Acc. Professor Liudmila Alekseevna Verbitskaja’s opening speech

I am very pleased that most of the people in this room can be called students of St. Petersburg University. On this very day that is dedicated to the founding of the city of St. Petersburg (which it is important to emphasize), an event has taken place that is not only important for St. Petersburg State University, but for all Russian higher education institutions and very important for the entire worldwide education system.
Within a university it is always a major event when a chair is opened.
For this reason the University’s Scientific Board, which meets in this hall, has very seriously examined the Scientific Board of the Department of Psychology’s decision to open the chair of Ontopsychology in the Department of Psychology.
A new scientific school is born with the opening of the chair of Ontopsychology. What I consider most important is that the head of worldwide Ontopsychology is an extraordinary person.
It is often very difficult to answer the question: “In what scientific sector did Lomov pursue his studies?”.
He was chancellor of the first St. Petersburg University for seven years. Later, after thirty-one years, he opened the University with a location in Moscow.
How can Lomov be known within our science?
He was an extraordinary chemist, an extraordinary physicist, and philologists also claim him as one of their own because he was an incredible poet.
In the tradition of the University, he is a man who is well-known in a vast range of fields and sectors. I am very grateful to Professor Meneghetti because he planned and organized this project.
Now we are here today to continue what he began. Another question that is difficult to answer: “Who is Professor Meneghetti?” Because he is an incredible artist, an exceptional musical composer, an incredible philosopher, a man who has deep knowledge of all subjects that have to do with politics and economics of our time.
Today, it is Professor Meneghetti’s greatest talent that we are celebrating; he is a psychologist and founder of Ontopsychology.
I feel that Ontopsychology truly fits extraordinarily within the education that St. Petersburg University gives because at the university we try to represent the best scientists and especially include sciences that let us study the most complex subject, the human being. Everyone might agree with me on this.
I am sure that Ontopsychology is very important because in studying the person at different times of his life gives us the chance to go into the deep interiority of the person into that which can simply be called the human soul.
In Russia, we consider the soul the most important part of the person.
First of all, I am certainly very grateful to Prof. Meneghetti who gave me the chance to learn about Ontopsychology.
I remember the lessons I attended with immense pleasure.
I also thank Prof. Albert Aleksandrovich Krylov, who has supported this idea from the start, and of course for us, for Prof. Krylov and for Prof. Grishina it was a great honor when we conferred the first specialization diplomas in Rome.
My deep gratitude also goes to Dean Larisa Tsvetkova Aleksandrova who, even before becoming Dean had experienced the practical application of Ontopsychological science.
A big thanks to all of the teachers of the Department of Psychology who for many years have painstakingly prepared the event that we are celebrating today: the opening of the chair of Ontopsychology
And a special thanks to all of our students.
Without students, the chair, the structural unit of the entire University, could not exist and there could ultimately be no University.
The students are clearly what counts most in the University.
Thank you all very much.

Dean Larisa Tsvetkova Aleksandrova’s opening speech

It is my great pleasure to welcome you to the Aktovy hall of St. Petersburg State University to celebrate the opening of the chair of Ontopsychology in this University’s Department of Psychology, with this official ceremony.
I am delighted to see the presence of all our students, Italian, Brazilian, from the Baltic Republics and from Moscow; teachers from the Department of Psychology; representatives of the administration of the Department and the University; the Chancellor of our University and the leader of Ontopsychology, Prof. Antonio Meneghetti.
The event that we are celebrating today embodies a long history and is the result of the work of many.
In the middle of the last century, the first Dean of the Department of Psychology of the University of St. Petersburg (who would later become the Director of the Institute of Psychology) and representative of Russian psychology in Europe, Professor Lomov Boris Fedorovich met Professor Meneghetti.
They were already contemplating the future of all of psychology. Later, the Dean of the Department of Psychology, who also founded the entire school of Psychology in Leningrad, Ananjev, wrote about “how the science of Ontopsychology is able to approach people in a holistic way within their lives, from their existential growth and everything that the person can somehow ask of the future”.
At the end of the last century, all the professors in the Department had the chance to start studying Ontopsychology and to therefore understand, through the seminars held by Prof. Antonio Meneghetti, how Ontopsychology addresses the person and his creative potential. I would like to give a hearty thanks to the then Dean of the Department of Psychology: Albert Aleksandrovich Krylov.
Decades passed and by organizing this educational process, the preparation of psychologists specialized in Ontopsychology began. Now more than a hundred students are involved.
Of course, many of you will still remember the grand event of the conferment of the first degrees specialized in Ontopsychology at the Capitoline in Rome on September 3, 2001, given directly by the Chancellor of the University and which of course gave the opportunity for our students to receive recognition of their talent.
A second ceremony for conferring Ontopsychology degrees was organized on November 8, 2003 and was international in its scope. Italian, Russian and Brazilian students received their degree again directly from the hands of Chancellor Liudmila Verbitskaja.
In this hall, on the day of the discussion about opening the chair of Ontopsychology, all of the Deans of all of the University departments were present.
In this same hall, the study “Contemporary direction on the soul” was started and also here, right now, we are focusing on human existence in its everyday flow, in the realm of pedagogy, politics and economy.
This entire approach is realized within Ontopsychology, becoming the basis for dialogue between scientists of various nations. Again in this place the union is made between classic psychology and contemporary trends in European psychology.
This enables dialogue throughout the University’s administrations through the important figure of Chancellor Liudmila Alekseevna Verbitskaja.
Furthermore, this day of celebration is dedicated to the founding of the city of St. Petersburg, a city conceived, designed and built by Peter the Great as a center of development of the entire culture.
Hearty thanks is given to the Chancellor, who on April 5, 2004 signed the edict, which on the basis of the instructions of the records from the Scientific Board of the University on March 29, 2004 ordered the founding of the chair of Ontopsychology at the Department of Psychology of St. Petersburg State University.