20Th century.

In the 20th century the faculty was not restored till 1940. Povarnin, the pupil of A. I. Vvedenskiy, became the first professor in the Department of Logic at the faculty. His followers - A. M. Plotnikov, V. S. Bachmanov and I. N. Brodsky - maintained the long-standing tradition just as their disciples do nowadays.

After the Civil War the philosophical movement was revived. In 1921 a Philosophical Society and Free Philosophical Association were founded. The revived St. Petersburg Philosophical Society attempted to launch its own journal, “Thought”. However, this was not to last long. Tolerance on the part of the authorities was being driven out by militant, political and ideological irreconcilability. In 1922 a group of scientists was deported on the charge of counter-revolutionary and anti-Soviet activities.

Still, the 20s were marked by the appearance of quite interesting names in philosophy: N. Y. Marr, S. F. Oldenburg, E. L. Radlov. It is noteworthy that the most eminent scholars of that time did not face the problem of distinguishing Philosophy from the Humanities, or its exclusion from the sphere of their research interests. Typical of that time was the scientist of a world class, aware of the value and necessity of a philosophical culture in the structure of scientific thinking, e.g. sinologist V. M. Alexeyev, ethnographer V. G. Bogoraz-Tan, philologist V. M. Zhirmunskiy.

In the 30s it was mainly the natural sciences that were developed, and this led to the dehumanisation of education and general collapse of the prestige of the Arts. It became fashionable to open departments combining science and philosophy, such as the Department of Dialectics of Nature and Evolutionist Doctrine.

World War II undoubtedly hampered the development of the independent Faculty of Philosophy, which was opened in 1940. The first fully-fledged admission only took place in 1946, when the Dean was M. V. Serebryakov, famous for his works on the history of Marxism.

By the beginning of the 60s the Faculty’s structure included the Department of Psychology, headed by Professor B. G. Ananyev. An outstanding psychologist and founder of his own school, he made a decisive contribution to the establishment of the Faculty of Psychology and the development of this science in the USSR. The development of sociology is also connected with the initiative of the Faculty of Philosophy, which resulted in the establishment of the first sociological research institute in the country. A considerable amount of research into all fields of ontology and epistemology was done by Professors V. I. Sviderskiy, V. P. Tugarinov, and V. A. Shtoff.

In the 60s research in aesthetics covered a wide field. At the Faculty this was represented by the works of Professor M. S. Kagan, who developed his own original aesthetic conception, which became universally recognized.

In the sphere of social philosophy a lot of effort went into the organization and development of a research programme concerned with the sociology of personality. It should be noted that in the 60s and 70s Leningrad University was the only educational establishment where professional sociologists worked.

All the above is but a brief sketch of the Faculty’s history. It was in fact full of tensions, human tragedies, unrealised ambitions, stagnation and inertia. Nonetheless we cannot refute the obvious achievements of those who remained devoted to philosophy as a sacred duty. To them we owe a great debt of gratitude.