The First PhD Theses on Ancient History at the Leningrad State University (1938—1941): on the Formation of Soviet Dissertation Culture

Abstract

The dissertation files of the postgraduate students in classics of the Leningrad State University and State Academy of the History of Material Culture who had defended their PhD theses in 1938—1941 were taken. These were the files of V. P. Kallistov, E. A. Millior, S. L. Utchenko, G. A. Stratanovsky, K. P. Lampsakov. The author concludes that the patronage of the professor — supervisor, which was based on the assessment of the candidate’s research abilities and knowledge of ancient languages, was the most important for admission to graduate school. Social origin and unseemly facts of biography were not of decisive importance. Scientific supervisors were mainly scientists of the old school — S. A. Zhebelev, S. Ya. Lurie, who independently determined the structure of graduate students’ training, focusing on the historical and philological approach, the use of different types of sources and appropriate critical analysis of the achievements of pre-revolutionary and foreign historiography. The topics of theses shows the desire to include Soviet science in the world, and the high demands — to produce a high-level scientists for teaching ancient history and ancient languages (at the time there was a severe shortage of specialists in these fields of knowledge), as well as to prepare summarizing multi-volume works on history.