Telephone: +7 812 2180902, 2180901 Fax: +7 812 2181140
Director of the Department: Dr Natalja Kochetkova
The Department (formerly Group) of Eighteenth-Century Russian Literature has formed part of the Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House) of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 1934. The first meeting of the Group was held on 20 February 1934. Its founders were Academician Alexander Orlov, Professors Pavel Berkov, and Grigorii Gukovskii. There were drawn into the work of the Group researchers from other scientific institutions in Leningrad, Moscow, and elsewhere, students and postgraduates. Meetings of the Group were held regularly since 1934 and were dedicated to reports and notes on the history of eighteenth-century Russian literature. These texts were published in the collection The Eighteenth century (XVIII vek) which started to appear in 1935 and which won scientific recognition in Russia and abroad. The Group's activities, interrupted during the war, were resumed on the initiative of Professor P. Berkov in 1955 and widened in scale. Studies of the international connections of eighteenth-century Russian literature attracted more attention. The Group organised a number of conferences which were published in The Eighteenth century and separately under titles such as Problems of Russian Enlightenment in eighteenth-century literature (1961) and Eighteenth-century Russian literature and Slavonic literatures (1963).
Up to present time 20 volumes of The Eighteenth century (1935-1996) have been published and the 21st is prepared for publication. The series includes scientific investigations and materials, unknown texts and bibliographies. Volumes 10 (1975) and 20 (1996) contain the list of articles in the Department's publications. The most significant of the separate publications are Letters of eighteenth-century Russian writers (1980) and The Dictionary of eighteenth-century Russian writers (volume 1, A-I, 1988; volume 2, K-P, in the press).
The Department of Eighteenth-Century Russian Literature continues to maintain scientific contacts with colleagues in Russian cities and in countries that previously formed part the Soviet Union (Moscow, Minsk, Novosibirsk, Tomsk, Uljanovsk, Kharkov, Cherepovets and others) and now co-operates with Slavonic philologists from England, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Poland, the USA and Japan. The Department takes an active part in the work of Russian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies.