Gusev Viktor Yevgenyevich
2 May 1918, Mariupol — 12 January 2002, Saint-Petersburg
Biography, education, career:
In 1953 Viktor Gusev defended his Candidate’s Dissertation at the Institute of Ethnography of the USSR Academy of Sciences; it was titled Russian Revolutionary Democrats on Folk Poetry. In 1961 defended his Doctoral Dissertation, titled Marxism in Russia and the Study of the Culture of the Masses. In 1941‑1945 he participated in the Great Patriotic War. In 1955‑1958 he was a Scientific Secretary and in 1958‑1969 – a senior researcher at the Institute of Russian Literature of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1969‑1979 he occupied the position of Vice Provost for Research; from 1971 – the position of Full Professor; in 1972‑1997 – Head of the Department of Folklore; in 1979‑1997 – visiting professor and research advisor at the Research Department of Leningrad State Institute of Theatre, Music and Cinematography. In 1997‑2002 he was a visiting professor and research advisor at the Department of Folklore of Russian Institute of Art History on a pro-bono basis.
Areas of expertise: Traditional culture; Folklore studies; aesthetics of oral folklore; revealing the development trends in the folklore-ethnographic tradition