Alexey Yu. Afanasyev

March 13, 2025 marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of Valentin Yakovlevich Koldin, Doctor of Law, Professor, Honored Lawyer of the Russian Federation, Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation, Honored Professor of Moscow State University, veteran of the Great Patriotic War, methodologist, outstanding criminologist, whose developments had the most significant impact on the development of domestic criminology and the birth of forensic expertise. This date has become a serious reason for rethinking the scientific and methodological legacy of the scientist. It has been established that the role often attributed to Valentin Yakovlevich in the formation and development of forensic identification reveals only a small part of his significant contribution to science.

The work carried out shows that the evolution of his methodology and system of views is concentrated in three fundamental results: the consolidation of universality for criminalistic identification not only in criminal proceedings, but also in all other types of legal process, as well as in law enforcement in general; the formation and development of the idea of forensic technologies in law enforcement, which united several generations. criminologists; substantiation and presentation of an expert-criminalistic picture of the world of law enforcement. Taken together, these provisions rightly claim to be paradigmatic in nature and may (already are) influencing the revision of the place of criminology in the system of scientific knowledge.