The St. Petersburg Mathematical Society was founded in 1890 and was the third founded mathematical society in Russia after those of
Moscow (1867) and
Khar'kov (1879).[1][2] Its founder and first president was
Vasily Imshenetskii,[1] who also had founded earlier the Khar'kov Mathematical Society.[3]
The Society was dissolved and subsequently revived twice, each time changing its name: sometime in between 1905 and 1917, the society ceased to function and by 1917 it had completely dissolved, perhaps due to the social agitations that destroyed many existing Russian scientific institutions.[2] It was re-established by the initiative of
Alexander Vasilyev in 1921 as the Petrograd Physical and Mathematical Society (subsequently called the Leningrad Physical and Mathematical Society). In 1930, the self-dissolution of the society was due to political reasons.[4] Before the beginning of
World War II in 1941,
Leonid Kantorovich proposed to revive the society, and a similar failed attempt was made by
Vladimir Smirnov in 1953: only in 1959
Yuri Linnik did succeed in reestablishing the society (then called the Leningrad Mathematical Society).[5] It regained the original name the St. Petersburg Mathematical Society in 1991.