Odessa, University of
Odessa, University of
(full name, the E. Metchnikoff University of Odessa), one of the oldest universities in Russia.
The university originated in 1865, when Novorossiia University was founded in Odessa. During the first years of Soviet power, Novorossiia University was reorganized into several separate higher educational institutions. In 1933 the university was reestablished as Odessa University; in 1945 it was named in honor of E. Metchnikoff.
As of 1974, Odessa University had departments of biology, geology and geography, mathematics and mechanics, physics, chemistry, Romance and Germanic philology, philology, history, and law, as well as a department for advanced training of instructors in the social sciences. The university also had evening, correspondence, and preparatory divisions, as well as a graduate school in which Ukrainian and Russian served as the languages of instruction. In 1974 there were 66 subdepartments, a physics research institute, a computer center, a research section, seven special problems and industrial laboratories, an astronomical observatory, a botanical garden, and four museums. The university library contains 2.8 million volumes.
In the 1973–74 academic year, the university had 11,500 students and 2,400 instructors and research fellows, including four corresponding members of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, 59 professors and doctors of sciences, and 350 docents and candidates of sciences. Scholars and scientists who have been associated with the university have included A. G. Gotalov-Gotlib, I. A. Gurzhii, A. M. Krishtofovich, V. I. Lipskii, P. I. Petrenko-Kritchenko, N. A. Savchuk, D. K. Tret’iakov,-V. P. Tsesevich, and I. Ia. Iatsko.
Odessa University publishes collections of scientific and scholarly works, including Voprosy stereokhimii (Problems of Stereochemistry; since 1971), Fizika aerodispersnykh sistem (Aerosol Physics; since 1969), Geologiia poberezh ‘Ia idna Chernogo i Azovskogo morei (Geology of the Coast and Bottom of the Black and Azov Seas; since 1967), and Voprosy literatury narodov SSSR (Problems of the Literatures of the Peoples of the USSR; since 1974).
Odessa University has trained more than 35,000 specialists in the Soviet period. It was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor in 1965.
A. V. BOGATSKH