Samarkand, University of

(full name, Alisher Navoi University of Samarkand), one of the major higher educational institutions in the Uzbek SSR. Founded in 1927, the school was called the Uzbek Pedagogical Academy from 1930 to 1933, when it was reorganized as the University of Uzbekistan. The university was named in honor of Alisher Navoi in 1941, and in 1960 its name was changed to the University of Samarkand.

In 1974 the university had departments of mechanics and mathematics, applied mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, geography, history, Russian philology, Uzbek and Tadzhik philology, and foreign languages. It also had a department for improving the qualifications of specialists, a preparatory division, a graduate division, 62 subdepartments, three special-problems laboratories, a computer center, a botanical garden, two museums, and a research library containing 1.5 million volumes.

In the 1974–75 academic year some 10,000 students were enrolled at the university, and its staff of about 650 teachers and scientific workers included 25 professors and doctors of sciences and more than 260 docents and candidates of sciences. The university’s faculty includes the well-known Uzbek scientists V. Abdullaev, lu. N. Aleskerov, A. K. Atakhodzhaev, and B. N. Valikhodzhaev. Since its founding the university has trained 27,500 specialists.