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Russian Academy of Sciences
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Russian Academy of Sciences (, Rossiiskaya Akademiya Nauk, shortened to PAH, RAN) is consisting of the national academy of Russia, and a network of scientific institutes from all across the Russian Federation engaged in research, as well as auxiliary units - scientific like libraries and publishers, and social, e.g. hospitals.
The Academy is headquartered in Moscow. It is incorporated as a civil, self-governed, non-commercial organization chartered by Russian Government. It combines members of RAS (see below) and scientists employed by institutions.
MembershipThere are three types of membership in the RAS: full members, corresponding members, and foreign members. Academicians and corresponding members must be citizen of the Russian Federation (at the moment of election; however, there are academicians and corresponding members who had been elected before the collapse of the USSR and now are citizens of other countries). Members of RAS are elected based upon scientific contributions and it is a big honour to be elected to membership of the Academy. As of 2005-2007 there are slightly less than 500 full members of the academy and about the same number of corresponding members.
StructureThe RAS consist of 9 branches by scientific domain, of 3 territorial branches and of 14 regional scientific centres. The Academy has numerous councils, committees and commissions, organized for different purposes.
Territorial Branches
- The Siberian Branch was established in 1957, with Mikhail Lavrentyev as its founding chairman. Research centres are in Novosibirsk, Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Yakutsk, Ulan-Ude, Kemerovo, Tyumen, and Omsk. As of 2005, the Branch employed 33,051 employees, 58 of whom were members of the Russian Academy of Sciences
- The Ural Branch was established in 1932, with Aleksandr Fersman as its founding chairman. Research centres are in Yekaterinburg, Perm, Cheliabinsk, Izhevsk, Orenburg, Ufa, Syktyvkar. As of 2007, the Branch employed 3600 scientists, 590 of whom were full professors (doctor nauk), 31 full members and 58 corresponding memebers of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Regional Centres
- Kazan Science Centre
- Puschino Science Centre
- Samara Science Centre
- Saratov Science Centre
- Vladikavkaz Science Centre of RAN and Government of Northern Ossetia
- Dagestan Science Centre
- Kabardino-Balkarian Science Centre
- Karelian Science Centre
- Kola Science Centre
- Science Centre of RAN in Chernogovka
- St.Petersburg Science Centre
- Ufa Science Centre
- Southern Science Centre
- Troitsk Science Centre
- Perm Science Centre
Institutions The Russian Academy of Sciences consists of a large number of research institutions, including:
Member institutions are linked by a dedicated Russian Space Science Internet (RSSI). The RSSI, starting with just 3 members, now has 3100 members, including 57 of the largest research institutions.
Moscow University, St.Petersburg University, or Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, etc. do not belong to RAS (they belongs to Ministry of Education of Russian Federation), but the leading universities use many institutes of RAS (as well as many others institutions) as educational centers ("Phystech System").
Awards The Academy gives a number of different prizes, medals, and awards:
History
FoundationThe Academy was founded in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great, inspired and advised by Gottfried Leibniz, and implemented in the Senate decree of January 28, 1724. It was called Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences between 1724 and 1917. Those invited to work there included mathematicians Leonhard Euler, Christian Goldbach, Georg Bernhard Bilfinger, Nicholas and Daniel Bernoulli, botanist Johann Georg Gmelin, embryologists Caspar Friedrich Wolff, astronomer and geographer Joseph-Nicolas Delisle, physicist Georg Wolfgang Kraft, and historian Gerhard Friedrich Müller.
Under the leadership of Princess Ekaterina Dashkova (1783-96), the Academy was engaged on compiling the huge Academic Dictionary of the Russian Language. Expeditions to explore remote parts of the country had Academy scientists as their leaders or most active participants. These included Vitus Bering's Second Kamchatka Expedition of 1733–43, and Peter Simon Pallas's expeditions to Siberia.
USSR Academy of SciencesIn December 1917, Sergei Fedorovich Oldenburg, a leading ethnographer and political activist in the Kadet party met with Lenin to discuss the future of the Academy. They agreed that the expertise of the Academy would be applied to addressing questions of state construction, in return the Soviet regime would give the Academy financial and political support. By early 1918 it was agreed that the Academy would report to the Department of the Mobilisation of Scientific Forces of the People's Commissariat of Enlightening which replaced the Provisional Government's Ministry of Education.
In 1925 the Soviet government recognized the Russian Academy of Sciences as the "highest all-Union scientific institution" and renamed it the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. However starting in 1928 the Politburo started to interfere in the affairs of the Academy. By the summer of 1929, Yuri Petrovich Figatner headed a special government commission to investigate the academy and purge it of "counter-revolutionaries" turning it into a Marxist-Leninist organisation. Figatner's commission originally included Oldenburg, but he was sacked for "obstructing the reconstruction of the Academy of Sciences. By the end of 1929 its had sacked 128 members of staff out of 960 with a further 520 supernumeraries from 830 also being dismissed. In t he following year over 100 people (mainly scholars and humanists, including many historians) were charged in whatis called the Academics' Case. Former Academicians such as G.S. Gabaev, A.A. Arnoldi, N.P. Antsiferov, had already been exiled or imprisoned, but were also put on trial. On 8 August 1931 the Collegium of Joint State Political Administration Board condemned 29 people, including S.V. Bakhrushin, V.N. Beneshevich, D.N. Egorov, Y.V. Gautier, N.V. Izmaylov, N.P. Likhachev, M.K. Lyubavsky, A.M. Mervart, Sergey Platonov, S.V. Rozhdestvensky, Yevgeny Tarle. In 1931 the Joint State Political Administration Board imposed another wave of punishments on research officers of various establishments of the Academy of Sciences, Russian Museum, Central Archives and others. This included A.A. Byalynitsky-Birulya, A.A. Dostoevsky, B.M. Engelgardt, N.S. Platonova, M.D. Priselkov, A.A. Putilov, S.V. Sigrist, F.F. Skribanovich, S.I. Tkhorzhevsky and A.I. Zaozersky). Some former Guards officers, who worked for the Academy of Sciences such as A.A. Kovanko and Y. A. Verzhbitsky, were executed by shooting. N.V. Raevsky, P.V. Wittenburg and D.N. Khalturin who had organised various expeditions, the priests A.V. Mitrotsky, M.V. Mitrotsky, and M.M. Girs (the church group), Professor E.B. Furman, Pastor A.F. Frishfeld (the German group) and F.I. Vityazev-Sedenko, S.S. Baranov-Galperson and E.G. Baranov-Galperson (the publishers group) were also punished.
Smaller commissions investigated institutions, thus the Commission for the Reorganisation of KIPS and the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography subjected these organisations to "socialist criticism".
In 1934 the Academy headquarters moved from Leningrad (formerly Saint Petersburg) to the Russian capital, Moscow, together with a number of academic institutes.
The USSR Academy of Sciences helped to establish national Academies of Sciences in all Soviet republics (with the exception of the Russian SFSR), in many cases delegating prominent scientists to live and work in other republics. These academies were
- Ukrainian SSR: ???????? ???? ??????????? ??? (est. 1918; current National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine)
- Byelorussian SSR: ???????? ??????? ?????????? ??? (est. 1929; current National Academy of Sciences of Belarus)
- Uzbek SSR: ?????????? ??? ?????? ?????????? (est. 1943; current Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan)
- Kazakh SSR: ????? ??? ????? ?????????? (est. 1946; current National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Kazakhstan)
- Georgian SSR: ??????????? ??? ???????????? ???????? (est. 1941 ; current Georgian Academy of Sciences)
- Azerbaijan SSR: -- (est. 1935; current National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan )
- Lithuanian SSR: Lietuvos TSR Mokslu akademija (est. 1941; current Lithuanian Academy of Sciences)
- Moldavian SSR: ????????? ??????? ? ??? ???????????? (est. 1946; current Academy of Sciences of Moldova)
- Latvian SSR: Latvijas PSR Zinatnu akademija (est. 1946; current Latvian Academy of Sciences)
- Kirghiz SSR: -- (est. 1954; current National Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic)
- Tajik SSR: -- (est. 1953; current Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tajikistan)
- Armenian SSR: -- (est.1943; current National Academy of Sciences of Armenia)
- Turkmen SSR: -- (est. 1951; current Academy of Sciences of Turkmenistan)
- Estonian SSR: Eesti NSV Teaduste Akadeemia (est. 1946; current Estonian Academy of Sciences)

Post-Soviet periodAfter the collapse of the Soviet Union, by decree of the President of Russia of December 2, 1991, the institute once again became the Russian Academy of Sciences, inheriting all facilities of the USSR Academy of Sciences in the territory of Russia.
See also
- In the 1950s and 1960s Prof. Lev Davidovich Belkind has released a number of books on the unique contribution of Russian scientists and engineers to the technological progress.
External links
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