Leonid Zhmud was born in 1956 in Lvov (Ukraine). Having completed his military service in 1977, he studied at the Department of Ancient History, Leningrad University. Having graduated from the University in 1982, he taught history at a school for three years. From 1985-1987 he was a doctoral student at the Institute for the History of Science and Technology (USSR Academy of Sciences). In 1988 he obtained his Ph.D. in history at Leningrad University and in 1995 his D.Sc. degree in philosophy at the same university. From 1987 he has been working at the Institute for the History of Science and Technology in St. Petersburg, currently as leading academic researcher. In 1989, together with Lev Lurje, he founded the first Classical High School in Leningrad (Gymnasium Classicum Petropolitanum), where he worked as a principal in 1989-1990 and as vice-principal in 1992-1996.
In 1990-1992, he was the Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow at Constance University (Germany), with subsequent renewals in the summer months of 1993, 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2010. In 1995-1996, he was a Junior fellow at the Center for Hellenic Studies (Washington, DC), in 1998 (winter), he received a visiting fellowship at Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (Paris), and in 1998-1999, he was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, N.J.). In 2000-2001, he was a fellow of the Wellcome Trust for the History of Medicine (London), in 2002-2003, a fellow of Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, and in 2006-2007, a fellow of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, Wassenaar.
Research interests: Presocratics, early Greek science and medicine, classical Greek philosophy and religion.
Events
07 February 2022
25 December 2021
Publications
Author:
1983
The Orphic Papyrus from Derveni, Vestnik Drevnej Istorii N 3 (1983) 118–139. [in Russian]
1985
Pythagoras in the Early Tradition, Vestnik Drevnej Istorii N 2 (1985) 121–142. [in Russian]
1986
Science in the Early Pythagorean School, in: Studies in Ancient Greek Sources. E.D. Frolov, ed. Leningrad 1986, 159–175. [in Russian]
1989
Preliminary Studies to the Bio-Bibliographical Dictionary “Scientists and Engineers of Antiquity, Middle Ages and the Renaissance”. Leningrad 1989. – 32 p. (with E. Basargina). [in Russian]
All is Number? “Basic Doctrine” of Pythagoreanism Reconsidered, in: Phronesis 34 (1989) 270-292.
Wissenschaft und Staat in der Antike, VIET № 2 (1989) 7-13.
Pythagoras as a Mathematician, in: Historia Mathematica 16 (1989) 249-272.
Experiment in the Pythagorean School, in: Studies in Ancient Greek Science. L. Zhmud, ed. Leningrad 1989, 36–47. [in Russian]
1990
Pythagoras and His School. Leningrad, 1990. – 190 p. [in Russian]
1992
Mathematici and Acusmatici in the Pythagorean School, in: Pythagorean Philosophy. K. Boudouris, ed. Athens 1992, 240–249.
Orphism and Graffiti from Olbia, in: Hermes 120 (1992) 159-168.
1994
Die Beziehungen zwischen Philosophie und Wissenschaft in der Antike, in: Sudhoffs Archiv 78 (1994) 1-13.
Science, Philosophy, and Religion in Ancient Pythagoreanism. St. Petersburg, 1994. – 375p. [in Russian]
1995
On the Concept of “Mythical Thinking”, in: Hyperboreus 1 (1995) 155-169.
The Development of Technological Ideas in Antiquity, Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. St. Petersburg, 1995. – 72 p. [in Russian]
1997
Wissenschaft, Philosophie und Religion im frühen Pythagoreismus. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1997 (revised German translation of [14]).
1998
Some Notes on Philolaus and the Pythagoreans, in: Hyperboreus 4 (1998) 121-149.
Plato as Architect of Science?, in: Phronesis 43 (1998) 211-244.
2000
Πρῶτοι εὑρεταί – боги или люди? // Hyperboreus 6 (2000) 263-278.
2001
Revising Doxography: Hermann Diels and his Critics, in: Philologus 145 (2001) 219-243.
Πρῶτοι εὑρεταί – Götter oder Menschen?, in: Antike Naturwissenschaft und ihre Rezeption. Vol. 11 (2001) 9-21.
2002
Eudemus’ History of Mathematics, in: Eudemus of Rhodes (Rutgers University Series in the Classical Humanities, Vol. 11). Ed. by I. Bodnar , W. W. Fortenbaugh. New Brunswick 2002, 263-306.
The Origin of the History of Science in Antiquity. St. Petersburg 2002. – 408 p. [in Russian]
2004
Alexander I. Zaicev und die westliche Forschung, in: Hyperboreus 10 (2004) 215-221.
Eudemos aus Rhodos, Menon, Dikaiarchos aus Messana, in: Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie. Bd. 3: Die Philosophie der Antike. Ed. by H. Flashar. Basel 2004, 558-575.
2005
Überlegungen zur pythagoreischen Frage, in: Frühgriechisches Denken. Ed. by G. Rechenauer. Göttingen 2005, 135-151.
2006
The Origin of the History of Science in Classical Antiquity. Berlin: W. de Gruyter 2006. – 332 p.(revised and enlarged English translation of [23]).
2007
Mathematics vs Philosophy. An alleged fragment of Aristotle in Iamblichus, in: Hyperboreus 13 (2007) 77-88.
2008
Alcmaeon, Archytas, Ecphantus, Hicetas, Hippasus, Hippon, Menestor, Philolaus, Pythagoras, Theodorus, in: The Encyclopaedia of Ancient Natural Scientists. London: Routledge, 2008.
2010
Lyceum, in: The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome. New York, Oxford 2010. Vol. 4, 296-298.
2011
Pythagoreische Schule, in: Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie. Bd. 1: Die Philosophie der Antike.Vorsokratiker. Ed. by H. Flashar. Basel 2011 (forthcoming).
Aristoxenus and the Pythagoreans, in: Aristoxenus of Tarentum. Ed. by C. Huffman (Rutgers University Series in the Classical Humanities 16). New Brunswick 2011.
Pythagoras von Samos in: Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie. Bd. 1: Die Philosophie der Antike.Vorsokratiker. Ed. by H. Flashar. Basel 2011 (forthcoming).
Die doxographische Tradition, in: Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie. Bd. 1: Die Philosophie der Antike. Vorsokratiker. Ed. by H. Flashar, G. Rechenauer. Basel 2011, 150-174 (forthcoming).
Editor:
1989
Studies in Ancient Greek Science. Leningrad 1989. – 135 p. [in Russian]
1993
E. Habenstein et al. Grund- und Aufbauwortschatz Latein. Tr. Ju. Panasenko. St. Petersburg classical gymnazium 1993. – 151 p. [in Russian]
ΠΡΟΠΥΛΑΙΑ. Griechisches Unterrichtswerk. Tr. V. Kazanskene. St. Petersburg classical gymnazium 1993. – 226 p. [in Russian]
H. Schlüter et al. Ianua nova. Lehrgang für Latein als 1. Fremdsprache. T. I. Tr. A.Tyzhov. St. Petersburg classical gymnazium 1993. – 143 p. [in Russian]
H. Papenhoff. Ianua nova. T. II. Tr. A. Chernoglazov. St. Petersburg classical gymnazium 1993. – 154 p. [in Russian]
R. Seebas et al. Ianua nova. Grammatische Kurs zu T. I–II. Tr. A.Tyzhov, A.Chernoglazov. St. Petersburg classical gymnazium 1993. – 174 p. [in Russian]
1994
H. Holtermann. Ianua nova. T. III. Tr. A. Chernoglazov. St. Petersburg classical gymnazium 1994. – 192 p. [in Russian]
H. Holtermann et al. Ianua nova. Lehrerheft. Tr. A.Chernoglazov. St. Petersburg classical gymnazium 1994. – 104 p. [in Russian]
M. Stehle. Griechische Sprachlehre. Tr. V. Kazanskene. St. Petersburg classical gymnazium 1994. – 144 p. [in Russian]
1995
P. Guiraud. Private and Social Life in Greece. St. Petersburg: Aletheia 1995. – 470 p. [in Russian]
1997
T. Meyer, H. Steinthal. Grund- und Aufbauwortschatz Griechisch. Rus. version by A.Gavrilov. St. Petersburg: Bibliotheca classica 1997. – 288 p. [in Russian]
2000
A. I. Zaicev. Greek Cultural Upheaval. 2nd ed. St. Petersburg 2000. – 320 p. [in Russian]
2002
A. I. Zaicev. Collected Papers. St. Petersburg 2002. — 608 p. (with L. Zhmud). [in Russian]
2004
A. I. Zaicev. Greek Religion and Mythology. St. Petersburg 2004. — 208 p. [in Russian]
2006
A. I. Zaicev. Studies in Greek and Indo-European poetics. St. Petersburg 2006. – 350 p. (with V. Zeljchenko). [in Russian]
Reviewer:
1998
Nicolaou S.-M. Die Atomlehre Demokrits und Platons Timaios. Eine vergleichende Untersuchung. Stuttgart 1998, in: Classical World 94.2 (2001) 209-210
1999
Ph. J. van der Eijk (ed.). Ancient Histories of Medicine: Essays in Medical Doxography and Historiography in Classical Antiquity. Leiden 1999, in: Social History of Medicine 15 (2002) 159-160.
2000
Baltussen H. Theophrastus against the Presocratics and Plato: Peripatetic Dialectic in the De sensibus. Leiden 2000, in: Classical World 97 (2003) 106-107.
2002
Ch. Riedweg. Pythagoras. Leben, Lehre, Nachwirkung. München 2002, in: Ancient Philosophy 23 (2003) 416-420.
2004
Frans de Haas and Jaap Mansfeld (eds.). Aristotle: On Generation and Corruption, BookI. Symposium Aristotelicum. Oxford, 2004, in: Classical World 100 (2007) 163-164.
2005
Ph. J. van der Eijk. Medicine and Philosophy in Classical Antiquity: Doctors and Philosophers on Nature, Soul, Health and Disease. Cambridge, 2005, in: Classical World 102 (2008) 90-91.
2006
Daniel W. Graham. Explaining the Cosmos. The Ionian Tradition of Scientific Philosophy. Princeton UP 2006, (94,88kb) in: Gnomon 80 (2008) 481-484.