Tashkent, University of

(full name V. I. Lenin University of Tashkent), the first Soviet higher educational institution in Middle Asia and Kazakhstan. It was founded in 1918 as a public university, with departments of natural sciences and mathematics, agriculture, engineering, social sciences and economics, and literature and philosophy. In 1920 it became the University of Turkestan, and in 1923, the Middle Asian State University. It was given the name of V. I. Lenin in 1954, and in 1960 it became the University of Tashkent.

In the late 1920’s and early 1930’s, subdivisions of the university became technical higher educational institutions as well as institutes of medicine, agriculture, pedagogy, and irrigation engineering and the mechanization of agriculture. These institutions and institutes, all located in Tashkent, were merged into a polytechnic institute in 1933.

As of 1975, the University of Tashkent had departments of mathematics, applied mathematics and mechanics, physics, chemistry, biology and soil science, geology, geography, history, law, philology, Oriental studies, journalism, and Romance and Germanic philology. There was a preparatory division for students from the developing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The university had evening, correspondence, and preparatory divisions, a graduate division, 109 subdepartments, 14 laboratories for special projects, and a computer center. There were six educational museums, a botanical garden, and a herbarium. The university’s library has 2.5 million volumes. The university also has an institute for the advanced training of social-science instructors at Middle Asian higher educational institutions, as well as a department for the advanced training of instructors at higher educational institutions in the disciplines of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and Uzbek language and literature.

In the 1975–76 academic year the university had more than 15,000 students and approximately 1,500 instructors and staff members, including 70 professors and doctors of sciences and more than 600 docents and candidates of sciences.

The teaching staff of the university includes Academician A. S. Sadykov of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and Academicians of the Academy of Sciences of the Uzbek SSR T. A. Sarym-sakov, T. Z. Zakhidov, V. I. Popov, S. A. Azimov, S. Kh. Sira-zhdinov, and Kh. U. Usmanov. Also on the faculty are Academician Sh. T. Talipov of the Academy of Sciences of the Kazakh SSR, Corresponding Members of the Academy of Sciences of the Uzbek SSR I. A. Raikova, I. M. Isamukhamedov, A. T. Tuliaganov, Sh. Z. Urazaev, A. A. Agzamkhodzhaev, 1.1. Granitov, and Kh. T. Tursunov and Corresponding Member A. A. Azizov of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the USSR.

Since 1945 the University of Tashkent has published the journal Nauchnye trudy (Scholarly Transactions). The university has trained approximately 25,000 specialists since its founding; its graduates have included M. T. Aibek, M. Auezov, A. N. Belo-zerskii, T. N. Kary-Niiazov, A. S. Sadykov, T. A. Sarymsakov, S. Kh. Sirazhdinov, and Z. I. Umidova. The university was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor in 1970.