Leningrad Electrical Engineering Institute

Leningrad Electrical Engineering Institute 

(full name, V. I. Ul’ianov [Lenin] Leningrad Electrical Engineering Institute; LETI), the oldest higher educational institution of electrical engineering in the USSR. It was founded in 1886 as a technical school of the Post and Telegraph Department and became an electrical engineering institute in 1891. It was named after V. I. Ul’ianov (Lenin) in 1918. Among those who worked at the institute were such prominent scientists and founders of important scientific schools of thought as A. S. Popov (the first elected director of the institute), M. A. Shatelen, G. O. Graftio, A. A. Smurov, V. P. Vologdin, and S. Ia. Soko-lov.

In 1973 the institute had departments of radio engineering, electronic engineering, automatic control and computer technology, electrification and automation, electrophysics, and marine electrical, radio, and automatic control engineering; evening departments of automatic control and radio electronics; a correspondence department; a department for advanced training; a preparatory department; a branch in Novgorod; and a graduate school. There were 44 subdepartments, two special-problems laboratories, and five sectorial laboratories. There were more than 800,000 volumes in the library. In the 1972–73 academic year more than 15,000 students studied at the institute. The teaching staff numbered more than 1,000, including 70 professors and doctors of science and 475 docents and candidates of science. The institute accepts candidate’s and doctoral dissertations for defense. It publishes Izvestiia LETI (LETI Proceedings; since 1903). Since its founding the institute has trained more than 30,000 specialists. In 1967 it was awarded the Order of Lenin.

A. A. VAVILOV