Named for Gosudarstvennyj Opticheskij Institut, the State Optical Institute, and its first director, academician Dmitrij Sergeevich Rozhdestvenskij (1876-1940), an outstanding physicist-optician. The institute has undertaken important investigations in the field of physical and applied optics. The name is given on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of its founding (1918 Dec. 15).