RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

The creation of the Academy of Sciences is directly connected with Peter the Great's reformer activities aimed at strengthening the state, its economic and political independence. Peter the Great understood the importance of scientific thought, education and culture for the prosperity of the country.

Under his project, the Academy was substantially different from all related foreign organizations. It was a state institution. The Academy combined the functions of scientific research and training, having its own university and a high school.

On December 27, 1725, the Academy celebrated its creation with a large public meeting. This was a solemn act of appearance of a new attribute of Russian state life. Academic Conference has become a body of collective discussion and estimation of research results.

Physician Lavrentii Blumentrost was appointed first President of the Academy. Taking care of bringing the Academy's activities to the world level, Peter the Great invited leading foreign scientists. Among the first were mathematicians Nikolas and Daniil Bernoulli, Christian Goldbach, physicist Georg Bulfinger, astronomer and geographer J.Delisle, historian G.F.Miller. In 1727, Leonard Eiler joined the Academy.

The scientific, educational and organizing activities of the great scientist and a person of encyclopedic learning. Mikhail Lomonosov made as much as a whole era in the Academy's history. He enriched the Academy with fundamental discoveries in chemistry, physics, astronomy, geology, geography, and made a large contribution to the development of history, linguistics and poetry. He set up Russia's first chemical laboratory in 1748. In 1755, he took an active part in founding Moscow University now rightfully bearing his name.

The academy started publishing Russian history sources, and participants in its expeditions collected artifacts of the numerous peoples living in the suburbs of the Empire. It was constantly in touch with European scientific journals publishing abstracts of its publications.

Lavrenty Bluementrost (1725 -1733) was the first President of the Academy. Then the Presidents were Herman Karl von Keiserling (1733 - 1734), Johann Albrecht von Korff (1734 -1740), Karl von Brevern (1740 -1741)

Kirill G. Razumovsky (1746 - 1798), Heinrich Ludwig von Nicolay (1798 - 1803) Alexey N.Novosiltsov (1803 - 1810), Sergei S.Uvarov (1818 -1855), Dmitry N.Bludov (1855 -1864), Friedrich Benjamin Lutke (1864 - 1882), Dmitry A. Tolstoy (1882 - 1889), and Konstantin K. Romanov (1889-1915).

In 1748, first Russian President of the Academy (Count K.G. Razumovsky) was appointed. Native scientists started being elected to the Academy. The first Russian academicians became S.P. Krasheninnikov, author of the first natural science book Description of the Land of Kamchatka written in Russian, M.V. Lomonosov, poet V.K. Tredyakovsky, and later astronomers N.I. Popov, S.Ya. Rumovsky, P.B. Inokhodtsev, naturalists I.I. Lepekhin, N.Ya. Ozeretskovsky, V.F. Zuev, and others.

University was an inseparable part of the Academy. In had to train scientists in the fifties and early sixties when under an active care of M.V. Lomonosov. After his death, Academic University was on the decline, and dissolved in 1767.

The Academy played an enormous role in drawing up and executing the school reform of the eighties and nineties оf the 18th century. The Academy members worked out its main provisions, took part in training first professional teachers.

With the Soviet power established, the attitude to science in the country has changed. The state took all the concern about science development upon itself. Thus, first in the world has been realized the state - governed organization of science, which was later accepted by the developed capitalist countries.

The revolution of February 1917 gave the Academy a chance to elect their president (before, the presidents of the Academy were appointed by the decrees of the tsar). Alexander Karpinsky became the first elected president. He remained at his post from May 1917 till his death in July 1936.

The Soviet Government paid great attention to the Academy of Sciences, which gathered the leading scholars of Russia. The Academy has been actively involved in the solution of major economic and technical problems of reconstruction and cultural evolution.

During the Great Patriotic War of 1941 -1945 the Academy strained its efforts to improve the country’s defence potential.

The postwar years opened up a new stage in the Academy's life that had to rehabilitate the national economy and accelerate the scientific and technical progress in the country.

The Academy’s researchers solved many intricate scientific problems including the control over the atomic nuclear energy, space research and electronic means of information processing.

Igor Kurchatov and his team were working on the peaceful usage of nuclear energy – the first ever nuclear power station was brought into action in 1954; the Academy's scientists put forward an idea of a controlled thermo-nuclear fusion and launched the experiments in this field.

In 1991, in connection with the changes that occurred in the political, social and economic situation in the country, including the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the formation of the Russian Federation, the Academy received a new status in 1991 and was given back its old name: the Russian Academy of Sciences. [Decree of the President of Russian Federation of December 2, 1991]. Academician Yuri S. Osipov was elected President of the Academy. The scientists of the Academy made great contributions to the development of practically all directions of modern science.

Principal aim of the Russian Academy of Sciences consists in organization and performance of fundamental researches for the purpose of obtaining further knowledge of the natural, social and human development principles that promote technological, economic, social and cultural development in Russia. The RAS activities are also guided by the following objectives:

· utmost assistance to science development in Russia;

· strengthening of cooperation between science and education, participation in education activities;

· promotion of the knowledge and science standing, the status and social security of the science and education community.

The Russian Academy of Sciences annually submits to the authorized agencies of the Russian Federation constituents the information on the researches undertaken by the said organizations at the Federal Budget expense which are of interest to the relevant constituents of the Russian Federation.

The Russian Academy of Sciences, within its terms of reference:

· memorializes the outstanding scientists - members of the Russian Academy of Sciences, institutes and awards medals and prizes for the outstanding scientific and scientific research achievements, including gold medals and prizes named after the outstanding scientists, medals with grants for young scientists and higher students;

· institutes and awards titles of honor to the Russian and foreign scientists.