St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences on the Intellectual Map of the Enlightenment. To the 300th Anniversary of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Abstract

The article examines the history and prehistory of St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. The analysis of functioning conditions of St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, ways of its financing, privileges and benefits granted to scien­tists, as well as the active actions of the academic administration demonstrated how quickly St. Petersburg turned into one of the most important scientific cen­ters of the world. The author reveals the role of outstanding figures of the En­lightenment era, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Christian Wolf, in the creation of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. She notes that Leibniz saw the cre­ation of the Academy of Sciences in Russia as the implementation of Bacon’s epistemological utopia, the “New Atlantis,” and was ready to take a direct part in its creation. The article notes that together with the Academy of Sciences in Russia a new intellectual community emerged, and this community was ca­pable of solving important state tasks and complex research problems. One of the important conclusions of the study is the analysis of how the academic community was integrated into the social structure of Russia and constantly evolved into the country’s academic system. The article gives a brief overview of the history of the emergence of academies of sciences in Europe in the New Time, it considers main directions of their activities, features of financial sup­port, publications, and working conditions of scientists. Particular attention is paid to the development of philosophical and worldview lines of the academic institutions’ activities. The formation of the academic space in Europe is com­pared with the development of the Academy of Sciences in Russia, where the idea of creating the Academy from the very beginning acquired a state char­acter.