Byelorussian University

(full name, V. I. Lenin Byelorussian University), founded in Minsk in 1921. Lenin’s name was added to the title in connection with the 30th anniversary of the Byelorussian SSR in 1949. In the 1969/70 school year the university included the departments of physics, mathematics, chemistry, applied mathematics, geography, biology, history, law, philology, and journalism. There was also a preparatory department for foreign citizens, two departments for raising teacher qualifications, and a department for evening courses. In addition, there was a correspondence-course division, a preparatory division, and a graduate division. The university had 85 sub-departments, a computer center, and ten laboratories for scientific research, including one for problems in the technology of semiconductors, one for experimental biology, and one for sociological research. There is also a botanical garden, a biological experimental station on Lake Naroch’, an experimental farm, and museums of history, zoology, and geology-mineralogy. The library has more than 900,000 volumes. The university has its own publishing house, which has been putting out the Vestnik Belorusskogo universiteta in two series since 1969. In the 1969–70 school year more than 16,400 students studied at the university. Instructors and professional staff included 1,400 persons, among whom were 77 professors and doctors of science, and 394 docents and candidates of science. Among those who taught at the university were the academicians V. I. Picheta, V. N. Pertsev, and N. M. Nikol’skii and the people’s poet Ia. Kolas. Prominent graduates include the scientists L. A. Artsimovich, A. N. Sevchenko, and F. I. Fedorov, and the writers P. U. Brovka, P. F. Glebka, and K. K. Krapiva.

In 1967 the university was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor. From 1921 through 1969 the university has produced 25,000 highly qualified specialists.