The article is devoted to the analysis of the memorial sources about the historical faculty of the Leningrad State University of the 1930s-1940s, which include two dozen texts. It is shown that the memoir evidence reflects not only the memoirist's individual memory, but also the “collective memory” of the university community, which is supported by the system of generational, group and, in our case, professional communications. A significant “point of construction” of the memory of university students are the images of the leading professors of the faculty, among them a special place is occupied by the figure of V. V. Mavrodin as a scientist, a person and an administrator, who headed the faculty for many years.