Dmitry Iosifovich Ivanovsky and St. Petersburg University

Abstract

The article is devoted to the famous Russian scientist, the founder of Russian and world virology Dmitry Ivanovsky (1864-1920). The relevance of the work is due to the fact that with all the attention to his biography and scientific heritage, researchers are limited to already known sources, and some important episodes and problems of the scientific biography of Ivanovsky are actually not investigated yet. Among them is the place and role of the scientist at the St. Petersburg University, which is the topic of this article. On the basis of a wide range of sources, many of which are introduced into scientific circulation for the first time, the article reconstructs the various stages of Ivanovsky’s activity at St. Petersburg University (as a student, master's student, teacher). Special attention is paid to the relationship of Ivanovsky with his colleagues the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the University at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. One of the subjects that is considered in the article is connected with the forced departure of Ivanovsky from St. Petersburg University in 1901. The scientific and personal fate of Ivanovsky clearly reflects the peculiarities and difficulties of scientific career at St. Petersburg University, which was the center of Russian science with exceptionally high formal academic requirements, supported not so much by the government as by the professorial corporation. The authors present convincing assumptions that the St. Petersburg “university” period became a key one in the scientific career and fate of the scientist.

Keywords:

Dmitry Ivanovsky, Faculty of Physics and Mathematics, botany, virology, Saint Petersburg University