During the Great Patriotic War, the majority of the staff of the P.F. Lesgaft Scientific Institute served in the ranks of the Soviet Army.
P.G. Garmashov, V.A. Rogozkin, N.V. Savelieva, V.I. Shaposhnikova, and others fought valiantly, earning military decorations.
The institute's systematic activities were suspended until 1945. However, even during the war, the staff continued scientific research, primarily focused on developing and justifying methods of therapeutic physical culture, as evidenced by publications and records from that time. In particular, Professor E.Yu. Zelikson, the future director of LNIIFK (Leningrad Scientific-Research Institute for Physical Culture), who headed the P.F. Lesgaft State Institute for Physical Culture from 1930 to 1937, conducted scientific and practical work in therapeutic physical culture in evacuation hospitals in Pyatigorsk and Kyrgyzstan. Meanwhile, the scientific work of G.M. Krakowiak, Deputy Director for Academic Affairs at the P.F. Lesgaft State Institute for Physical Culture (and future deputy director of LNIIFK), was redirected to meet frontline needs and military-applied physical training for children and youth. Therapeutic physical education helped hundreds of thousands of wounded soldiers return to the ranks of the defenders of the Motherland.
LNIIFK Staff – Veterans of the Great Patriotic War
The victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945) and the end of World War II allowed sports science to return to peaceful pursuits, and scientists resumed research in the theory and methodology of physical education, sports training, and health-improving physical culture.
Post-war sports and physical education urgently needed scientific and methodological support, as well as new research. The country's sports leadership understood this well. Despite the devastation and difficult economic situation, on December 14, 1946, the All-Union Committee for Physical Culture and Sports under the USSR Council of Ministers issued Order No. 737, transferring the Leningrad Research Institute for Physical Culture from the jurisdiction of the P.F. Lesgaft State Institute for Physical Culture.
Dr. Elizariy Yuryevich Zelikson, Professor of Medical Sciences, was appointed Director of LNIIFK, and Associate Professor Grigoriy Mironovich Krakowiak became Deputy Director.
Professor E.Yu. Zelikson
Veterans of the Great Patriotic War – Viktor Alekseevich Rogozkin, Director of LNIIFK (St. Petersburg Scientific-Research Institute for Physical Culture) from 1970 to 2003, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor, and Valentina Ivanovna Shaposhnikova, Deputy Director for Research, Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences.
V.A. Rogozkin (from personal archive)
V.A. Rogozkin (from personal archive)
V.A. Rogozkin (from personal archive)
Professor V.A. Rogozkin (from personal archive)
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V.I. Shaposhnikova (from personal archive)
V.I. Shaposhnikova (from personal archive)
V.I. Shaposhnikova (from personal archive)
V.I. Shaposhnikova (2015), photo by A.V. Malinin
Materials used from the publication: St. Petersburg Scientific-Research Institute of Physical Culture: History and Modernity. - St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg Research Institute of Physical Culture, 2008 (in russian). - 128 p.
