Academy of Sciences of the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic

the highest scientific institution of the Latvian SSR. Founded in 1946. Located at Riga. The membership of the academy (1968) includes 22 academicians and 24 corresponding members.

The system of the academy includes three divisions with 12 scientific research institutes: the division of physics and engineering sciences, including the scientific research institutes of physics, electronics and computer engineering, power engineering, and mechanics of polymers; the division of chemical and biological sciences, including the scientific research institutes of chemistry, organic synthesis, wood chemistry, biology, and microbiology; and the division of social sciences, including the scientific research institutes of economics, history, and language and literature. The academy also has other scientific research institutions, such as the radioastrophysical observatory and a botanical garden. Its main library had 2,079,000 items in 1968.

The leading research trends are solid-state radiation physics; magnetohydrodynamics of condensed media; power physics and engineering; engineering cybernetics; mechanics of polymers; radio astrophysics; the chemistry of naturally occurring and biologically important compounds; chemistry of wood and its basic components; the synthesis of, and searches for, physiologically active substances and physically active polymers; chemistry of metals; economics of the national economy of the republic; history and theory of Latvian literature, language, and art; and history of the Latvian SSR.

The academy publishes Izvestiia (since 1947) in Latvian and Russian, a variety of scientific literature, the Small Encyclopedia of the Latvian SSR, and four all-Union periodicals: Avtomatika i vychislitel’naia tekhnika (Automatic Control and Computers, since 1967), Magnitnaia gid-rodinamika (Magnetohydrodynamics, since 1965), Mekhanika polimerov (Mechanics of Polymers, since 1965), and Khimiia geterotsiklicheskikh soedinenii (Chemistry of Heterocyclic Compounds, since 1965).

Presidents of the Academy of Sciences of the Latvian SSR have been P. Ia. Lein’sh (1946–51) and Ia. V. Peive (1951–59). K. K. Plaude, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, was president from 1960 to 1970, and the president since 1970 has been A. K. Malmeister.