Leningrad Institute of Physical Culture

Leningrad Institute of Physical Culture

 

(full name, P. F. Lesgaft Institute of Physical Culture). The institute was founded in St. Petersburg in 1896 as the Higher Courses for Women Teachers and Directors of Physical Education, which had been organized by P. F. Lesgaft. The Academicians A. A. Borisiak, A. F. Ioffe, N. I. Kareev, N. M. Knipovich, M. M. Kovalevskii, V. L. Komarov, L. A. Orbeli, A. A. Rikhter, E. V. Tarle, A. A. Ukhtomskii, and E. S. Fedorov and the Honorary Academician N. A. Morozov taught at the institute. In 1919 it was made the P: F. Lesgaft Institute of Physical Education, and in 1930, the P. F. Lesgaft State Institute of Physical Culture. The Leningrad Scientific Research Institute of Physical Culture was formed from the subdivisions of the higher educational institution (1931).

The institute includes (1973) the sports, pedagogy, military, and correspondence departments and a department for the advanced training of specialists. The institute also has a graduate school (aspirantura), two schools for coaches, a school of advanced sports skill, a sports school for children and teen-agers, a branch in Velikie Luki, training and consultation centers in Gorky and Ufa, and 21 subdepartments. The library numbers about 350,000 volumes.

In the 1972–73 academic year there were about 5,000 students at the institute and more than 300 teachers, including 27 doctors of sciences and professors, 136 candidates of sciences and docents, and 26 Honored Coaches and Masters of Sports of the USSR, and 70 Masters of Sports. The institute has the right to accept candidate’s dissertations for defense. In 1935 it was awarded the Order of Lenin, and in 1942 the Order of the Red Banner. It publishes Uchenye zapiski (since 1944). Over the years, the institute has trained more than 22,000 instructors and coaches; among the institute’s graduates are more than 1,200 Masters and Honored Masters of Sports.

D. P. PUGACHEV-IONOV