Saint Petersburg State University
Russian federal state-owned higher education institution
Saint Petersburg State University (SPbU; Russian: Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет, romanized: Sankt-Peterburgskiy gosudarstvennyy universitet) is a public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter the Great, it is one of the oldest universities in Russia and has had a focus on fundamental research in science and engineering since its creation.
It is made up of 24 distinct departments and institutes, the Academic Gymnasium, the Medical College, the College of Physical Culture and Sports, Economics and Technology. The university has two primary campuses: one on Vasilievsky Island and the other one in Peterhof. During the Soviet period, it was known as Leningrad State University (Russian: Ленинградский государственный университет). It was renamed after Andrei Zhdanov in 1948 and was officially called "Leningrad State University, named after A. A. Zhdanov and decorated with the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner of Labour." Zhdanov was removed in 1989, and Leningrad in the name was officially replaced with Saint Petersburg in 1992.
History
1724–1821
It is disputed by the university administration whether Saint Petersburg State University or Moscow State University is the oldest higher education institution in Russia. While the latter was established in 1755, the former, which has been in continuous operation since 1819, claims to be the successor of the university established along with the Academic Gymnasium and the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences on 24 January 1724, by a decree of Peter the Great.
Between 1804 and 1819, Saint Petersburg University officially did not exist; the institution founded by Peter the Great, the Saint Petersburg Academy, had been disbanded, because the new 1803 charter of the Academy of Sciences stipulated that there should not be any educational institutions affiliated with it.
The Petersburg Pedagogical Institute, renamed the Main Pedagogical Institute in 1814, was established in 1804 and resided in a part of the Twelve Collegia building.
“Saint Petersburg State University” enters the record as russian federal state-owned higher education institution. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Saint, Petersburg and State can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q27621. VIAF identifies the subject as 11145003631561340450. The Library of Congress control number is no92026966. Authority coordinates are 59.942, 30.299. 3 of 9 selected statements include explicit references; 5 carry qualifiers and 2 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1724, 1948, 1989 and 1992.
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This entry incorporates text from “Saint Petersburg State University” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.