Kharkov Agricultural Institute

(full name, V. V. Dokuchaev Kharkov Agricultural Institute), an institution of higher learning in the USSR. Its history began in 1816, when an agronomy institute was established at Marymont, near Warsaw. Reorganized as an agricultural and forestry institute in 1840, it was moved in 1863 to Novoaleksandriia (now Pulawy. Polish People’s Republic) and was renamed the Novoaleksandriia Institute of Agriculture and Forestry. In 1914 it was evacuated to Kharkov, becoming the Kharkov Agricultural Institute in 1921. It was named in honor of V. V. Dokuchaev in 1946.

The institute comprises (1977) departments of agronomy (with a subdivision of breeding and seed production), plant protection, agrochemistry and soil science, economics (with a bookkeeping subdivision), land management, and architecture and agricultural construction. The institute also offers extension courses for agricultural specialists, correspondence courses, and graduate training. It has 32 subdepartments, two experimental-training farms, more than 100 classrooms and laboratories, and a library containing 440,000 volumes.

During the 1976–77 academic year the institute had an enrollment of more than 5,600 students and a faculty of about 310 instructors, including 20 professors and doctors of sciences and about 170 docents and candidates of sciences. Specialized councils judge doctoral and candidate’s dissertations. During the years of Soviet power the institute has trained about 20,000 specialists (1977). It was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor in 1941.