Analysis, Topology and Applications

The history of Zaporizhzhia National University dates back to the 19th century, when in the Yekaterinoslav Governorate, remote from educational centers, educators, teachers, and prominent public figures such as D. T. Hniedin, M. O. Karyshev, M. O. Korf, Ya. P. Novytskyi, and others began to shape an educational environment. D. T. Hniedin, at his own expense, founded on his estate in Oleksandrivsk district one of the first public schools of that time for the children of serfs, and later, together with M. O. Korf, established a vocational school. Other figures organized zemstvo schools that opened the path to education and culture for rural children. The selfless activity of these pioneers, the economic development of the region, and general progress contributed to the establishment of Oleksandrivsk as the educational center of our region.

At the beginning of the 20th century, 33 primary schools, higher elementary schools, mechanical-technical, commercial, real, municipal, and railway schools, as well as female and male gymnasiums operated in Oleksandrivsk. The need for qualified teaching staff for these educational institutions led to the opening in July 1912 of a teacher’s seminary with a four-year course of study.

The first enrollment to the teacher’s seminary consisted of only 40 people. For four years they studied mathematics, natural science, Russian history in its imperial interpretation, pedagogy with elements of psychology, and teaching methods. Considerable attention in the seminary was paid to pedagogical practice.

During the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917–1921, the period of study at the Oleksandrivsk teacher’s seminary was extended by one year, and the teaching of the history of Ukraine, the Ukrainian language, and literature was introduced. During the existence of this seminary, 142 teachers were trained.

The education system underwent significant changes after the establishment of Bolshevik power in Oleksandrivsk, whose leaders considered it their task to eradicate the “bourgeois” system and form a new educational system. On November 25, 1920, the teacher’s seminary was reorganized into a pedagogical school. The main focus of the educational process was placed on the study of the history of the revolutionary movement. In May 1921, the only graduation of 44 students of this school took place.

On December 6, 1921, three-year pedagogical courses named after M. O. Korf were opened in Oleksandrivsk, to which people from “non-proletarian” classes were not admitted. At first the courses worked in the building of the present-day secondary school No. 3, and from 1924 in the former women’s gymnasium. Classrooms for physics, natural science, geography, experimental psychology, a biological station, and a local history museum were equipped for the students.

On July 9, 1925, a pedagogical technical school was established on the basis of the pedagogical courses, where all disciplines were taught in Russian.

In 1930, the reformatting of the educational system in the Ukrainian SSR according to a unified Soviet model began. On August 11, 1930, the pedagogical technical school was transformed into an institute, which in 1933 was given the name “Zaporizhzhia State Pedagogical Institute.” A year earlier, the institute had been named after M. O. Skrypnyk, but after the suicide of the People’s Commissar of Education of Ukraine, this fact was carefully concealed.

At first, the institute had sectors (faculties) of general technical studies, social sciences and industrial training, and social education. Seven departments and two sections were formed, employing 30 lecturers. An evening division began to operate, and branches of the institute were created at DniproHES, the F. E. Dzerzhynskyi plant, and four more workers’ faculties.

In 1934, a structural subdivision of the pedagogical institute was separated out—the teachers’ institute, which trained teachers for lower secondary schools under an abbreviated program. On Khortytsia, after the Holodomor, an auxiliary farm was organized to supply products to the student cafeteria.

The institution was staffed according to the class principle: from representatives of the proletariat, graduates of workers’ faculties, and pedagogical courses.

The development of the institute was negatively affected by the Holodomor and Stalinist repressions. In Ukraine, the most frequent pretext for repression was the accusation of “Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism.”

In 1934, H. O. Volkov was appointed director of the institute. He built his career on intensifying anti-Ukrainian repression and Russification. In the institute headed by him, every spoken Ukrainian word was considered a crime, “nationalist terminology and contraband.” Because of this, associate professors Zh. Kryvoruchko, N. A. Solodkyi, and O. V. Trotsiuk were persecuted. Associate professor H. F. Lozovyk courageously defended the persecuted, but he too was dismissed from his job. In 1937, H. O. Volkov himself, for losing vigilance, was expelled from the party, dismissed from work, and arrested. Under torture, he confessed to being a “saboteur” and a “terrorist.”

In 1937, only 40 lecturers worked at the institute’s 11 departments. Already in 1936, ZDPI had lost its history faculty—it was transferred to Odesa. An atmosphere of suspicion prevailed in the institution, caused by mutual denunciations and the authorities’ repressions against lecturers and students.

In July 1937, V. A. Poselianin was appointed director of the institute. He was a restrained, well-mannered person and a benevolent leader, and therefore managed to calm the remnants of the frightened staff, change the atmosphere at the institute, and contribute to the development of the institution. Under him, in three years the number of lecturers doubled to 86; 20 laboratories, classrooms, and workshops operated; the botanical garden and a plot for practical biology classes were organized. In 1940, 1,607 specialists graduated from the institute, which was 4.5 times more than in 1934. In total, in the pre-war years the institute trained more than 7,000 teachers. In addition to their main specialty, students also studied at paramilitary courses, where they learned marksmanship, driving, and other skills.

The institute’s administration cared about students’ nutrition, leisure, and cultural and physical development. Evenings of amateur artistic performance were organized in the student club, various hobby groups and a drama studio functioned, and bicycle tours and boat trips were arranged.

At the beginning of the war with Nazi Germany, students, part of the teaching staff, and many graduates of ZDPI were mobilized into the Red Army. They dug trenches, worked shifts in hospitals, and harvested crops on collective farms. At the same time, students continued to study and take exams. While a hospital was located in the institute’s buildings, the educational institution continued to function in the premises of two schools.

As Nazi troops approached, the institute’s administration and party committee, some lecturers and employees’ families, documentation, and laboratory equipment were evacuated to the city of Leninabad in the Tajik SSR, and on September 30, 1941, an order was issued on the temporary suspension of the institute’s activities in Zaporizhzhia. In evacuation, the institute did not operate.

During the occupation of Zaporizhzhia by Nazi troops, the pedagogical institute resumed work and was headed by O. S. Zaika. However, the institution did not operate for long: in the Nazi leadership, intoxicated by victories, the party of harsh treatment of the “inferior Slavs” prevailed, and in 1942 the occupation authorities closed the institute. After the return of the Red Army to Zaporizhzhia, the institute’s director O. S. Zaika and the dean of the faculty of literature A. I. Dudnyk were sentenced respectively to 15 and 10 years of imprisonment.

After the return of Soviet power, classes at ZDPI resumed on December 10, 1943. At that time, only 15 lecturers worked at the institution and 109 students studied there. Some disciplines were not taught due to a shortage of lecturers.

The institute was located in adapted premises and barracks. There was a lack of classrooms, textbooks, notebooks, teaching equipment, and furniture. Outside their studies, students and lecturers worked on rebuilding the city. However, within a year 13 departments and 9 classrooms were already functioning at ZDPI, and 54 lecturers were working there. The correspondence division began operating, preparatory courses were opened, and the teachers’ institute resumed its work.

In 1945, the number of students increased to 1,210, and the number of lecturers to 62, of whom 9 held Candidate of Sciences degrees, 5 were working on doctoral dissertations, and 21 on candidate dissertations. The scope of their research was broad: the smoke pollution of the air in Zaporizhzhia, the dialects of certain hamlets of the region, the history of the city, and so on. The first post-war graduation also took place. Thirty-eight students passed their state examinations.

In the 1940s, in order to supply the student cafeteria with food, an auxiliary farm of the institute was organized in the floodplains of the Kushuhum forestry.

Repressions in the educational institution continued. In addition to searching for “enemies of the people” and “Ukrainian bourgeois nationalists,” the fight against “servility before the West” was also added.

In 1950, the natural sciences faculty of ZDPI was transferred to Melitopol, and only 450 students remained studying in Zaporizhzhia. In 1952, the institute was headed by M. B. Shakalo, who remained in this position until 1968.

In 1955, the first academic building was finally rebuilt. The institute began operating in one shift, and the number of students grew to 1,032.

The lecturers of the institute intensified their scientific work. Of the 92 lecturers, 29 had academic degrees. In addition to the materials of annual scientific conferences, from 1952 “Scientific Notes of ZDPI” began to be published. Students were also involved in scientific research: in 1952 a student scientific society was created, and scientific student clubs worked at many departments.

In the 1956/1957 academic year, ZDPI switched to a five-year course of study, and students began to receive a second specialty as well. In particular, students of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics mastered additional professions such as film projectionist, electrician, mechanic, turner, amateur driver, and assistant tractor driver. Labor education was accompanied by working a certain number of hours at various enterprises, on the construction of a dam across Kapustiana Balka, and in the improvement of Dubovyi Hai Park.

The institute also developed students’ creative abilities: in 1956 a literary and creative studio began its work. Attention was also paid to the organization of leisure: various sports sections operated. In the summer of 1959, on the basis of the T. H. Shevchenko collective farm of Pryazovskyi district, a student camp of labor, sports, and recreation was organized.

In the autumn of 1957, the Ministry of Education of the Ukrainian SSR recognized the productive work of the institute by awarding honorary certificates to the director, heads of departments, and lecturers.

The 1960s were especially favorable for the development of the pedagogical institute, when the “thaw” released the creative forces of the Ukrainian people, and economic growth made it possible to improve educational funding.

In the 1960/1961 academic year, a pedagogical faculty was opened at ZDPI, and the following year a music-pedagogical faculty with evening study was established. Later, the faculties of foreign languages, history, and physical education were created. The general science faculty transferred from Dnipropetrovsk did not take root at ZDPI and was closed after two years.

Much attention was paid in the institution to scientific work: republican and all-Union scientific conferences were organized and held, and the previously established student scientific society functioned successfully. The teaching staff already included two Doctors of Sciences and professors.

After the end of the era of Stalinist isolation, the institute began to actively establish international ties. Since January 1968, the Club of International Friendship has operated, where one of the earliest meetings with American students was organized.

A literary studio functioned at the philological faculty. Talented progressive Ukrainian youth gathered around it. It was with members of this studio that the failure of the party nomenklatura’s campaign to condemn Oles Honchar’s novel Sobor was connected. The “culprit” of supporting the disgraced author—Associate Professor V. A. Chabanenko—was dismissed from his job at ZDPI, and several students were expelled from the educational institution.

Thanks to the momentum gained in the previous period, at the turn of the 1960s–70s ZDPI continued to develop. The fourth academic building joined the second and third buildings constructed in 1967–1968, which created additional opportunities for the development of the institution.

The preparatory department created in 1969 and the second faculty in Ukraine for the advanced training of school principals began operating at the institute. This made it possible to spread the best practices of school administrators in secondary education institutions. Later, ten new departments and two specializations at the Faculty of Foreign Languages were opened at ZDPI, and a laboratory of sociological research was created.

Since 1973, the large-circulation newspaper Pedahoh began to be published at the institute. During this period, the number of students and lecturers increased. At the same time, the qualifications of the lecturers improved, among whom there were already four Doctors of Sciences. The scientific authority of ZDPI steadily grew, and from the 1970s the educational institution became a permanent base for republican scientific symposiums and conferences. The creation of construction brigades at the institute, initiated in 1967, became especially widespread in the 1970s. ZDPI student construction brigades worked in Zaporizhzhia and Tyumen regions, Kazakhstan, and even in Poland and Bulgaria. Students worked in construction, on railways, on collective farms, and so on. Despite the communist ideological coloring, it was precisely in the construction brigades that one could earn money, see the world, and gain life experience.

In 1980, ZDPI celebrated its 50th anniversary as a higher educational institution of Category I, where nearly 5,000 students studied at 7 faculties. The institute employed 335 lecturers and more than 400 staff members. Forty-five percent of the lecturers held academic degrees.

The institution had 77 equipped classrooms, 14 study rooms, 18 laboratories, 4 reading halls, 2 sports halls and 2 assembly halls, a Lenin Hall, a room of military and labor glory, and 2 dormitories for 1,010 residents. The library holdings amounted to more than 570,000 books.

In order to improve students’ living conditions, student self-government was introduced. In four dormitories, all positions, from commandant to janitor, were held by students. In terms of the organization of students’ living conditions, everyday life, and leisure, ZDPI ranked second among all pedagogical institutes of the USSR.

On August 16, 1985, the Ministry of Higher and Specialized Secondary Education of the Ukrainian SSR issued an order to establish Zaporizhzhia State University on the basis of Zaporizhzhia State Pedagogical Institute. V. O. Toloka was appointed its rector.

Already at ZSU, a number of new faculties were opened—biological (1987), law and economics (both in 1991). The computerization of educational and scientific activities began.

Lecturers and students of ZSU were among the first in the region to take part in the processes of dismantling the Communist Party system of the USSR. They defended the Ukrainian language, condemned Russification, returned party and Komsomol membership cards, and participated in the activities of the Student Brotherhood.

On December 24, 2004, the university was granted national status. At that time the rector of the institution was Valerii Savin. He was succeeded by Serhii Tymchenko, who headed the university in 2005–2011. From February 2011 to June 2012, Oleksandr Bondar served as acting rector of the university.

In 2004, the Faculty of Journalism was opened at the university. The same year, the Faculty of Social Pedagogy and Psychology moved into the Drobiazko Palace of Culture. Since 2008, the University’s College of Economics and Law has operated at the university.

Thanks to the painstaking work of the staff, the educational process began to adapt to the conditions of the Bologna Process.

The university developed and implemented the “Energy-Efficient University” program aimed at energy saving and the efficient use of fuel and energy resources.

During 2005–2011, ZNU reached leading positions in Ukraine in the number of international projects funded by the European Commission: 9 TEMPUS projects, 2 Socrates Erasmus projects, and 1 Erasmus Mundus project. Forty-six international educational and scientific projects funded by foundations and governments of Germany, the USA, Great Britain, Poland, Spain, and others were implemented. In 2011, a grant from the EU Seventh Framework Programme for scientific research was received.

In 2012, Mykola Oleksandrovych Frolov was elected rector of the university. Since then, ZNU has grown both quantitatively and qualitatively. In 2019, Zaporizhzhia State Engineering Academy joined the university. Today the university includes 12 faculties, the Engineering Educational and Scientific Institute, 4 institutions of professional pre-higher education (the College of Economics and Law of ZNU, the College of Business and Food Technologies of ZNU, the Zaporizhzhia Metallurgical College of ZNU, and the Zaporizhzhia Hydropower College of ZNU), as well as the Faculty of Economics and Humanities in Melitopol. The university currently has more than 16,000 students and 450 postgraduate and doctoral students.

The degree system of education at ZNU is ensured by 71 departments with 662 academic and teaching staff, among them 132 Doctors of Sciences and professors, and 453 Candidates of Sciences and associate professors.

Integration into the global educational space is based on numerous agreements with foreign universities, and Erasmus+ programs are being successfully implemented.

The educational and scientific process takes place in 12 academic buildings and a sports and recreation complex, while 6 dormitories are available for students. The material and technical base is constantly being updated and modernized, and the digitalization of the university continues.

In 2020, in the consolidated ranking of higher education institutions of Ukraine “TOP-200,” Zaporizhzhia National University ranked 22nd.

“Study in Europe today! ZNU – classical education according to European standards!” is the university’s motto.

Since 2025, the university has been headed by Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor H. M. Shylo.