On the history of the foundation of the Russian academy of sciences and about the first articles on probability theory in Russian publications (Q2711117)

This paper deals first with the foundation of the Russian academy of sciences, which was decided by Peter the Great in 1724, but took place shortly after his death in the late 1725, under the auspices of Catherine I. It is of course not a surprise that the principles of this national academy mimick roughly those of the almost one century older ``Académie française'', since Peter the Great was a great admirer of the western European civilization. As far as mathematics are concerned, it is remarkable that many renowned mathematicians of the time chose to submit papers in the ``Notes'' of this academy soon after the creation of this journal. Actually, nearly 400 works of L. Euler were published by the Russian academy! NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEA special attention is then given to the first publications in probability theory. The very first article on this subject published by the Russian academy appears to be Daniel Bernoulli's famous memoir on the so-called St Petersburg paradox, ``Specimen theoria novae de mensura sortis'' [see e.g. \textit{W. Feller}, ``An introduction to probability theory and its applications. I'' (1968; Zbl 0155.23101)]. The article also mentions other, less pathbreaking, articles on probability theory from D. Bernoulli and on applied probability theory from L. Euler. It finally gives some insight on the development of the subject in Russia in the 19th and 20th centuries.