Education and work activities

• 1960 – 1972 – a student at Lomonosov Moscow State University (studied the following courses: Slavic Philology, Russian Philology, Romance and Germanic Philology)
• October 1969 – August 1970 – a trainee at Humboldt University of Berlin
• 1972 – 1975 – a postgraduate at the Department of Philology of MSU;
• May 1976 – candidate dissertation «The principal stages of L. Uhland’s poetry evolution» in the course 10.01.05 «Literature of Western-Europe, America and Australia»;
• 1974 – a senior teacher at Moscow State University of Printing Arts; later on he lectured at the Department of Journalism (MSU); the Department of Philology (MSU);
• 1990 – a professor and the head of the Department of Foreign Literature (since 1994) at Sholokhov Moscow State University for the Humanities (up to the beginning of 2000s);
• 1976 – an editor of «Foreign Literature» magazine;
• 1978 – 1983 – a scientific editor of the publishing house «Progress»;
• from March 1983 to October 1984 – the head of the editor’s office of foreign literature in original of the publishing house «Raduga»;
• November 1984 – a senior researcher, then a leading researcher at the Institute of Slavic and Balkan Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He carried out scientific research of Serbian literature and studied numerous problems connected with the interaction of Slavic and Germanic nations;
• December 1993 – the head of the Scientific Center of Slavic and Germanic Research at the Institute of Slavic and Balkan Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences; then – a coordinator of the International Center created by the University of Tübingen for establishing scientific contacts between Western and Eastern Europe with the assistance of the university of the USA (seven largest universities of the USA, MSU, LSU, RAS, seven German universities, universities of Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovenia were included in this process). He continued to work in those offices simultaneously up to 2006;
• May 18, 1996 – the PhD work «The principal stages of development of the Sorbian literature in Slavic and Germanic context» in the course 10.01.05 – «Literature of the Nations of Europe, America and Australia»;
• 1999 – a professor at Polotsk State University at the Department of German Language. On May 7 he became the head of the new Department of the World Literature and Сulturology

Major aspects of research

• History of Literature of Austria, Germany and German-speaking Switzerland
• History of Romanticism in European literature (in Europe)
• History of Sorbian literature
• History of the ballad genre in European literature
• History of Russian-German and German-Russian literature interactions
• History of expressionism in European literature
• History of Magic Realism in European literature
• The historical-contextual method in the world literature research
• Literary Text Analysis: theory, history and practice
• Theory, History and Practice of Literary Translation
• Life and Literary Activity of V. Zhukovsky.

Courses taught (2015)

• Mythology of Romance and Germanic People (Celts and Germanic-Scandinavians)
• History of Foreign Literature of the XIX c.
• The historical-contextual method in literature science (for postgraduates)
• Literary Text Analysis
• History of Foreign Literary Science and Criticism
• Methodology and methods in Literary Science Research (for postgraduates)
• Reflection of juridical ideas and norms in literature (optional)
• History of Foreign Literature of the first half of the XX c.
• History of German Literature after 1945
• History of Foreign Literature of the second half of the XIX c.
• The historical-contextual method in literature science (for students).

Scientific and Educational Research Activity

• He published 600 works in literary science and literary criticism, more than 400 of them in Russia, and over 30 are in the German language
• He translated and published more than 200 literary and scientific works
• Edited more than 150 books and collections of scientific papers
• Reviewed over 100 collective works, monographs and tutorials title
• Under his supervision 10 PhDs in Philology got their degree
• Under his supervision 35 Masters in Philology got their degree
• Under his supervision 88 diploma papers were completed (for the last 5 years)
• For the last 5 years 12 students working under A. Gugnin’s guidance earned 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree diplomas at the Republican contest of student scientific papers
• In Moscow he was a member of two specialized PhD and Doctoral Thesis Defense Councils (Moscow State University and Sholokhov Moscow State University for Humanities), up to 2006 he was a member of the specialized Council in Belarusian State University; in 2007-2015 – a member of the Expert Council No. 7 of the Higher Attestation Commission of the Republic of Belarus in literature science; he examined more than 40 theses
• In 1977–2015 he acted as an official opponent in PhD and Doctoral thesis defense over 50 times (in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine)
• He constantly takes part in Russian scientific projects (Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Institute for Art studies)
• From 2002 he is an editor and the head of the editorial board of Series A: Humanities of academic journal «Herald of Polotsk State University»
• He organized and led more than 10 intentional academic conferences and seminars in Moscow (Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Sholokhov Moscow State University for Humanities) and 13 international academic conferences in Polotsk and Novopolotsk.

Author's profile of the scientist

• Scopus
• ORCID
• Web of Science
• Google Scholar
• Russian Science Citation Index
• Digital Library of PSU

International academic trips, practical training, participation in international forums

• 1977–1997 – visited Germany, Italy, Austria and other countries over 30 times for training (the duration varied from one week to two months) where he worked in libraries and archives. He also presented his reports at international forums
• He constantly visits international forums to present his research papers and work on joint projects in the neighboring countries.

Membership in international scientific communities