by Sergei FOKIN, Dr. Sc. (Biol.), Senior Research Fellow, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia This department (academic chair) concerned with zoology of invertebrates is among the oldest at St. Petersburg University. Founded in 1871 by Karl Kessler, a lead zoologist of his day, it has been actively involved ever since in educational and research work. It is housed in the historic edifice of Duodecim (XII) Collegia erected on the right bank of the Neva in 1722 to 1742 to the design of Dominico Trezzini. The Russian research school of zoology of invertebrates owes a great deal to this institution. Petersburg is a great national science center.* This is also true of biology born as a science soon after Peter the Great had founded an Academy of Sciences in our northern capital (1724). Biology received further impetus for research and as an academic discipline after the Chief Teaching College had been upgraded in its status to a university. Biologists, research scientists and teachers alike, were quite at home there. * See: Zh. Alferov, E. Tropp, "St. Petersburg-Russia's Window on Science", Science in Russia, No. 3, 2003.-Ed. At first the biological disciplines taught to students comprised zoology and botany studied at the Department of Physics and Mathematics (Department of Philosophy in 1836-1852). As to zoology proper, up until the early 1860s it had just one lecturer, a "professor of zoology and zootomy". This course had included two subjects, anatomy and physiology. In 1833 Stepan Kutorga came to head the Zoology Department. As a zoology professor he succeeded Andrei Rzhevsky (1786-1842) who began his course of lectures in 1820 and, late in стр. 56 1822, was promoted in his academic status to an ordinary (staff) professor. Frail of health, he lacked both organizational and teaching talents, and failed to form zoological collections and set up a laboratory for undergraduates. Unlike his predecessor, ... Читать далее