Southern Federal University (), abbreviated as SFedU () and formerly known as Rostov State University (1957–2006), is a public university in

Rostov Oblast Rostov Oblast ( rus, Росто́вская о́бласть, r=Rostovskaya oblastʹ, p=rɐˈstofskəjə ˈobləsʲtʲ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (an oblast), located in the Southern Federal District. The oblast ...

, Russia with campuses in

Rostov-on-Don Rostov-on-Don is a port city and the administrative centre of Rostov Oblast and the Southern Federal District of Russia. It lies in the southeastern part of the East European Plain on the Don River, from the Sea of Azov, directly north of t ...

and

Taganrog Taganrog (, ) is a port city in Rostov Oblast, Russia, on the north shore of Taganrog Bay in the Sea of Azov, several kilometers west of the mouth of the Don (river), Don River. It is in the Black Sea region. Population: Located at the site of a ...

. In 2023 ''US News & World Report'' ranked it # 1,647 in the world.

History

Southern Federal University is the largest research and educational establishment of

. The university began to operate in Rostov-on-Don in 1915 as an affiliate part of

Imperial University of Warsaw The University of Warsaw (, ) is a public research university in Warsaw, Poland. Established on November 19, 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country, offering 37 different fields of study as well as 100 specializat ...

whose Russian staff had been evacuated from

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

with the onset of

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. Later, with the collapse of

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

, the university was named Donskoy University after the region of

Don Don, don or DON and variants may refer to: Places *Don (river), a river in European Russia *Don River (disambiguation), several other rivers with the name * Don, Benin, a town in Benin * Don, Dang, a village and hill station in Dang district, Gu ...

by the decree of

Russian Provisional Government The Russian Provisional Government was a provisional government of the Russian Empire and Russian Republic, announced two days before and established immediately after the abdication of Nicholas II on 2 March, O.S. New_Style.html" ;"title="5 ...

on May 5, 1917. When founded in 1915, Donskoy University was the first higher education institution in Rostov-on-Don and had four academic departments: history & philosophy, medicine, physics & mathematics, and law. In 1917–1920, during

Russian Civil War The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...

, Rostov-on-Don was under the control of the anti-Soviet coalition forces of Russian

White movement The White movement,. The old spelling was retained by the Whites to differentiate from the Reds. also known as the Whites, was one of the main factions of the Russian Civil War of 1917–1922. It was led mainly by the Right-wing politics, right- ...

including Kaledin's

Don Army The Don Army (, ) was the military of the short lived Don Republic and a part of the White movement in the Russian Civil War. It operated from 1918 to 1920, in the Don region and centered in the town of Novocherkassk. History On 23 April, K. ...

. Many of the staff who found refuge at Donskoy University at that time had a strong anti-Soviet stance and students were being drafted to

White Army The White Army, also known as the White Guard, the White Guardsmen, or simply the Whites, was a common collective name for the armed formations of the White movement and Anti-Sovietism, anti-Bolshevik governments during the Russian Civil War. T ...

. During the turmoil years of the Civil War the official name of the university was Bogaevsky Donskoy University named after Mitrofan Bogaevsky, assistant to

Ataman Ataman (variants: ''otaman'', ''wataman'', ''vataman''; ; ) was a title of Cossack and haidamak leaders of various kinds. In the Russian Empire, the term was the official title of the supreme military commanders of the Cossack armies. The Ukra ...

Alexey Kaledin Alexey Maksimovich Kaledin (; 24 October 1861 – 11 February 1918) was a Don Cossack Cavalry General who commanded the 12th Cavalry Division and Russian Eight Army during World War I. He also led the Don Cossack White movement in the opening ...

. Following the takeover of Rostov-on-Don by

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

in January 1920, the authority over Donskoy University passed to the

Soviet government The Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was the executive and administrative organ of the highest body of state authority, the All-Union Supreme Soviet. It was formed on 30 December 1922 and abolished on 26 December 199 ...

. That same year the Soviets purged the university off any seemed disloyal and pro-White movement staff members. Marina Alexandrovna Borovskaya, president of the university, was suspended by the

European University Association The European University Association (EUA) represents more than 800 institutions of higher education in 48 countries, providing them with a forum for cooperation and the exchange of information on higher education and research policies. Members of ...

(EUA) following support for the

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

by the Russian Union of Rectors (RUR) in March 2022, for being "diametrically opposed to the

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

an values that they committed to when joining EUA”.

Academics

University centers and degree-granting institutions

* Main campus of SFedU (former Rostov State University) * Institute of Economics and International Relations * Pedagogical Institute (former Rostov State Pedagogical University) * Taganrog Institute of Technology (abbreviated as TIT, former Taganrog State University of Radioengineering) * Institute of Architecture & Arts (former Rostov State Academy of Architecture & Arts) * The Smart Materials Research Center

Rankings

In 2023 ''US News & World Report'' ranked it # 1,647 in the world. In 2017,

Times Higher Education ''Times Higher Education'' (''THE''), formerly ''The Times Higher Education Supplement'' (''The THES''), is a British magazine reporting specifically on news and issues related to higher education. Ownership TPG Capital acquired TSL Education ...

ranked the university within the 801-1000 band globally.

Degree mill

The volunteer community network

Dissernet Dissernet () is a volunteer community network working to clean Russian science of plagiarism. The core activity of the community is conducting examinations of doctoral and habilitation (higher doctorate) theses defended in Russian scientific and ...

has discovered multiple cases of PhD level degrees being awarded by the university for heavily plagiarized theses.

Alumni and faculty

Alumni

Alexander Ankvab Aleksandr Zolotinskovich Ankvab ( ; ; ka, ალექსანდრე ზოლოტინსკის ძე ანქვაბი, tr; ; born 26 December 1952) is an Abkhaz politician and businessman who was the president of Abkhazia fro ...

, President of

Abkhazia Abkhazia, officially the Republic of Abkhazia, is a List of states with limited recognition, partially recognised state in the South Caucasus, on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, at the intersection of Eastern Europe and West Asia. It cover ...

Ekaterina Nikitichna Blinova Ekaterina Nikititchna Blinova (; born 24 November December1906 in Kamensk-Shakhtinsky, died 15 December 1981 in Moscow) was a Soviet Union geophysicist and meteorologist. Life Blinova studied physics and mathematics in Rostov-on-Don at the ...

, meteorologist * Alexander Bovin, journalist, political scientist and diplomat * Aleksander Burba, chemist, founder of metallurgy of germanium * Alexander Fedorov, media educator, film critic, editor of Media Education Journal * Zinaida Ermol’eva, microbiologist and biochemist who developed first Soviet-made antibiotics, recipient of numerous Soviet awards *

Sergey Shakhray Sergey Mikhaylovich Shakhray (; born 30 April 1956) is a Russian politician. He is a co-author of the Constitution of the Russian Federation. Shakhray graduated from the Rostov-on-Don State University in 1978 with a degree in law. In December ...

, deputy Prime Minister of Russia *

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Soviet and Russian author and Soviet dissidents, dissident who helped to raise global awareness of political repression in the Soviet Union, especially the Gulag pris ...

, writer Nobel prize winner * Valery Tarsis, writer. * Tony Vilgotsky, writer

Faculty

* Dmitry Morduhai-Boltovskoi, mathematician *

Dmitri Ivanovsky Dmitri Iosifovich Ivanovsky (alternative spelling ''Dmitrii'' or ''Dmitry Iwanowski''; ; 28 October 1864 – 20 June 1920) was a Russian botanist, the co-discoverer of :viruses (1892), and one of the founders of virology. Life Ivanovsky was bo ...

, botanist, founder of virology *

Iosif Vorovich Iosif Izrailevich-Girshevich Vorovich (born 21 June 1920, died 6 September 2001) was a Soviet and Russian mathematician, scientific engineer, author and was made a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1970. He was a specialist in continuum ...

, mathematician *

Ivan Alekseyevich Kornilov Ivan Alekseyevich Kornilov (1899–1953) was a Soviet general. Kornilov rose through the ranks of the Red Army in the 1930s and was promoted to the rank of major-general in June 1940, commanding the 45th Rifle Division. He was in command of the ...

, Soviet general *

Sabina Spielrein Sabina Nikolayevna Spielrein ( rus, Сабина Николаевна Шпильрейн, p=sɐˈbʲinə nʲɪkɐˈlajɪvnə ʂpʲɪlʲˈrɛjn; 7 November 25 October 1885 OS – 11 August 1942) was a Russian physician and one of the first femal ...

, psychoanalyst *

Sam Vaknin Shmuel "Sam" Vaknin (; born April 21, 1961) is an Israeli writer and professor of psychology and business studies. He is the author of ''Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited'' (1999), an IMF and World Bank affairs consultant for several nat ...

, physicist, psychiatrist *

Vladimir Semyonovich Semyonov Vladimir Semyonovich Semyonov (; 16 February 1911, Krasnoslobodskoye – 18 December 1992, Cologne) was a Soviet diplomat most notable for his military administration in Eastern Germany during the Soviet occupation after World War II. He was i ...

, Soviet diplomat *

Yuri Zhdanov Yuri Andreyevich Zhdanov (; 20 August 1919 – 19 December 2006) was a Soviet and Russian chemistry professor and rector of the University of Rostov. He was the son of Soviet politician Andrei Zhdanov and a former husband of Joseph Stalin's dau ...

, chemist, rector of the University of Rostov (1957—1988)

References

External links

Official site of Southern Federal University

Official site of "Piezopribor" - R&D center affiliated with SFedU

Official site of Institute of Economics and International Relations

Official site of Taganrog Institute of Technology
{{authority control Federal universities of Russia Universities in Rostov-on-Don