Dmitry Sergeyevich Likhachov (Russian: Дми́трий Серге́евич Лихачёв, also Dmitri Likhachev or Likhachyov; November 28 [O.S. November 15] 1906, St. Petersburg – September 30, 1999, St. Petersburg) was an outstanding Soviet Russian scholar who was considered the world's foremost expert in Old Russian language and literature. He has been revered as "the last of old St Petersburgers", "a guardian of national culture", and "Russia's conscience".
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Likhachov graduated in 1928 from the Leningrad University. In the same year, he was arrested for his speech deploring the Bolshevik reform of Russian orthography. Deported to the Solovki Special Purpose Camp, he spent 5 years studying the "criminal folklore" as he termed it. Likhachov returned to Leningrad unbroken, and started his spectacular scholarly career in the Pushkin House (as the Russian Literature Institute is known), which spanned more than 60 years and saw the publication of more than 500 scholarly works. Likhachov didn't stop his work even during the Siege of Leningrad. He believed that Russia was an integral and indivisible part of European civilization, contrary to "Euroasiatic" views of Russia popular with Lev Gumilev, Boris Rybakov, and many other contemporaries.
In 1953, Likhachov was admitted into the Soviet Academy of Sciences as a Corresponding Member. He defended Andrei Sakharov, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and other dissidents during their persecution by Soviet authorities. In 1986, he was elected the first President of the Russian Cultural Fund. In his 80s and 90s, he became more of a public figure, serving as an informal advisor to St. Petersburg Mayor Anatoly Sobchak and President Boris Yeltsin. In October 1993, he signed the Letter of Forty-Two.[1] In the same year, he became the first person to be named an Honorary Citizen of St Petersburg. He also presided over the commission set up to prepare for Alexander Pushkin's bicentenary. A year before his death, Likhachov became the very first recipient of the reinstated Order of St. Andrew. The Likhachov Philanthropic Fund was set up by his daughter and George Soros in 2001.
A minor planet 2877 Likhachev discovered in 1969 by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Chernykh is named after him. [2]
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