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). Despite the attention to his biography and scientific legacy, researchers largely limit themselves to the already known sources, whereas some important episodes and problems of the scientific biography of Ivanovsky remain unexplored. The relevance of this article lies in the focus on such aspects of his biography, among which is his place and role at St. Petersburg University. On the basis of a wide range of sources, many of which are introduced into the scholarship for the first time, the article reconstructs different stages of Ivanovsky’s activity at St. Petersburg University (as a student, as a master’s student, as a university teacher). Special attention is paid to the relationship between Ivanovsky and his colleagues at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at the turn of the XIX–XX centuries. One of the subjects considered in the article is Ivanovsky’s forced resignation from St. Petersburg University in 1901. The scientific and personal fate of Ivanovsky clearly reflected the peculiarities and difficulties of pursuing a scientific career at St. Petersburg University, which was the center of the Russian science with exceptionally high formal academic requirements supported not so much by the government as by the professorial corporation. The authors convincingly show that the period at St. Petersburg University became a key one in the scientific career and life of D. Ivanovsky.