Vladimir Semionovich Spirin (Russian: Владимир Семёнович Спирин; 5 May 1929 – 17 May 2002) was a Russian philologist, sinologist, historian, primarily interested resided in classical Chinese philology and Chinese philosophy.
Dr. Spirin graduated in 1952 from the East Asian Studies Department at the Saint Petersburg State University and started to work as a researcher at Saint Petersburg's (then Leningrad) branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, where he worked until his death.
In the 1960s, during the time of the Cultural Revolution, he conducted studies in China for nine months.
His main area of research had been methodological problems of studying classic Chinese texts.
Spirin's work strongly influenced the study of Chinese culture in Russia, especially the younger generation of sinologists, working in Moscow (based in Leningrad he was not in permanent direct contact with these researchers).