Rostov University of

Rostov University of 

one of the leading higher educational institutions of the USSR. Its history began with the Russian Warsaw University, founded in 1869 and evacuated to Rostov-on-Don in 1915. In 1917 the institution became known as Don University, in 1925 as Northern Caucasus University, in 1931 as the University of Rostov-on-Don, and in 1957 as the University of Rostov. From the 1930’s to the 1950’s, the university served as the basis for the organization of the Rostov institutes of medicine, pedagogy, and economics and finance.

Well-known scientists who have been associated with the university include the virologist D. I. Ivanovskii, the mathematicians G. F. Voronoi and D. D. Mordukhai-Boltovskoi, the chemist E. E. Vagner, the geologists V. P. Amalitskii and P. I. Lebedev, the physicist N. A. Dobrotin, the microbiologist Z. V. Ermol’eva, the astronomer M. F. Subbotin, the botanist A. F. Flerov, the surgeon N. A. Bogoraz, and the soil scientist S. A. Zakharov.

In 1974 the University of Rostov comprised departments of biology and soil science, geology and geography, history, mechanics and mathematics, applied mathematics, physics, philosophy, philology, chemistry, law, and economics. There is a graduate school, 75 subdepartments, an institute for improving the skills of teachers of social sciences, and research institutes for physics, physical and organic chemistry, mechanics and applied mathematics, neurocybernetics, and biology. There are specialized laboratories, a botanical garden, an instructional and experimental biological station, an astronomical observatory, a computer center, and a science library with 1.3 million volumes. In the 1974–75 academic year, there were 9,600 students and approximately 1,000 teachers and scientific workers, including two corresponding members of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 70 professors and doctors of sciences, and 600 docents and candidates of sciences. Since 1934 the university has published collections of scientific works as well as proceedings of various societies. In the period 1945–74, the university trained more than 25,000 specialists. It received the Order of the Red Banner of Labor in 1966.

Iu. A. ZHDANOV