# List of Saint Petersburg State University people

The following is a list of notable alumni and faculty of Saint Petersburg State University in Russia.

## Alumni
### Nobel laureates

* Valery Leibin - psychoanalyst, professor
* Ilya Mechnikov - Russian-French, Physiology or Medicine in 1908
* Yuri Orlov - zoologist, paleontologist
* Ivan Pavlov - physiologist, psychologist, and physician; Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine in 1904
* Nikolay Semyonov - Chemistry in 1956
* Lev Landau - physicist; Nobel laureate in Physics in 1962
* Aleksandr Prokhorov - Australian-Soviet-Russian, Physics in 1964
* Wassily Leontief - Soviet-American economist; Nobel laureate in Economics in 1973
* Leonid Kantorovich - economist, Nobel laureate in Economics in 1975
* Joseph Brodsky - Russian-American, Literature in 1987

### Fields medal

* Grigori Perelman
* Stanislav Smirnov

### Academia

* Gregory Areshian - Armenian-American archaeologist and historian.
* Rakhat Achylova - Kyrgyz sociologist and politician
* Volodymyr Barvinok — Ukrainian historian and writer
* Kazimieras Būga — Lithuanian linguist and philologist
* Nina Dyakonova- professor, Doctor of Philology
* Viktor Fainberg - philologist and dissident
* Nikolai Girenko - ethnologist and human rights activist
* Lev Gumilev — historian, ethnologist, anthropologist, and translator
* Igor Ivanov — pedagogue
* Marju Lepajõe - classical philologist
* Dmitry Likhachev — scholar
* Anne Lill - classical philologist
* Vladimir Lossky — Eastern Orthodox theologian
* Yakov Lyubarsky - scholar, Doctor of Philology, specialist in Byzantine studies
* Stepan Malkhasyants — Armenian academician, philologist, linguist, and lexicographer
* Nikolay Marr — historian and linguist
* Sergey Oldenburg — orientalist
* Boris B. Piotrovsky — academician, historian-orientalist and archaeologist
* Sergey Platonov — historian
* Isaak Izrailevich Prezent - philosopher of biology
* Fyodor Shcherbatskoy — Indologist
* Mikhail Shultz — chemist, academician
* Pitirim Sorokin — sociologist
* Vasily Vasilievich Struve — orientalist
* Max Vasmer — German linguist

### Government and politics

* Vladimir Burtsev, revolutionary activist, scholar, publisher and editor
* David Dallin - Belarusian-American one-time Menshevik leader; writer and lecturer
* Ben-Zion Dinur - Minister of Education of Israel
* Dalia Grybauskaite - President of Lithuania 2009–19
* Ion Inculeţ, president of the Moldavian Democratic Republic
* Alexander Kerensky, second Prime Minister of the Russian Provisional Government
* Vladimir Lenin - first head of the Russian SFSR
* Dmitry Medvedev - politician, businessman, lawyer, and the third President of the Russian Federation (2008–2012)
* Lyudmila Narusova - Russian Federation Senator
* Vladimir Putin - second President of the Russian Federation (2000–2008, 2012-present); (2008–2012)
* Mark Slonim - politician, literary critic, scholar, and translator
* Antanas Smetona - President of Lithuania (first term 1919-1920; second term 1926-1940)
* Anatoly Sobchak - Russian politician and a co-author of the Constitution of the Russian Federation
* Ksenia Sobchak - candidate for Russian presidency, public figure, TV anchor, journalist, socialite, and actress
* Levon Ter-Petrosyan - first President of Armenia (1991–1998)
* Jazep Varonka - first Chairman of the People's Secretariat (i.e. Prime Minister) of the Belarusian National Republic
* Augustinas Voldemaras - Prime Minister of Lithuania

### Literature and the arts

* Johann Admoni - composer, pianist, teacher, and public person
* Alexander Blok - poet
* Joseph Brodsky - Russian and American poet and essayist; Nobel Prize winner
* Ilia Chavchavadze - Georgian writer, politician and public benefactor
* Igor Chubais - philosopher, sociologist, and author
* Solomon Dodashvili - Georgian philosopher, grammarian, belletrist
* Ayn Rand - Russian-born American novelist and philosopher
* Boris Grebenshchikov - founder and lead singer of the band Aquarium
* Yehuda L. Katzenelson - writer and doctor
* Alexander Kugel - theatre critic and editor
* Julian Henry Lowenfeld - American-Russian poet, playwright, trial lawyer, composer, and translator
* Salomon Mandelkern - poet and author
* Olga Ozarovskaya - folklorist, storyteller, performer, writer, and an archivist of fairy tales
* Mahapandit Rahul Sankrityayan - Indian historian
* Nicholas Roerich - artist
* Lyubov Speranskaya - theater artist
* Maximilian Steinberg - composer of classical music
* Igor Stravinsky - composer
* Ivan Turgenev - writer

### Science and mathematics

* Alexander Barvinok - mathematician
* Raissa Berg - Russian-American geneticist and evolutionary biologist
* Abram Besicovitch - Russian-British mathematician
* Lev M. Bregman - Soviet-Israeli mathematician
* Pafnuty Chebyshev - mathematician
* Yakov Eliashberg - Russian-American mathematician
* Vera Faddeeva - mathematician
* Vladimir Fock - physicist
* Sergey Fomin - Russian-American mathematician
* Leonid Frankfurt - Russian-Israeli physicist
* George Gamow - Soviet-American cosmologist
* Israel Gohberg - Soviet-Israeli mathematician
* Mikhail Gromov - Franco-Russian mathematician, Abel Prize winner
* Alexander Alfonsovich Grossheim - Ukrainian botanist
* Georges Gurvitch - Russian-born French sociologist and jurist
* Solomon Herzenstein - zoologist
* Cecil Hoare FRS - British protozoologist and parasitologist
* Alexander Its - mathematician
* Ivan Ivanov - mathematician
* Dmitry Ivanovsky - biologist
* Faina Mihajlovna Kirillova - mathematician and control theorist
* Leo Klejn - archaeologist, anthropologist, and philologist.
* Wladimir Köppen - Russian-German geographer, meteorologist, climatologist and botanist
* Yuri Linnik - mathematician
* Mikhail Lomonosov - scientist, writer and polymath
* Aleksandr Lyapunov - mathematician, mechanician and physicist
* Victor Lyatkher, renewable energy engineer
* Andrey Markov - mathematician
* Dmitri Mendeleev - chemist; creator of the first version of the periodic table of elements
* Boris Nikolsky - chemist
* Grigori Perelman - mathematician, Fields Medal winner (2006, declined), and only man to solve a Millennium Prize Problem (2010, prize declined)
* Konstantin Petrzhak - physicist
* Lev Pavlovich Rapoport - theoretical physicist
* Alexander Raikhel - Soviet-American entomologist
* Natasha Raikhel - Soviet-American plant cell biologist
* Vladimir Rokhlin - mathematician
* Nikolai Semenov - physicist and chemist
* Stanislav Smirnov - mathematician, Fields Medal winner (2010)
* Jacob Tamarkin - Russian-American mathematician
* Vladimir Vernadsky - mineralogist and geochemist
* Georgy Voronoy - mathematician
* Emil Wiesel - Russian-German artist; museum curator; full member of the Russian Imperial Academy of Arts (since 1914); organizer of international art exhibitions; councilor of Hermitage and Russian museum
* Sergei Winogradsky - microbiologist, ecologist and soil scientist
* Yuri Yappa - theoretical physicist
* Victor Zalgaller - Russian-Israeli mathematician

### Other

* Alexander Alekhine - Russian-French fourth World Chess Champion
* Viktor Korchnoi - Soviet and Swiss chess grandmaster and chess writer
* Grigory Levenfish - chess player; 2x Soviet champion
* Vladas Petronaitis - Lithuanian patriot, soldier and martyr
* Józef Pluskowski - Polish poet and member of the Polish Resistance
* Yakov Rekhter - co-founder of BGP and MPLS networking protocols
* Gennadiy Shatkov - Olympic champion in boxing
* Eduard Vinokurov (1942–2010) - Kazakh-born Soviet Olympic and world champion fencer
* Mahinda Balasuriya - 32nd Inspector General of the Sri Lanka Police (IGP) (2009–2011).

## Faculty only

* Leonhard Euler - Swiss mathematician and physicist
* Nikolai Gogol - Russian literature writer of Ukrainian origin; historian
* Rada Granovskaya - psychologist
* Ivan Sechenov - physiologist
* Zare Yusupova - philologist, Kurdish linguist
* Rahul Sankrityayan - Indian independence activist, writer and a polyglot who wrote in Hindi.