V.A. Vasil'ev and E.B. Yanovskaya 1 Game theory in the USSR before 1990 In this introductory chapter ?rst a short historical information about the development of game theory in the USSR before the 1990s is given. It should help to understand the choice of the papers in this volume. The development of game theory in the USSR began in the early sixties. N.N.Vorob'ev (1925- 1995) was the author of the ?rst papers about game theory in Russian; he was also the leader of a group of PhD students and young researchers at Leningrad who studied this new ?eldinmathematics. The early papers by Vorob'ev...