By Academician Lyudmila VERBITSKAYA, Dr. Sc. (Philol.), St. Petersburg State University Rector, Boris VORONOV, Deputy Director, Museum of St. Petersburg State University History and Vladimir TROYAN, Dr. Sc. (Phys. & Math.), St. Petersburg State University professor

Peter the Great personally drafted the statutes of the Academy of Sciences and of Russia's first University. On January 28, 1724, this document was signed into law. Containing 21 clauses, it outlined a strategic plan for our country's scientific and educational potential many years ahead.

Until the end of the 18th century St. Petersburg University was part of the Academy of Sciences and abided by its laws and regulations. On July 1, 1747, Empress Elisabeth (Yelizaveta Petrovna) promulgated "Regulations of H. M. Academy of Sciences and Arts in St. Petersburg" which defined the tasks and goals for the University, modes of instruction, and admittance rules. Those who completed the course could qualify for the academic degrees of master, junior scientific assistant, professor or academician.

The first professors of St. Petersburg University included illustrious scientists, full members of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences: mathematicians L. Euler and D. Bernulli, historian G. Beier. The first rector of the University was Academician G. Miller, historian and ethnographer (up until 1747 the University had no rector). In 1750 he was succeeded by Academician S. Krasheninnikov, a natural scientist and traveler. From 1758 to 1765 Academician Mikhail Lomonosov, a savant of versatile parts, discharged the rector's duties. Lomonosov won world fame by his research in the sciences and in the humanities-he was also an excellent poet and artist, all in one. The University opened three new departments while Lomonosov was in charge-the Departments of Philosophy, Law and Medicine.

Among the University's first graduates were such names as M. Kleinfeld (anatomist and physiologist, full member of the Science Academy as of 1748); historian A. Kramer (elected to the Academy in 1732); A. Kantemir, an eminent diplomat and man of letters; physician P. Kondoidi (honorary member

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of the Academy since 1754); also, N. Ozeretskovsky (physician and traveler, elected to the Academy in 1779); astronomer S. Rumovsky (Academician since 1753), and other big-name savants. Mikhail Lomonosov, too, was a St. Petersburg University graduate.

Initially St. Petersburg University had classes in one of the buildings on the right bank of the Neva, on Vasilyevsky island, and in the Kunstkammer next by; in 1756 it moved to another place, an edifice on the Tuchkovaya naberezhnaya (embankment) belonging to the Stroganovs, a family of merchants and state personalities.

Emperor Alexander I issued a decree (1819) that granted St. Petersburg University an independent school status. M. Balugyansky, the economist, was appointed its rector.

In the first decades of the 19th century the University ran three departments-Physics and Mathematics, History and Philology, and Law. St. Petersburg University became the seed plot of world renowned scientific schools, such as of Academician Chebyshev's in mathematics; Academician Lentz's in physics; of Corresponding Member D. Mendeleyev's and Academician A. Butlerov's in chemistry; A. Beketov's in botany (he was honorary member of the Academy). I. Mechnikov and Academician A. Kovalevsky reared a school of embryologists; I. Sechenov (honorary member of the Academy of Sciences) had a following in physiology, V. Dokuchayev - in the soil science, A. Inostrantsev (corresponding member)-in geology; Academician K. Bestuzhev-Ryumin formed a school of Russian historians...

In the latter half of the 19th century the St. Petersburg University opened the Department of Natural Sciences. In 1893 it established a chemical research center, the Chemical Institute, where two years after, in 1895, the father of radio, Alexander Popov, sent the world's first radiogram. And 1901 is the birth year of Russia's first Institute of Physics.

The traditions and experience of the University's academic schools prepared fertile ground for intellectual achievements of the 20th century. Seven university graduates merited Nobel prizes. These are Academician Ivan Pavlov (1904)-for his work on the physiology of digestion; Ilya Mechnikov (1908)- for his theory of immunity; Academician Nikolai Semyonov (1956)-for research in the mechanism of chemical reactions; Academician Lev Landau (1962)-for fundamental theories of condensed matter, liquid helium in particular; Academicians Alexander Prokhorov and Nikolai Basov (1964) - for fundamental works on quantum electronics that led to the creation of generators and amplifiers based on the laser/maser principle; Viktor Leontyev, foreign member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1973)-for the "expenses/output" method he has developed and its application to economic problem solving; and Lev Kantorovich (1975)-for his contribution to the theory of optimal distribution of resources. The poet Iosif Brodsky, subsequently a Nobel prize winner, taught for a time at St. Petersburg University.

As many as 700 our graduates have become full members of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and Russia, and members of foreign academies and scientific societies. Our University boasts 14 major scientific discoveries on natural laws, and a great many inventions that have found practical uses in design and in technological processes. In the last thirty years alone our scientists have made over 2,600 applications for patents and authorship certificates, and they have received close to 1,400 authorship certificates for inventions and nearly 250 patents, with a third of this number coming from other countries-Austria, Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Great Britain, Hungary, Denmark, Italy, Canada, the United States, France, Federal Republic of Germany, Czechoslovakia, Switzerland, Yugoslavia and Japan.

The first Russian university was actively involved in founding other higher schools and research centers: the Universities of Moscow, Minsk, Syktyvkar, Kaliningrad, Novosibirsk and of the Far East, A. F. Joffe Physicotechnical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, S. I. Vavilov State Optical Institute and many others. All these schools and research centers could draw on the expertise of our University in research and tuition, and on its immense intellectual and cultural background.

St. Petersburg University has moved into the 21st century with a wealth of experience gained over three centuries. Our chief asset are university graduates, always in close touch with their alma mater. Ne have prepared several projects on the 280th birthday of our University and the St. Petersburg tricentennial so as to foster our academic traditions. One project, which we have dubbed "Famous Universities", is meant to illuminate the role of St. Petersburg University, of its alumni- the role of its intellectual and cultural milieu, of its scientific schools, in the history of our town, country and world civilization. This project envisages a "golden book" to be published for broad readership in many volumes-biographies and essays on a galaxy of outstanding personalities reared by our University, the alumni of different generations, and of different political and philosophical views, who have left a trace in our country's history: the artists A. Benois, M. Vrubel, M. Dobuzhinsky, V Polenov and N. Rerich; the writers I. Turgenev and V. Nabokov; the literary critic and writer D. Pisarev; the poets A. Blok and D. Merezhkovsky; the composers B. Astafiev and I. Stravinsky; the scientists V. Vernadsky, N. Marr, I. Mechnikov, N. Miklukho-Maklai and B. Piotrovsky.