Igor Mikhailovich Dyakonov, was published four years before his death, which followed in 1999. The book was written, as can be judged from the text, in three steps. Shortly before publication (1995), the author completed the shortest one - the last chapter (its volume is only 15 pages), which provides only a cursory list of post-war events - while the main works that actually made Dyakonov’s name known throughout the world were carried out them in these post-war decades. Here you can see a certain paradox. But it can also be the special intention of the author. – After all, this book of his, unlike others, is devoted primarily to early memories, the passing past, which needs to be recreated. What does not deserve special attention in it (or is worthy of it, but in the second place) is something that has already received some reflection, for example, in the works of a scientist, in the works of the scientific community to which Dyakonov certainly belongs. At the time of writing the last chapter, the author is on the threshold of his eightieth birthday - he considers this chapter, apparently, the least significant in his book - and the very principle of selecting facts outlined here seems to remain the same: “This chapter was written many years later after the others and somewhat differently than them. It contains events of my life as a scientist and member of Russian society; the more personal aspects of my biography - and among them there were both mournful and joyful ones, which played a large role in the history of my soul - are almost all omitted if they, besides myself personally, concern those who were still alive when I wrote this last chapter “We express our sincere gratitude for permission to publish electronically to I.M. Dyakonov’s widow Nina Yakovlevna Dyakonova and for help and advice to Olga Aleksandrovna Smirnitskaya.