Sergey Sergeyevich Averintsev

Sergey Sergeyevich Averintsev (Russian: Сергей Сергеевич Аверинцев; December 10, 1937, in Moscow – February 21, 2004, in Vienna) was a Russian literary scholar, Byzantinist and Slavist.

Averintsev was the son of the biologist Sergey Vasilyevich Averintsev. He studied classical philology in Moscow and received in 1967 with a thesis on Plutarch the title of Candidate of the Sciences. In 1979, he became a Doctor of Sciences with a thesis on Byzantine literature.

He first worked as an editor, then from 1966 to 1971 at the Institute of Art Science of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. From 1971 to 1991, he was a member of the Gorki Institute for World Literature. In 1989, he became a professor at the Institute of the World Culture of the Moscow Lomonosov University. In 1994, he was appointed to the University of Vienna, where he was a full professor of East Slavonic literature until his death. Averintsev was from 1987 corresponding, from 2003 full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He was awarded the Lenin Komsomol Prize in 1968, the State Prize of the Soviet Union in 1990, and the State Prize of the Russian Federation in 1996. In 1994, he became a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. In 1995, he was awarded the Dr. Leopold Lucas Prize for his essay "Die Solidarität in dem verfemten Gott. Die Erfahrung der Sowjetjahre als Mahnung für die Gegenwart und Zukunft".

In addition to his works in the field of ancient philology, Averintsev became known above all through studies of the Russian poetry of the Silver Age.