List of Saint Petersburg State University people

The following is a list of notable alumni and faculty of Saint Petersburg State University in Russia.

Nobel laureates
• Valery Leibin - psychoanalyst, professor

• Ilya Mechnikov - Russian-French, Physiology or Medicine in 1908

• Yuri Orlov - zoologist, paleontologist

• Ivan Pavlov - physiologist, psychologist, and physician; Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine in 1904

• Nikolay Semyonov - Chemistry in 1956

• Lev Landau - physicist; Nobel laureate in Physics in 1962

• Aleksandr Prokhorov - Australian-Soviet-Russian, Physics in 1964

• Wassily Leontief - Soviet-American economist; Nobel laureate in Economics in 1973

• Leonid Kantorovich - economist, Nobel laureate in Economics in 1975

• Joseph Brodsky - Russian-American, Literature in 1987

Fields medal

 * Grigori Perelman
 * Stanislav Smirnov

Academia
• Gregory Areshian - Armenian-American archaeologist and historian.

• Rakhat Achylova - Kyrgyz sociologist and politician

• Volodymyr Barvinok — Ukrainian historian and writer

• Kazimieras Būga — Lithuanian linguist and philologist

• Nina Dyakonova- professor, Doctor of Philology

• Viktor Fainberg - philologist and dissident

• Nikolai Girenko - ethnologist and human rights activist

• Lev Gumilev — historian, ethnologist, anthropologist, and translator

• Igor Ivanov — pedagogue

• Marju Lepajõe - classical philologist

• Dmitry Likhachev — scholar

• Anne Lill - classical philologist

• Vladimir Lossky — Eastern Orthodox theologian

• Yakov Lyubarsky - scholar, Doctor of Philology, specialist in Byzantine studies

• Stepan Malkhasyants — Armenian academician, philologist, linguist, and lexicographer

• Nikolay Marr — historian and linguist

• Sergey Oldenburg — orientalist

• Boris B. Piotrovsky — academician, historian-orientalist and archaeologist

• Sergey Platonov — historian

• Isaak Izrailevich Prezent - philosopher of biology

• Fyodor Shcherbatskoy — Indologist

• Mikhail Shultz — chemist, academician

• Pitirim Sorokin — sociologist

• Vasily Vasilievich Struve — orientalist

• Max Vasmer — German linguist

Government and politics
• Vladimir Burtsev, revolutionary activist, scholar, publisher and editor

• David Dallin - Belarusian-American one-time Menshevik leader; writer and lecturer

• Ben-Zion Dinur - Minister of Education of Israel

• Dalia Grybauskaite - President of Lithuania 2009–19

• Ion Inculeţ, president of the Moldavian Democratic Republic

• Alexander Kerensky, second Prime Minister of the Russian Provisional Government

• Vladimir Lenin - first head of the Russian SFSR

• Dmitry Medvedev - politician, businessman, lawyer, and the third President of the Russian Federation (2008–2012)

• Lyudmila Narusova - Russian Federation Senator

• Vladimir Putin - second President of the Russian Federation (2000–2008, 2012-present); (2008–2012)

• Mark Slonim - politician, literary critic, scholar, and translator

• Antanas Smetona - President of Lithuania (first term 1919-1920; second term 1926-1940)

• Anatoly Sobchak - Russian politician and a co-author of the Constitution of the Russian Federation

• Ksenia Sobchak - candidate for Russian presidency, public figure, TV anchor, journalist, socialite, and actress

• Levon Ter-Petrosyan - first President of Armenia (1991–1998)

• Jazep Varonka - first Chairman of the People's Secretariat (i.e. Prime Minister) of the Belarusian National Republic

• Augustinas Voldemaras - Prime Minister of Lithuania

Literature and the arts



 * Johann Admoni - composer, pianist, teacher, and public person
 * Alexander Blok - poet
 * Joseph Brodsky - Russian and American poet and essayist; Nobel Prize winner
 * Ilia Chavchavadze - Georgian writer, politician and public benefactor
 * Igor Chubais - philosopher, sociologist, and author
 * Solomon Dodashvili - Georgian philosopher, grammarian, belletrist
 * Ayn Rand - Russian-born American novelist and philosopher
 * Boris Grebenshchikov - founder and lead singer of the band Aquarium
 * Yehuda L. Katzenelson - writer and doctor
 * Alexander Kugel - theatre critic and editor
 * Julian Henry Lowenfeld - American-Russian poet, playwright, trial lawyer, composer, and translator
 * Salomon Mandelkern - poet and author
 * Olga Ozarovskaya - folklorist, storyteller, performer, writer, and an archivist of fairy tales
 * Mahapandit Rahul Sankrityayan - Indian historian
 * Nicholas Roerich - artist
 * Lyubov Speranskaya - theater artist
 * Maximilian Steinberg - composer of classical music
 * Igor Stravinsky - composer
 * Ivan Turgenev - writer

Science and mathematics
• Alexander Barvinok - mathematician

• Raissa Berg - Russian-American geneticist and evolutionary biologist

• Abram Besicovitch - Russian-British mathematician

• Lev M. Bregman - Soviet-Israeli mathematician

• Pafnuty Chebyshev - mathematician

• Yakov Eliashberg - Russian-American mathematician

• Vera Faddeeva - mathematician

• Vladimir Fock - physicist

• Sergey Fomin - Russian-American mathematician

• Leonid Frankfurt - Russian-Israeli physicist

• George Gamow - Soviet-American cosmologist

• Israel Gohberg - Soviet-Israeli mathematician

• Mikhail Gromov - Franco-Russian mathematician, Abel Prize winner

• Alexander Alfonsovich Grossheim - Ukrainian botanist

• Georges Gurvitch - Russian-born French sociologist and jurist

• Solomon Herzenstein - zoologist

• Cecil Hoare FRS - British protozoologist and parasitologist

• Alexander Its - mathematician

• Ivan Ivanov - mathematician

• Dmitry Ivanovsky - biologist

• Faina Mihajlovna Kirillova - mathematician and control theorist

• Leo Klejn - archaeologist, anthropologist, and philologist.

• Wladimir Köppen - Russian-German geographer, meteorologist, climatologist and botanist

• Yuri Linnik - mathematician

• Mikhail Lomonosov - scientist, writer and polymath

• Aleksandr Lyapunov - mathematician, mechanician and physicist

• Victor Lyatkher, renewable energy engineer

• Andrey Markov - mathematician

• Dmitri Mendeleev - chemist; creator of the first version of the periodic table of elements

• Boris Nikolsky - chemist

• Grigori Perelman - mathematician, Fields Medal winner (2006, declined), and only man to solve a Millennium Prize Problem (2010, prize declined)

• Konstantin Petrzhak - physicist

• Lev Pavlovich Rapoport - theoretical physicist

• Alexander Raikhel - Soviet-American entomologist

• Natasha Raikhel - Soviet-American plant cell biologist

• Vladimir Rokhlin - mathematician

• Nikolai Semenov - physicist and chemist

• Stanislav Smirnov - mathematician, Fields Medal winner (2010)

• Jacob Tamarkin - Russian-American mathematician

• Vladimir Vernadsky - mineralogist and geochemist

• Georgy Voronoy - mathematician

• Emil Wiesel - Russian-German artist; museum curator; full member of the Russian Imperial Academy of Arts (since 1914); organizer of international art exhibitions; councilor of Hermitage and Russian museum

• Sergei Winogradsky - microbiologist, ecologist and soil scientist

• Yuri Yappa - theoretical physicist

• Victor Zalgaller - Russian-Israeli mathematician

Other

 * Alexander Alekhine - Russian-French fourth World Chess Champion
 * Viktor Korchnoi - Soviet and Swiss chess grandmaster and chess writer
 * Grigory Levenfish - chess player; 2x Soviet champion
 * Vladas Petronaitis - Lithuanian patriot, soldier and martyr
 * Józef Pluskowski - Polish poet and member of the Polish Resistance
 * Yakov Rekhter - co-founder of BGP and MPLS networking protocols
 * Gennadiy Shatkov - Olympic champion in boxing
 * Eduard Vinokurov (1942–2010) - Kazakh-born Soviet Olympic and world champion fencer
 * Mahinda Balasuriya - 32nd Inspector General of the Sri Lanka Police (IGP) (2009–2011).

Faculty only

 * Leonhard Euler - Swiss mathematician and physicist
 * Nikolai Gogol - Russian literature writer of Ukrainian origin; historian
 * Rada Granovskaya - psychologist
 * Ivan Sechenov - physiologist
 * Zare Yusupova - philologist, Kurdish linguist
 * Rahul Sankrityayan - Indian independence activist, writer and a polyglot who wrote in Hindi.