Vasyl' Stus Donetsk National University

1937 to 1945

On July 15, 1937, a decree from the Ukrainian SSR established the Stalin State Pedagogical Institute in the city of Stalino (Donetsk). Its first director was Oleksandr Yevdokymenko, who was arrested in 1938 and sentenced to ten years imprisonment during Joseph Stalin's Great Purge. Originally the institute consisted of two departments, History and Philology, and had five chairs.

Serhiy Ksenofontov became its head in 1940 and added the Physics-Mathematical Faculty in 1941. Due to Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in World War II, in 1941 the institute was evacuated first to Kungur and soon thereafter to Molotov, where it was liquidated. It was re-established in 1943, following the liberation of Donetsk, by a decision of the Council of People's Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR.

After World War II

The school's Student Scientific Association, composed of two divisions – historical-philological and physical-mathematical – was established in 1951. In 1961, Mykola Khoroshailov took over from Ksenofontov as the head of the institute and its name was changed to Donetsk State Pedagogical Institute. In 1964, the institute was subordinated to Kharkiv State University and became a Donetsk branch of Kharkiv State University named after Maksim Gorky.

On May 28, 1965, the Soviet of Ministers of the USSR enacted a decree on organizing the Donetsk State University (DonSU) based at the Donetsk branch of Kharkiv State University. Professor Leonid Lytvynenko became the first rector of the university (1965–1968). 1965 saw the launch of post-graduate studies (with an initial enrollment of 16 students), the addition of the faculties of biology and physics, and the construction of the students' campus.

Appointed the second rector of the university, Professor Yuriy Shevlyakov managed the institution from 1968 to 1970, during which the main 12-storey building was constructed. Professor Hryhoriy Tymoshenko was the third University rector (1970–1975). In 1972, the university's history museum was opened in the main building. Professor Hryhoriy Ponomarenko became the rector in 1975, followed by Professor Volodymyr Shevchenko in 1986. On September 11, 2000, the university was accorded national status by a decree of the President of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma.

War in Donbas and move to Vinnytsia

During the war in Donbas, the university officially relocated to Vinnytsia. In June 2016, 75 out of 105 staff members voted in favour of naming the university after one of its alumni, the poet Vasyl Stus.