Vyacheslav Shestakov

Vyacheslav Pavlovich Shestakov is a Soviet and Russian philosopher, aesthetician, culturologist, and art historian. He holds a Doctor of Philosophy degree and is a professor. He is head of the Art Theory Department of the Russian Institute for Cultural Research and, concurrently, professor at the Department of General Art History of the Faculty of Art History at RSUH. He is a Honored Worker of Culture of the Russian Federation and a member of the Union of Cinematographers of Russia. He is the author of more than 70 monographs on aesthetics and the history of art.

He was born in the city of Haisyn, Vinnytsia Oblast. He graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University in 1957. From 1958 to 1964, he was senior scholarly editor in the philosophy section of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia. He worked at the Institute of Artistic Education of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences, the Institute of General Art Studies (1971–1974), the Institute of Theory and History of Film (1974–1978), and the Institute of the USA and Canada (1978–1983). From 1983 to 1992, he headed the aesthetics section at the Institute of Theory and History of Art of the Academy of Arts. At the same time, he taught aesthetics and the theory of culture at the Department of the History of Western European Art of the Faculty of History of Moscow State University and at the Surikov State Institute. His translations have published the poetry of W. H. Auden and Charles Causley.