Georgii Aleksandrov

Born Mar. 22 (Apr. 4), 1908, in Leningrad; died July 21, 1961, in Moscow. Soviet philosopher; academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR from 1946; member of the CPSU from 1928.

Aleksandrov graduated from the Moscow Institute of History and Philosophy in 1932. Between 1940 and 1947 he headed the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik). From 1947 to 1954 he was director of the Philosophy Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and during 1954–55 the Minister of Culture of the USSR. He worked at the Philosophy Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Byelorussian SSR between 1955 and 1961. Aleksandrov received two State Prizes of the USSR: in 1943 for his participation in the creation of History of Philosophy and in 1946 for his book History of Western European Philosophy, which became the subject of a philosophical discussion in 1947 (see the journal Voprosy filosofii, 1947, no. 1). He was awarded two Orders of Lenin, two other orders, and various medals.