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Dmitry Likhachov
Dmitry Likhachov was a well-known literary critic, art critic, culture historian, philologist, publicist, and an academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences... The range of his scientific interests was very wide. He is the author of over 500 treatises dedicated to the history of Russian literature (mostly Old Russian literature) and Russian culture, and around 600 publicistic works. Throughout his life Dmitry Likhachov was an active advocate of culture, and a propagandist of morality and spirituality.
Dmitry Sergeyevich Likhachov was born on November 28, 1906 in St. Petersburg. He got his elementary education in a non-classical secondary school and a Soviet labor school, and in 1928 graduated from the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Leningrad State University. The same year Dmitry Likhachov was condemned to 5 years of imprisonment for participation in the student's circle Space Academy of Sciences. Till November, 1931 Dmitry Sergeyevich was a political prisoner in the Solovki labor camp.
His first work - Gambling of Criminals - was published in the Solovetsky Islands magazine in 1930. In 1932 Dmitry Likhachov was set free on parole and returned to Leningrad, where he got a job as a literary editor at the Socioeconomic Literature Publishing House. During the same period his articles on philological subjects began to be published in the periodicals. From 1938 he was a junior research assistant, and from 1941 - a senior researcher of the Institute of Russian Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, where he was the head of the Old Russian Literature Department.
During the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945) Dmitry Likhachov was evacuated from blockade Leningrad to Kazan, where he continued scientific work. After the war he returned to his hometown and was a teacher of the Leningrad State University from 1946, and its professor from 1951.
Along with his work as a teacher Dmitry Sergeyevich went on paying a lot of time to scientific and journalistic activity. And still it is known as the active public figure. He wrote hundreds of works on a wide range of topics on the theory and history of Old Russian literature. Lots of his works were translated into English, Bulgarian, Italian, Polish, Czech, French, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, and German. His contribution into preservation of Russian culture is invaluable. In 1942 Dmitry Likhachov was awarded the medal For Defense of Leningrad and became the first member of the restored Order of St. Andrew the Protoclete in 1998. Moreover, he was the holder of many other awards and medals, both of Russia, and other countries. In 1970 he was elected an academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.
Dmitry Sergeyevich Likhachov died on September 30, 1999 in St. Petersburg.
