The Institute of Slavic Studies of the Academy of Sciences in Leningrad (on the history of the research)

Abstract

The article presents the evolution in the research on the history of the Institute of Slavic Studies (Academy of Sciences of the USSR) in Leningrad (1931–1934). This process began in 1979 with a study by K. I. Logachev, who focused on the activities of the Institute of Slavic Studies in Leningrad in the context of the first stage of the formation and development of Slavic Studies in Soviet Russia (1917–1934). Subsequent archival investigations by M. A. Robinson, E. P. Aksenova, and others have considerably expanded the field of research, during which the structure, the staff of the Institute, the basic principles and results of its academic and pedagogical work, and the reasons for its liquidation have been revealed and analyzed. While stressing the obvious advances made in the study of the history of the Leningrad period of the Institute of Slavic Studies, it should be noted that the analysis of the academic Slavic Studies in the 20th century as a whole awaits more careful attention. The main organizations that worked in this field were the Institute of Slavic Studies in Leningrad; the Department of Slavic Studies at the Leningrad Branch of the Institute of History, Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1938); the Department of Slavic Studies at the Institute of History, Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1939); the Institute of Slavic Studies, Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1947), including the Leningrad group of the Institute (1950). The integral approach especially makes sense, considering that the same person, the member of the Academy N. S. Derzhavin, was the head of the academic structures in Leningrad.