Saint Petersburg State University in the context of "Order of the Red Banner of Labour"

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (17 June [O.S. 5 June] 1882 – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor with French citizenship (from 1934) and American citizenship (from 1945). He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century and a pivotal figure in modernist music.

Born to a musical family in Saint Petersburg, Russia, Stravinsky grew up taking piano and music theory lessons. While studying law at the University of Saint Petersburg, he met Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and studied music under him until the latter's death in 1908. Stravinsky met the impresario Sergei Diaghilev soon after, who commissioned the composer to write three ballets for the Ballets Russes's Paris seasons: The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911), and The Rite of Spring (1913), the last of which caused a near-riot at the premiere due to its avant-garde nature and later changed the way composers understood rhythmic structure.

Vasily Vasilievich Struve (Russian: Василий Васильевич Струве; February 2 [O.S. January 21] 1889 in Petersburg, Russian Empire – September 15, 1965 in Leningrad) was a Soviet orientalist from the Struve family, the founder of the Soviet scientific school of researchers on Ancient Near East history.

In 1907 he entered the Department of History at the Faculty of History and Philology of the Petersburg University, where he studied the Ancient Greek and Latin languages, and Ancient Egyptian language under the leadership of the famous Russian Egyptologist Boris Turaev. He became proficient in all types of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing, including Demotic. He graduated from the Petersburg University in 1911 and continued research work and lecturing at the university until 1913, when he left for Germany for profound studies of the Egyptian language under Adolf Erman. During the Russian entry into World War I he changed his name from Wilhelm Wilhelminovich Struve to Vasily Vasilievich Struve. After returning to Russia he became a private docent of the Petersburg university in 1916 and a professor there in 1920. He was the head of the Hermitage Department for Art and Culture of Egypt from 1918 to 1933. Already being a lecturer he began to study Akkadian language, Biblical Hebrew and other Semitic languages under the Russian Semitologist academician Pavel Kokovtsov. Struve also began to study Sumerian language on his own.

Apollon Nikolayevich Maykov (Russian: Аполло́н Никола́евич Ма́йков, 4 June [O.S. 23 May] 1821, Moscow – 20 March [O.S. 8 March] 1897, Saint Petersburg) was a Russian poet, best known for his lyric verse showcasing images of Russian villages, nature, and history. His love for ancient Greece and Rome, which he studied for much of his life, is also reflected in his works. Maykov spent four years translating the epic The Tale of Igor's Campaign (1870) into modern Russian. He translated the folklore of Belarus, Greece, Serbia and Spain, as well as works by Heine, Adam Mickiewicz and Goethe, among others. Several of Maykov's poems were set to music by Russian composers, among them Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky.

Maykov was born into an artistic family and educated at home, by the writer Ivan Goncharov, among others. At the age of 15, he began writing his first poetry. After finishing his gymnasium course in just three years, he enrolled in Saint Petersburg University in 1837.