In 1863 a new Constitution of St. Petersburg Emperor University included the Department of Comparative Grammar of Indo-European Languages, to be twenty years later re-named as a Department of Comparative Linguistics and Sanscrit. After 1917 it was known as the Department of General and Comparative Linguistics, and since 1932 (with the separation of the Chair of Phonetics) has had its present name of the Department of General Linguistics. (Филологический факультет СПбГУ. Материалы к истории факультета. Сост. И.С.Лутовинова. – СПб, 2000. С. 19-22).

In successive periods of its history the Department was headed by famous linguists: I.A.Baudouin de Courtenay, L.V.Scherba, N.Ja.Marr, I.I.Meschaninov, A.A.Cholodovich, B.A.Larin, Ju.S.Maslov. Besides, such linguists as Je.D.Polivanov, L.P.Jakubinsky, V.M.Zhirmunsky, S.D.Kaznelson, A.V.Desnitskaya and others worked at the Department part-time; a mere list of the names makes for the biggest part of a university course of the history of Russian linguistics.
Scanning the Department's curriculum one cannot help observing a definite tendency towards permanent extension of the scope of subjects studied and taught, throughout its history. The very changes of its name testify to this fact, as also does adding new research and teaching areas in the course each period. For instance, in 1906 the Department of Comparative Linguistics and Sanscrit started teaching Baltic languages; in the Marr and Meschaninov time the Caucasian and Paleo-Asian languages were incorporated into its curriculum but the most dramatic changes occurred after the WWII, in the late fifties.

In 1957, following professor A.V.Desnitskaya's initiative, supported by B.A.Larin and Ju.S.Maslov the Department opened the Albanian language and literature section. For the section to come there were two major reasons: Albanian is unique, it is the only language to continue the line of paleobalkan dialects and be relevant to a historically evolved language union, the so-called Balkan Language Union. The Albanian language demonstrates the biggest number of features common to several genetically varied language families in the Balkans; besides, there has existed no Russian Balkan studies as a branch of linguistics so far.

The Albanian section has grown from scratch: there were no fluent speakers of Albanian in the Department at the time, and Agnija Vasiljevna Desnitskaya herself was both teaching the language and improving her own command of it; a group of ethnic Albanian students was invited to teach Russian students fluent spoken Albanian, and it was only two years later that G.I.Eintrey who had spent some time in Albania perfecting the language, came to teach here. The linguistic talent of the head of the section as well as the general enthusiasm of its staff made the Albanian section the core of Leningrad school of Albanian studies; it came to be known abroad as the Desnitskaya school of Albanian studies. Students of Albanian were the first to make up the Department's own body of students, in contrast to its prior functioning as general linguistics lecture- provider for other divisions in the Faculty.

The first group of graduates are on the Department's permanent staff at present (I.I.Voronina, F.A.Jeloeva, A.Ju.Rusakov, L.N.Kaminskaja, A.X.Girfanova, A.A.Novik); some work at the Institute of Linguistics at the Russian Academy, yet others at various academic institutions (V.P.Neroznak, V.S.Modestov, A.V.Zugra, Ju.A.Lopashov, etc.)

In the eighties the Department opens yet another research area: of psycholinguistics and speech theory, led by professor L.V.Sacharny. Apart from giving courses of lectures on the subjects L. V. organized a city psycholinguistic seminar on a regular basis, with people from various educational institutions active in the field, united by it. L.V.Sacharny's course after his death was taken up by professor T.V.Chernigovskaya.

In 1987 a newly opened section of Modern Greek proved, in fact, a legacy from Balkan studies started in 1957 by sections of Albanian and Roumanian, at the Department of Roman philology. The section of Modern Greek was speeded, actually, by Moscow Goodwill Games of 1980 when Greek translators were in great need, and upon the demand "from above" several students of Albanian, including F.Jeloeva, now professor with the Department, learned enough Greek to communicate as well as to teach. In early eighties the Department welcomed a new area of study, Byzantine studies, led by a well known Russian specialist professor Ja.N.Lubarsky . Now both Modern Greek and Albanian language and literature sections are subdivisions of the Balkan studies chair headed by professor F.Jeloeva. She heads Modern Greek section whereas the Albanian section is taken care of by docent A.Ju.Rusakov.

In 1993 professor Maslov's cherished project came true: to establish a section of Language Theory that would provide specialists in theoretical linguistics, the project much helped by professor L.V.Sacharny and professor V.B.Kassevitch. They both worked out the program and the curriculum of the new speciality (see Department of General Linguistics, 2000). A new body of students (10-12 yearly) required more staff to teach them Modern European languages (English, German, French to be followed by Lithuanian and Latvian). To be on the staff at this chair required one's competence in a particular area of general linguistics as well as adequate command of a European living language and the teaching competence. This is the way professor K.A.Dolinin, professor Ju.A.Kleiner, docents V.B.Gulida, Ju.V.Shor, T.V.Zelenko, T.V.Klubkova came to work here. Quite a number of members of the Russian Academy of Science and Humanities and other educational institutions came to teach at the chair on part-time basis, these being correspondent members of the Russian Academy professors A.V.Bondarko, N.N.Kazansky, professor L.G.Herzenberg, professor V.S.Chrakovsky, professor A.P.Volodin, professor V.B.Kassevitch (of the Department of Eastern-Asian Languages), professor S.N.Zejtlin and professor V.Ja.Shabes of St.Petersburg Pedagogical University, and others. Now, in the year 2000-01 the staff of the Chair amounts to 23 persons; compare this figure with 7 persons in 1960!.

A very special role played by prof. V.B.Kassevitch in establishing the Language Theory Chair is worth mentioning here. He took care of all subsequent corrections of the curriculum for the chair, originally compiled by himself and the late prof Sacharny; his courses of lectures cover basic linguistic areas , such as the "Introduction to general linguistics", "Theoretical phonetics and phonology", "Semantics and pragmatics", "New trends in linguistics".

The latest academic expansion of the Department occured in the year 1999-2000 when three new specializations were offered to the students of the Faculty; they are the Baltic studies, the Psycholinguistics and the Ethnolinguistics. New fields invited more teaching staff: docent V.P,Kazanskiene, the Depatment's recent graduate A.V.Andronov, Je.V.Perekhvalskaya (an expert on Amerindian languages), as well as part-time lecturers professor N.B.Vachtin and docent Je.V.Golovko of the European University.

A mere enumeration of part-time members of the teaching staff gives one an idea of a range and regularity of contacts the chair maintains with the majority of leading linguistic institutions in St. Petersburg, be it the Language institute of the Russian Academy of Science or the European University, or the Eastern -Asian languages Faculty and others.

The contacts the Department had developed so far received an additional stimulation from the establishment of St. Petersburg Linguistic Society in 1997, on the joint initiative of the Rector of SPbGU and Head of Department of General Linguistics L.A.Verbitskaja together with professor S.I.Bogdanov, the Dean of the Philological Faculty and professor V.B.Kassevitch, of Eastern-Asian languages Faculty. The Society organizes the activity of ... workshops. We must also mention the Baltistica and Albanian language and literature yearly conferencies that attract more and more participants, among them quite a few foreigners. Thus, the 1991 conference program included 98 applications.

The Department has also a wide and varied range of contacts with foreign institutions in the field of linguistics. Only in 2000\2001 members of the staff made presentations at conferencies and symposia in Washigton, Amsterdam, Leipzig, Dresden, Rejkjavik, Tunisia, Lille, Budapest, Riga, Vinius, Kaunas, Skople and others. In 1999 V.B.Kassevitch, T.V.Chernigovskaya, K.A.Dolinin and Ju.A.Kleiner gave three lectures each at the Laboratory of the History of Linguistic Theories, of the Research Centre of France. In 2000 St.Petersburg linguistic society and the Department of general linguistics received a delegation of French linguists with professor S.Oru, director of the Laboratory for the history of linguistic theories, as its leader; in 2001 professor P.Serio of Lozane university, was invited by the Department as a visiting lecturer.

In short, such is the 40-year history of the Department, its surface structure, so to say, and its place in the context of «urbi et orbi». To conclude, some words about its «deep structure», i.e. the linguistic areas the staff members are working in.

Languagewise, the chair has Russian studies (represented by L.A.Verbitskaya, I.S.Bogdanov, A.V.Bondarko, O.I.Fonyakova, N.A.Slepokurova, Je.V.Gorbova), German philology (Ju.A.Kleiner, V.B.Gulida, Ju.V. Shor, T.V.Klubkova, T.V.Zelenko, A.I.Vinogradskaya), Albanian and Modern Greek philology (G.I.Eintrey, F.A.Jeloeva, A.Ju.Rusakov, I.I.Voronina, L.N.Kaminskaya, A.N.Veligozkaya, M.A.Grigorjeva, A.Kh.Girfanova, A.A.Novik), Roman philology (K.A.Dolinin, Je.V.Gorbova, N.S.Moroz), Baltistica (V.P.Kazanskene, A.V.Andronov), Indo-European and Iranian linguistics (L.G.Herzenberg, N.N.Kazansky), Byzantine studies (Ja.N.Lubarsky).

Proceeding from classification into areas of linguistic research, we arrive at the following list: general linguistics (L.A.Verbitskaya, V.B.Kassevitch, L.G.Herzenberg, T.V.Chernigovskaja, A.V.Bondarko. Ju.A.Kleiner); comparative history and contrastive typology (L.G.Herzenberg, V.B.Kasevich, N.N.Kazansky, Ju.A.Rusakov, I.I.Voronina, A.V.Andronov, Je.V.Gorbova); psycholinguistics (T.V.Chernigovskaya, V.B.Kassevitch, N.A.Slepokurova, Je.V.Glazanova, V.Ja.Shabes, S.N.Zeytlin, Je.I.Grekhova); sociolinguistics and ethnolinguistics (K.A.Dolinin, F.A.Jeloeva, V.B.Gulida, Je.V.Perekhvalskaja, N.B.Vachtin, Je.V.Golovko); phonetics and phonology (L.A.Verbitskaya, Ju.A.Kleiner, N.A.Slepokurova, Je.V.Gorbova, A.V.Andronov, Je.I.Grekhova); stylistics (K.A.Dolinin, G.I.Eintrey, T.V.Zelenko, M.A.Grigorjeva). To this list of linguistic areas proper literary criticism and literary theory must be added as well (Ja.N.Lubarsky, G.I.Eintrey, K.A.Dolinin, T.V.Zelenko and M.A.Grigorjeva).

Prof. K.A.Dolinin