Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky: biography, scientific achievements, interesting facts from life. Vladimir Vernadsky short biography V and Vernadsky is the author

Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky was an outstanding scientist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, whose knowledge was limited within the framework of the then distinguished sciences. The scientist's research was ahead of its time, and his ideas were largely prophetic. What was the life of Academician Vernadsky like?

Childhood and early years

He was born March 12, 1863 in St. Petersburg in the family of a professor of political economy Ivan Vasilievich Vernadsky. The Vernadsky family comes from the Lithuanian nobleman Verni, who fought on the side of Bohdan Khmelnitsky in the liberation war of 1648-1654: his descendants later settled in Kyiv. The mother of the future scientist, Anna Petrovna Konstantinovich, was from the family of Ukrainian gentry. It so happened that she was the cousin of Ivan Vasilievich's first wife, Maria Nikolaevna, who died at the age of 28 from tuberculosis.

The first five years of Vladimir Vernadsky's life were spent in St. Petersburg, where his father taught political economy at the Alexander Lyceum. In addition to teaching, he was the editor-in-chief of several economic journals, in which he defended the principles of economic liberalism and opposed socialism and communal land ownership. Ivan Vasilyevich Vernadsky was a supporter of capitalism and criticized the serfdom, and when he received an estate with serfs as a dowry from his first wife, he immediately freed them. The father of the future academician loved to play chess and headed the St. Petersburg Chess Club. He was familiar with many representatives of the Ukrainian elite of that time: Taras Shevchenko, Panteleimon Kulish, Mikhail Maksimovich, Nikolai Kostomarov and others - about whom Vladimir later asked with excitement.

In 1868, when Vladimir Vernadsky was 5 years old, the family moved to Kharkov due to Ivan Vasilyevich's health problems. The worldview of Vladimir Vernadsky was largely formed under the influence of his father, as well as his half-brother Nikolai - the son of Ivan Vasilyevich from his first marriage, a talented artist and poet. Inspired by his example, the future scientist at the age of 13 begins to keep a diary, which gives us invaluable information about this outstanding person.

It is from the diary that we learn about the extraordinary abilities of Vladimir Vernadsky, which frightened him himself: in a dream and in reality, he sometimes came into contact with loved ones, and when communicating, he saw them clearly. Not understanding the nature of such giftedness, Vladimir drowned it out in himself at an early age. However, such abilities returned to Academician Vernadsky in crisis situations.

“In my youth, I was overwhelmed by experiences that do not lend themselves to logical forms, I was interested in religious and theological constructions, spiritualism, easily succumbed to incomprehensible fear, feeling around the presence of entities that are not perceived by those manifestations of my personality (sense organs) that give food to logical thinking” he writes in his diary.

University

Later, his family returned to St. Petersburg, where Vladimir Vernadsky graduated from the gymnasium and entered the natural department of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics. Under the influence of the outstanding scientist V.V. Dokuchaeva Vladimir Ivanovich is engaged in mineralogy and crystallography. In addition to his specialty, the future outstanding scientist is interested in soils, physical geography, natural waters, biology, the history of the development of scientific thought, philosophy, history and literature. As a multi-talented person, he learned all languages Slavic group, as well as English, German, French and a number of others, which helped him a lot during his numerous scientific trips to Europe.

Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky actively participated in public life and in 1883 became one of the founders of the student scientific and literary society. He maintained friendly relations with Alexander Ulyanov, although he did not share his views, in particular the idea of ​​conquest of power through terror.

The brothers Oldenburg, I. Grevs, D. Shakhovsky, N. Ushinsky, O. Krasnov became close friends of Vladimir Vernadsky for life... United by reasoning about the meaning and purpose of life, these young people founded the "Priyutinsky Brotherhood" as a kind of club of intellectuals. So, in 1886, the group they created for the study of folk literature included Natalia Egorovna Staritskaya, who later became the wife of Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky.

Devoted to each other, they lived together for 56 years and raised two children: George and Nina. Thousands of their letters testify that over the years the Vernadsky couple retained their feelings, and their family was based on complete mutual understanding.

Vladimir Vernadsky - teacher

In 1885, after graduating from the university, Vladimir Vernadsky remains to work in it as the curator of the mineralogical cabinet, where he conducts active research work in the field of mineralogy, crystallography and related sciences. In the spring of 1888, the university sent a young researcher abroad for an internship, namely to Munich to P. Grot and to Paris to L. Leshatelier and F. Fouquet. For two years, the scientist traveled to Germany, Austria, Italy and France, where he worked in various scientific institutions.

Upon completion of the internship, Vladimir Vernadsky was appointed head of the Department of Mineralogy of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Moscow University. In 1891, he became a Privatdozent of this university, and after 6 years he defended his doctoral dissertation and at the age of 35 became a professor of mineralogy and crystallography.

The same period includes the work of a scientist in geochemistry - a new science that Vladimir Vernadsky developed from genetic mineralogy. The scientist is engaged in the study of the soils of the Left-Bank Ukraine, the Urals, Poland, Crimea and, despite the busy schedule, participates in public life.

So, in 1895, Vernadsky actively raised funds for peasants who were suffering from hunger. In protest against the anti-student policy of the Ministry of Education and police brutality, Vladimir Vernadsky temporarily resigned his position as an assistant to the rector and resigned along with other professors and teachers of Moscow University.

In 1911, on the 25th anniversary of his scientific, teaching and family life, Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky moved to St. Petersburg. His son at that time was already preparing to become a professor of history, and the academician himself was in charge of the mineralogical department of the Geological Museum. Every year 10-15 of his articles are published in professional journals, and the routes of Vernadsky's working scientific trips pass through Scandinavia, France, Ireland, England, Italy and Greece.

Even in those years, Vladimir Ivanovich saw the prospect of studying radioactive minerals. Expeditions in search of radium are sent to Transbaikalia and the Urals. In 1909, due to the efforts of academician Vernadsky, the Radium Commission was created, and in 1912 the first radiochemical laboratory in Russia was launched.

In the same 1912, the Vernadskys bought a small plot of land in the village of Shishaki in the Poltava region and built a house on it, where they come to rest every summer. It is here that the idea of ​​the biosphere comes to Vladimir Ivanovich like an insight.

Despite his intense scientific activity, Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky manages to be an active public figure: he is a member of the Zemstvo and constitutional-democratic movement, is a co-organizer of the liberal party of constitutional democrats (cadets). The outstanding academician was a member of the State Council in 1906-1907 and 1915, until a telegram was sent to the Headquarters with a proposal to abdicate the throne. IN AND. Vernadsky headed the scientific committee under the Ministry of Agriculture, the Commission for the preparation of the reform of higher education, and in the fall of 1917 he joined the Provisional Government as Deputy Minister of Education, who was appointed by his friend since the time of the "Priyutinsky Brotherhood" S.F. Oldenburg. In this post, Academician Vernadsky for the first time raises the issue of creating the Academies of Sciences of Ukraine and Siberia.

The October Revolution and the coming to power of the Bolsheviks V.I. Vernadsky did not accept, and, like many educated people of that time, believed that the reign of terror in these lands would not last long.

“The equality of people is a fiction and, as it is now seen, a harmful fiction. In every state and people there is a higher race, creative and constructive, and a race of destroyers or slaves. It is a misfortune if the power and the fate of the people or the state fall into the hands of the latter. It will be the same with Russia. A nation in a people or a state consists of people of a superior race. Democracy is useful when it ensures the domination of the nation,” the academician wrote in his diary.

He was afraid that "socialism would give discipline to the barracks" ...

When it becomes dangerous to live in what was then Petrograd, Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky asks the Academy of Sciences to send him on a business trip to Ukraine. Arriving with his family in the new Ukrainian state headed by Hetman Skoropadsky, the scientist creates the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences and works on the formation of a library. The scientist believes and does everything possible for the revival of Ukrainian culture and language. And regarding the political situation in the country, he writes as follows: “The impressions from the Ukrainian authorities are still the same - impotence and mediocrity ... They play the sad role of puppets who brought foreign oppressors into their country.”

But despite the circumstances, Vernadsky continues to do everything in his power to advance science. At the end of 1919, when Denikin's troops captured Kyiv, the academy was closed. With the advent of the Red Army, the academician leaves for Rostov, and from there later - to the Crimea, where he becomes the rector of the Tauride University, which in our time has become the Vernadsky University.

In those days, he could emigrate to London, but did not do this, most likely because of his state of health: V.I. Vernadsky fell ill with typhus, which almost took the life of an outstanding scientist. When the scientist was on the verge of life and death, he had a vision: the rest of his life swam before his eyes, like footage from a chronicle, and the scientist discovered how many years he had left to live. But that wasn't the main thing back then.

“I began to clearly understand that I was destined to say something new in the teaching about living matter that I create, and that this is my calling, my duty entrusted to me, which I must bring to life - as a prophet who hears a voice in himself calling him to action. I felt the demon Socrates in me,” wrote V.I. Vernadsky in his diary.

The life of an outstanding scientist so happened that he believed, first of all, in the immortality of the individual. Like his father, V.I. Vernadsky called himself a pantheist - he believed in the divine origin of all things.

“In fact, only one question is important for the complete satisfaction of the individual - the question is not about the deity, but about the immortality of the individual,” Vladimir Ivanovich believed, and in this he was close to the worldview of many Eastern religions. “Science does not contradict religion, it refutes the divinity of Christ, the non-existence of the Christian God, as little as it refutes the existence of Apollo or Venus,” he writes elsewhere in the diary.

“It seems to me that today we are experiencing a very responsible turning point in the scientific worldview. For the first time, the phenomena of life must enter into the scientific worldview, and, perhaps, we will approach the weakening of the contradiction that is observed between scientific ideas about the Cosmos and its philosophical or religious comprehension. After all, now everything dear to humanity does not find a place in it - in the scientific image of the Cosmos, ”the scientist writes in a letter to the theologian Pavel Florensky. FROM Orthodox priest IN AND. Vernadsky corresponded until the death of the martyr in one of Stalin's concentration camps.

Was the life of a scientist with such a worldview safe in the Soviet Union? The academician was saved by his colossal knowledge, from the practical use of which the leadership of the state benefited. Of course, V.I. survived. Vernadsky and the difficult times of attacks on him personally (he was suspected of espionage) and on his work as the fruits of idealistic philosophy. The former student M. Semashko, who was appointed People's Commissar of Health, saved the academician and his family from arrest twice. But even in those days V.I. Vernadsky does not tolerate "violence against the human person" and appeals in defense of colleagues who were repressed.

In 1922, the academician left for Paris with his family. His daughter stayed to study in Prague, and the scientist himself lectured on geochemistry and radiogeology at the Sorbonne. IN AND. Vernadsky actively worked there too, published a book, wrote scientific articles... However, in 1926 he decided to return to Leningrad at the request of A. Fersman's student and friend S. Oldenburg, president of the Academy of Sciences. Then the academician sincerely hoped that he would help the development of science in his native lands and still believed that the domination of the communist regime would not last long.

Even in those days, the academician often travels abroad to give lectures and work in scientific centers in Germany, Czechoslovakia, France, England ... But few of his contemporaries fully understood the doctrine of the biosphere, and many of the scientist's works were published many years after his death.

After the 30s, it becomes more and more difficult to travel abroad. IN AND. Vernadsky witnesses how the classical scientific theory is gradually being replaced by the "new barbarism", but he continues his work, believing that his knowledge can save the people. The scientist's daughter, meanwhile, remains to live with her husband, archaeologist N.P. Tolle, in the USA, and his son becomes a professor of history at Yale University. The academician did not accept their invitation to go abroad. In those days, he developed the scientific idea of ​​the noosphere and reflected on the cosmic development of mankind... And in the 40s V.I. Vernadsky is working on the creation of a nuclear program (the promise of which he understood a few decades ago, but was heard only now, when America took up the development of a nuclear project).

During World War II V.I. Vernadsky and his wife were evacuated to Kazakhstan, from where they returned to Moscow only at the end of August 1943. Vladimir Ivanovich feels that the time has come to sum up his earthly life, and focuses on writing a chronicle of his life, the history of the origin and development of ideas. On February 3, 1944, his life partner Natalya Yegorovna dies.

Many of Vladimir Ivanovich's works were not published in full until the 90s of the twentieth century, and they continue to develop the ideas of the great academician even now. His works are still of practical importance - they were a scientific revelation that mankind could understand only after decades.

How right he was when he said that “in the geological history of the biosphere, a huge future opens up before man if he understands this and does not use his mind and his labor for self-destruction”!

The famous scientist Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky stands out among his contemporaries as a bright spot. His remarkable and inquisitive mind deservedly owns the honor of many important discoveries. Among them are the science of the biosphere, the unity of the water cover of the earth, the science of biogeochemistry, and Russian cosmism. He is one of the initiators of uranium research for the extraction of nuclear energy. And this is very briefly about such a great man as Vernadsky Vladimir Ivanovich, short biography the purpose of our presentation on www.site.

Vernadsky's life began in 1863 in the city of St. Petersburg. His parents were Ukrainian nobles. Vladimir Ivanovich began to receive education in Kharkov, where the family was forced to move due to the unfavorable climate. A few years later, the Vernadskys returned to St. Petersburg, where Vladimir graduated from high school and entered St. Petersburg University at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics.

It was then that he became interested in mineralogy and crystallography under the influence of Sechenov, Mendeleev, Butlerov. In 1888 Under the guidance of his supervisor V.V. Dokuchaev, Vernadsky wrote his first independent scientific work "On phosphorites of the Smolensk province".

As a student, Vernadsky took part in liberal educational groups, actively participated in various student unrest, and took part in publishing houses. Since 1885, Vladimir was the curator of the Cabinet of Mineralogy at St. Petersburg University.

Thanks to him, the collection of minerals acquired a museum value, and it is in the very office that the Vernadsky school originates. Preparing a scientific dissertation, he makes numerous trips to Russia and Europe, studying various geological, meteorite, and mineralogical collections.

Also, Vernadsky does not forget about social activities. He became a zemstvo vowel in the Tambov province, and in 1891, having teamed up with L.N. Tolstoy, organizes an organization to help the starving.

In 1898 Vernadsky became a professor at Moscow University. He maintains contacts with world scientists, and in 1906 he became an adjunct at the Imperial Academy of Sciences, head of the mineralogical department at the Geological Museum.

Since 1908, he has been actively organizing expeditions to study radioactive materials.

Most often these were expeditions in the direction of the Urals, the Trans-Urals, the Caucasus, Baikal, but Vernadsky, who early understood the importance of such research, insisted on conducting such expeditions in the south.

Vernadsky is also engaged in history Russian science. He constantly reprints the essay "On the Scientific Worldview" published back in 1902, publishes "Essays on the History of Natural Science in Russia in the 18th Century" and "The Academy of Sciences in the First Century of Its History". He also works on essays on the history of crystallography and soil science, articles about Russian and foreign scientists.

After the revolution, Vernadsky left for the south, where he became the founder and president of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. He was also the rector of the university in Simferopol. After returning to St. Petersburg, in 1922, he took part in the organization of the Radium Institute. He worked in the largest European scientific centers - in Prague, Sorbonne, Paris. Published in French the scientific work "Geochemistry".

Vernadsky made an invaluable contribution to the study of the mineral resource base of Russia, becoming chairman of the commission for its study. After that, he took up independent scientific work.

Having studied the structure of the world ocean, he formulated the concept of its biological structure, coming to the conclusion that the ocean consists of layers-films of various scales. At the Academy of Sciences he organized a new Department of Living Matter. And since 1927 he was the director of the Biogeochemical Laboratory under him.

In 1940, Vernadsky initiated research on uranium with the aim of obtaining nuclear energy. During the evacuation for the duration of the war, he created the books “ Chemical structure biosphere of the Earth and its environment”, “On the states of space in the geological phenomena of the Earth. Against the backdrop of the growth of science in the 20th century.

On his eightieth birthday, Vernadsky was awarded the Stalin Prize.
Streets, a university, a scientific library in Kyiv, and a research station in Antarctica are named after Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky.

Vernadsky's doctrine of the biosphere acquired the greatest relevance in the second half of the twentieth century. Just then, ecology began to develop, where the biosphere became one of the fundamental concepts.

As a result of the confluence of human efforts and scientific achievements, the biosphere passes into the noosphere - the stage of reason. This idea, being a major philosophical thought, appeared as a result of the combination of biogeochemistry and the history of sciences. The structuring of science, the analysis of the scientific worldview and scientific thought have become a huge contribution to science of science.

Briefly, Vernadsky's teaching boils down to the fact that he was the first to perceive the earth as an integral living organism. He proved that all the processes occurring in the atmosphere, lithosphere and hydrosphere are one. And life on earth is a cosmic phenomenon. Vernadsky believed that life was spread from outer space to all planets and could develop and evolve depending on the conditions on a particular planet, while sending the germs of life to all cosmic sides. Vernadsky was the first who so completely and completely formed the concept of the "cosmism of life", although the germs of this theory were also found in the works of his predecessors.

My message is dedicated to the life and scientific work of Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky. This is a great scientist, naturalist, who lived at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. His contributions to science are vast and varied. He worked in the field of various sciences and made discoveries in them.

The beginning of life and scientific activity

The scientist's life was long and eventful. He was born in 1863 in Ukraine into an educated and talented family. His second cousin - prose writer Vladimir Korolenko, who wrote "Children of the Underground", "The Blind Musician" and other famous works. Vernadsky's father was a professor.

First, the family moved to St. Petersburg, but did not stay there for long and went to Kharkov, where she lived for several years. Then again to St. Petersburg, where Vladimir Ivanovich graduated from high school and entered the university. Here he studied natural Sciences, and his teachers were famous people, including .

After graduating from the university, Vernadsky studied geology and mineralogy, and then taught these sciences at Moscow University. However, when several professors were fired on political charges, Vernadsky also left the university.

The study of radioactive substances

The great naturalist became interested in radioactive substances; he devoted many years of his life to this work, went on expeditions, and strove to create research stations in the Urals.

Vernadsky continued his work after the 1917 revolution. He left to teach in Ukraine: first to Kyiv, then to Simferopol, where for some time he was the rector of the university. But then Vladimir Ivanovich returned to St. Petersburg and continued active scientific work and research on radioactive substances.

To him managed to organize an expedition to the site of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite. Under the leadership of V.I. Vernadsky and V.G. Khlopin, a plant was created in Tatarstan, where for the first time it was possible to obtain highly enriched radium.

The doctrine of the noosphere

The activities of Vladimir Ivanovich were not limited to the study of uranium and radium. He owns creation of the doctrine of the noosphere. The scientist believed that the noosphere would replace the biosphere. In the biosphere, he counted 7 types of substances: living, biogenic, that is, arising from living things, and so on, up to scattered atoms and substances of cosmic origin. He believed that the living is eternal, and man in the process of evolution will become the most important of the living. More and more people will study science, people will come to power, an information space network will be created, and atomic energy will give people the opportunity to change the biosphere. Then the biosphere (the space of life) will pass into the noosphere (the space of the mind). Scientist looked to the future with optimism and faith in the human mind.

The last years of the scientist's life

During the Great Patriotic War already quite old, eighty years old, he was evacuated to Kazakhstan. Here his wife died, with whom he lived for 56 years. Vernadsky survived her by only one year and died in January 1945 from a stroke. He had a son and a daughter who lived abroad.

Scientist's contribution to science

The greatest contributions of Vernadsky to science are considered to be research in the field of geology, mineralogy, the creation of the science of biogeochemistry and the doctrine of the noosphere.

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Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky, naturalist and thinker (1863-1945)

We are approaching a great upheaval in the life of mankind, which cannot be compared with everything that they have experienced before. The time is not far off when a person will receive atomic energy in his hands, such a source of power that will give him the opportunity to build his life as he wants ... Will a person be able to use this power, direct it to good, and not to self-destruction?

From the notes of V.I. Vernadsky

This question, asked by the great scientist almost a century ago, is still relevant today. Vernadsky realized that man is alienated from the Nature that created him. According to him, “due to the conventions of civilization, this inseparable and blood connection of all mankind with the rest of the living world is forgotten, and a person tries to consider the existence of civilized mankind separately from the living world. But these attempts are artificial and inevitably shatter when we approach the study of humanity in its general connection with all of Nature. Vladimir Ivanovich could not imagine that people would continue to consider the surrounding nature only as a means to satisfy their material needs, caring little about its condition, using scientific achievements almost exclusively for the extensive exploitation of its resources.

IN AND. Vernadsky is the founder of the complex of modern Earth sciences: geochemistry, biogeochemistry, radiology, hydrogeology, etc. His natural scientific and philosophical interests were focused on the development of a holistic doctrine of the biosphere, living matter and the evolution of the biosphere into the noosphere. He is one of the creators of anthropocosmism, a system in which the natural (cosmic) and human tendencies in the development of science merge into a single whole.

The future scientist was born on March 12, 1863 in St. Petersburg, in the family of a professor of economics and statistics, Ivan Vasilyevich Vernadsky. When the boy was 5 years old, the family moved to his parents' native Ukraine. His childhood, spent in Kharkov, Vladimir Ivanovich considered one of happiest times life. It was then that he not only saw nature in all its essence, but “got used” to it.

Close people had a great influence on Vernadsky in childhood. This is the nanny, kind, wise, living by religious traditions; and uncle Evgraf Maksimovich Korolenko (writer V.G. Korolenko, Vladimir Ivanovich's second cousin), versatilely educated, passionate about evolutionary theory and the poetry of the starry sky and space; and older half-brother Nikolai, unusually widely gifted, who became for junior first teacher in the world of culture; and the sisters who spoiled him; and loving mother; and a father who managed to instill love for the Motherland and respect for other countries and peoples.

Having learned to read early, Vladimir spent many hours reading books in his father's library, reading them indiscriminately. Petersburg classical gymnasium, where he studied from the third grade, was considered one of the best in Russia. Foreign languages, history, philosophy were well taught here. In the future, the future scientist independently studied several European languages.

However, Vernadsky's childhood was not a continuous holiday. The serious illness of his father, which almost cost him his life, and another shock - the death of Nikolai - caused deep feelings and thoughts. "My notes and memoirs of 1874" - so he called his notes in the year when he lost his brother and began to systematically keep a diary. They contain a confession: "Yes, there are two things that are not easy to endure - the grief that has befallen the family, and the loss of the Fatherland."

Two topics worried Vernadsky at that time most of all: the fate of the Slavs, its future (the Russian-Turkish war was going on during these years) and natural history (natural disciplines were taught in the gymnasium in an extremely limited and primitive form). Deciding that “it is impossible to go deep along two paths”, carried away by the world that opened up to him on the pages of the books of A. Humboldt, C. Darwin, Vladimir makes his choice. At the age of 18, he became a student of the natural department of the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of St. Petersburg University. The teachers of the student Vernadsky turned out to be creatively free, capable, outstanding scientists: chemists D. Mendeleev and A. Butlerov, physiologist I. Sechenov, botanist A. Beketov, and especially V. Dokuchaev, a soil scientist who gave impetus to the creation of a synthetic natural science that combines living and inanimate nature.

In addition to compulsory subjects, Vernadsky attends lectures at other departments; outlines an extensive program of self-education, which includes various social sciences: history, demography, philosophy, political economy. He is interested in non-standard concepts in natural science, the history of science, artistic creativity, religious studies; he cooperates in the scientific-literary society; participates in expeditions and field observations.

In the university environment, Vladimir Ivanovich finds people who are close in spirit. A circle was organized, later called the "Brotherhood" (Vernadsky's wife, Natalya Yegorovna Staritskaya, was also a member of it). The members of this circle were in constant correspondence for 35 years and met at every opportunity. The "most important rules" of their own lives adopted by the members of the circle are also indicative. 1. Work as hard as you can. 2. Consume (for yourself) as little as possible. 3. Look at other people's troubles as if they were your own. These principles they faithfully observed throughout their lives.

Upon completion of his studies, Vernadsky becomes the curator of the Mineralogical Cabinet of St. Petersburg University. His research interests are mineralogy, crystallography, soil science. Then, to prepare for a professorship, he goes on a business trip abroad for several years. In Germany, England, Italy and France, the scientist is engaged in crystallography, seriously studying the literature on the history of the natural, humanitarian and technical sciences.

In 1890 he accepted an invitation from Moscow University. Soon both colleagues and students were convinced that an interesting person appeared next to them, an erudite teacher, a promising scientist. He defended his master's and then his doctoral dissertations; he has disciples and followers. In Moscow, Vladimir Ivanovich continues to communicate with members of the Brotherhood, meets with L.N. Tolstoy, philosophers brothers Trubetskoy, historian P.N. Milyukov, lawyer P.I. Novgorodtsev, engaged in social work.

Vladimir Ivanovich conducted extremely intensive scientific work. In his report at the XII Congress of Russian Naturalists and Doctors, he practically substantiated the beginning of a new science - geochemistry. In 1911, the university authorities issued an order forbidding student demonstrations. The arrests among students caused outrage among many professors - more than 120 teachers resigned. University left P.N. Lebedev, K.A. Timiryazev, V.I. Vernadsky, N.D. Zelinsky and other famous scientists.

Vernadsky returns to Petersburg. In 1912 he was elected an academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Soon the first World War. Despite this, the scientist is developing a vigorous activity to create the first radiochemical laboratory in Russia. Having visited Canada (at the International Geological Congress), Vladimir Ivanovich seriously thinks about the impact of scientific and technological progress on the world around him and about the need to create a special commission to study natural productive forces.

By the beginning of 1917, the social crisis intensified in the country, but scientific work continued. At this time, Vladimir Ivanovich writes: “No matter how I subject myself to self-criticism of my work, nevertheless, in this form, it seems to me, no one embraced nature.” At the same time, he is included in the work on the organization of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences and becomes its first president (1919). Vladimir Ivanovich is trying to develop research, fighting for the life of the academy during the period of change of power, striving to gather a family scattered across southern Russia, to protect himself and his work, is seriously ill with typhus, continues teaching, and even becomes the rector of the Tauride University in Simferopol.

In the first post-revolutionary years, Vernadsky acutely experienced the catastrophe of Russian statehood, the destruction of culture: “I cannot imagine and cannot reconcile myself to the fall of Russia, with the transformation of Russian culture into Turkish or Mexican” (Diary of August 30, 1920). “Where to look for support? the scientist asked himself back in March 1918 and answered: “To search in the infinite, in the creative act, in the infinite strength of the spirit.” On this he stood to the end.

Vladimir Ivanovich returned to Petrograd in 1921. He was in charge of museums, headed work in a radiochemical laboratory, organized a meteorite expedition, gave lectures, and participated in comprehensive studies of the Kola Peninsula. And all this despite the threat to health and life. The meetings of the "Brotherhood" are resumed. At the beginning of 1922, the Radium Institute was finally opened.

An important stage in the life and work of Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky was a business trip to France, which lasted more than three years. The scientist was elected professor at the Sorbonne and invited to lecture on geochemistry.

There he gets acquainted with the news of world science and the works of prominent scientists; discusses scientific issues with ER. Rutherford, P. Langevin, meets with philosophers Ed. Leroy and P. Teilhard de Chardin. He publishes "Geochemistry", prepares for publication one of his main classical works - "Biosphere". But most importantly, he creates the doctrine of the noosphere (from the Greek noos - mind) - "the sphere of the mind", which will develop and improve until the last days of life.

For the true triumph of the noosphere, according to Vernadsky, such preconditions are necessary that the world has not yet reached: “Two moments, therefore, are the prerequisites for the replacement of the anthroposphere by the noosphere: the domination of man over external nature and the domination in man himself of the forces of reason over lower instincts.”

As a scientist-naturalist, Vladimir Ivanovich did a lot for an objective study of the reality of the noosphere emerging in geological and historical time, as an outstanding thinker, he foresaw the essence of the “noosphere as a goal”, its tasks and driving forces. The colossal change in the order of things, which occurs from the intrusion of man into nature, the scientist put on an exact scientific basis, introducing the concept of cultural biogeochemical energy.

In the 20th century, according to Vernadsky, significant material prerequisites for the transition to the noosphere, the realization of the ideal of consciously active evolution, are ripening. Firstly, this is the universality of mankind, “the complete capture by man of the biosphere for life”, when the whole Earth, to the most unfavorable places, has been transformed and populated, man has penetrated into all its elements - earth, water, air. Secondly, the unity of mankind, when similar forms of scientific, technical, everyday civilization are created, the most remote corners of the Earth are united by the fastest means of transportation, effective lines of communication and information exchange. Thirdly, the massification of social, historical life, when "the masses of the people receive an ever-growing opportunity to consciously influence the course of state and public affairs." And finally, the growth of science, its transformation into a powerful geological force, the main force for the creation of the noosphere, fraught with the potential for development, virtually limitless.

As R.K. Balandin, who deeply studied the life and work of V.I. Vernadsky, the scientist, thinking about the noosphere, “hoped for its creation already in the 20th century. Reality disproved these dreams. Delusion of a genius? Hardly. Only now, achieving what he meant by the noosphere turned out to be an unusually difficult task. It cannot be solved through the creation of more advanced technical means, technologies... On the way to the noosphere, a spiritual renewal of humanity is necessary, a transformation not so much of the environment as of the inner world of people. The idea of ​​the noosphere has heuristic potential, helping to compare reality with the ideal to which one should aspire.

Vernadsky himself, of course, was a man of the noosphere. He tried to do everything possible to develop scientific ideas and put them into practice. He worked for the benefit of science and all mankind.

The work capacity of the scientist is amazing. He worked until late old age for 10-12 hours a day and even more. Vernadsky wrote about his way of life:

I have a very good reference library left ... I know (for reading) all the Slavic, Romance and Germanic languages ​​\u200b\u200b...

I never practiced at night, but in my youth I studied until 1-2 o'clock in the morning. I always got up early. I never sleep during the day and never lie down during the day to rest unless I am sick. I do not smoke and have never smoked, although my family - my father, mother and sisters - all smoked. I do not drink (except - rarely - wine). I drank vodka once in my life. After my long stay in France, I accepted the timing of the scientists there. I get up early in the morning (at 6-7 o'clock), go to bed at 10-10.5 o'clock.

I love fiction and follow it closely. I love art, painting, sculpture. I love music very much, I experience it very much... I consider the best form of recreation to be walking, first in a boat, traveling abroad...

At the beginning of 1926, Vladimir Ivanovich returned to Leningrad, to the academy. He focused on the activities of the Radium Institute, the Commission for the Study of the Natural Productive Forces of Russia. His work "Biosphere" is out of print, in which he substantiates the idea that "the biosphere is a bio-inert natural body, which is characterized by a regular organization of the movement of matter and energy under the influence of living matter." The book was a huge success not only in scientific, but also in broad cultural circles.

Having delved into scientific problems, Vernadsky begins to develop several ideas at the same time. First of all, it is the idea of ​​time. Another idea concerns the problem of cosmic life, acquiring significance not only for the scientist or philosopher, but for every thinking person. The third is the formation of the foundations of radiogeology, the science of geological age.

Since 1935 Vernadsky has been living in Moscow and working on books. Until 1938, he often went on business trips abroad, and his children lived in exile: son Georgy, professor of history at Yale University in the USA, daughter, a psychiatrist who married archaeologist N.P. Toll, settled in Prague. Each of them insistently called his parents to him. But Vladimir Ivanovich invariably returned home. He himself did not suffer the tragic fate of Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov (which shocked Vernadsky), but many of his students were repressed and exiled. The scientist, despite what was happening, showed great personal courage: he protested and interceded about them before those in power, as far as possible materially and morally helped those arrested and exiled.

But Vernadsky sees in these years the positive results of state and economic construction in Russia, he understands that the Bolshevik government, paradoxically, saved the Russian statehood, that the authoritarian, despotic power became that painful, but necessary treatment that pulled together the disintegrated as a result of the revolution and fratricidal war of part of the country in order to revive them and bring them, albeit by force, to a new unity and a new form. “Now it is historically clear that, despite many sins and unnecessary cruelties that corrupt them, on average, they led Russia to a new path”

Vernadsky is one of the most prominent scientists in the field, which is considered a strategic state. In June 1940, having received information from the United States from his son about work on "new nuclear energy", it was Vladimir Ivanovich who initiated a special academic commission that developed a national nuclear program and submitted it to the government. During the war years, Vernadsky, together with the oldest academicians, was evacuated to Borovoe (Kazakhstan). He considers everything that happens from the point of view of the dear idea of ​​the noosphere. “All the fears and reasoning of the inhabitants, as well as representatives of the humanities and philosophical disciplines about the possible death of civilization, are associated with an underestimation of the strength and depth of geological processes, which is the transition of the biosphere to the noosphere that we are currently experiencing,” the scientist wrote.

In Borovoe, he is engaged in "final" affairs: he composes the "Chronicle" of his life, the history of the origin and development of his ideas and practical deeds. He consciously prepares for the last transition and, just as consistently and methodically as he did everything in life, draws a line under it: “In general, I work steadily all the time. I'm getting ready to die. No fear. Breakdown into atoms and molecules. If something can remain, then it passes into another living thing, not some single forms of "transmigration of souls", but in disintegration into atoms (and even protons). Vivekananda's faith is irrefutable in state of the art science. An atomically living individual — including myself — is a special self” (Diary of December 27, 1942). But one difficult personal test still awaits him: on February 3, 1943, his closest friend and assistant, his wife Natalya Yegorovna, dies of a sudden illness, with whom they lived in perfect harmony for 57 years. The last article of the thinker is “A few words about the noosphere”. Vernadsky died on January 6, 1945.

The doctrine developed by Vernadsky allowed mankind to come closer to understanding that the predominance of material values ​​over spiritual ones, the strengthening of the technosphere is a dead end in the development of modern civilization. It leads to the degradation of life, culture and human personality.

As R. K. Balandin notes, it is necessary to strive to ensure that Homo sapiens is reasonable not by self-name, but by loyalty to the ideals of the noosphere: goodness, justice, beauty, reason. In this regard, the life experience of Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky himself is very instructive. He had limited material resources and unlimited spiritual needs. Only with such a combination on Earth can a magnificent biosphere and humanity worthy of it be preserved.

From the diary of V.I. Vernadsky

It is impossible to postpone the concern for the great and eternal until the time when the possibility of satisfying their elementary needs will be achieved for everyone. Otherwise it will be too late. We will place material wealth in the hands of people whose ideal will be "bread and circuses." Eat, drink, do nothing, enjoy love. It is good to live in the name of what? And for what? We must look for higher ideals. "Love for humanity" is a small ideal when you live in space.

Vernadsky Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky Vladimir Ivanovich

(1863-1945), naturalist, thinker and public figure. Son of I. V. and M. N. Vernadsky. Founder of the complex of modern Earth sciences - geochemistry, biogeochemistry, radiology, hydrogeology, etc. Creator of many scientific schools. Academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1912), Russian Academy of Sciences (1917), USSR Academy of Sciences (1925), first president of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (since 1919). Professor at Moscow University (1898-1911), resigned in protest against the harassment of students. Vernadsky's ideas played an outstanding role in the formation of the modern scientific picture of the world. At the center of his natural science and philosophical interests is the development of a holistic doctrine of the biosphere, living matter (organizing the earth's shell) and the evolution of the biosphere into the noosphere, in which the human mind and activity, scientific thought become the determining factor in development, a powerful force comparable in its impact on nature with geological processes. Vernadsky's doctrine of the relationship between nature and society had a strong influence on the formation of modern environmental consciousness. He developed the traditions of Russian cosmism, based on the idea of ​​the internal unity of mankind and the cosmos. Vernadsky - a member of the zemstvo movement of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, one of the founders and leaders of the "Union of Liberation", the Constitutional Democratic Party (in 1905-17 a member of its Central Committee), in August - October 1917, comrade (deputy) of the Minister of Public Education of the Provisional government. Organizer and director of the Radium Institute (1922-39), Biogeochemical Laboratory (since 1928; now the Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences). State Prize of the USSR (1943).

VERNADSKY Vladimir Ivanovich (1863-1945), Russian naturalist, thinker and public figure. The founder of the complex of modern earth sciences - geochemistry (cm. GEOCHEMISTRY), biogeochemistry (cm. BIOGEOCHEMISTRY), radiogeology, hydrogeology (cm. HYDROGEOLOGY) etc. Creator of many scientific schools. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1925; Academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences from 1912; Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences from 1917), first president of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (1919). Professor at Moscow University (in 1898-1911), resigned in protest against the harassment of students. Vernadsky's ideas played an outstanding role in the formation of the modern scientific picture of the world. At the center of his natural-science and philosophical interests is the development of a holistic doctrine of the biosphere (cm. BIOSPHERE), living matter (organizing the earth's shell) and the evolution of the biosphere into the noosphere (cm. NOOSPHERE) in which the human mind and activity, scientific thought become the determining factor in development, a powerful force comparable in its impact on nature with geological processes. Vernadsky's doctrine of the relationship between nature and society had a strong influence on the formation of modern environmental consciousness. Developed the traditions of Russian cosmism (cm. COSMISM) based on the idea of ​​the internal unity of humanity and the cosmos. Vernadsky is one of the leaders of the Zemstvo liberal movement and the party of the Cadets (Constitutional Democrats). Organizer and director of the Radium Institute (1922-1939), Biogeochemical Laboratory (since 1928; now the Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences). State Prize of the USSR (1943).
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VERNADSKY Vladimir Ivanovich, Russian naturalist and thinker, public figure.
Family, childhood and studies
From a noble family, the son of Ivan Vasilyevich Vernadsky (cm. VERNADSKY Ivan Vasilievich) and Maria Nikolaevna Verdnadskaya (cm. VERNADSKAYA Maria Nikolaevna), nee Shigaeva. Both father and mother were famous economists and publicists, a liberal atmosphere of the ideals of the sixties of the 19th century reigned in the family, they never forgot about Ukrainian roots.
In 1873-1880 Vernadsky studied at the gymnasiums of Kharkov and St. Petersburg, in 1881-1885 - at the natural department of the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of St. Petersburg University. Professors A.N. Beketov had a great influence on him (cm. BEKETOV Andrey Nikolaevich), A. M. Butlerov (cm. Butlerov Alexander Mikhailovich), D. I. Mendeleev (cm. MENDELEEV Dmitry Ivanovich), I. M. Sechenov (cm. Sechenov Ivan Mikhailovich). His supervisor was V. V. Dokuchaev (cm. Dokuchaev Vasily Vasilievich). It was under his influence that Vernadsky took up dynamic mineralogy and crystallography. In 1888, based on materials from expeditions led by Dokuchaev, Vernadsky's first independent scientific work, On the Phosphorites of the Smolensk Province, was written.
Vernadsky took an active civic position, participated in the student unrest of 1882, was elected to student scientific and public organizations. He, along with F. F. and S. F. Oldenburg (cm. OLDENBURG Sergey Fedorovich), I. M. Grevsom (cm. GREVS Ivan Mikhailovich), A. N. Krasnov (cm. KRASNOV Andrey Nikolaevich), D. I. Shakhovsky (cm. SHAKHOVSKY Dmitry Ivanovich) and others created a circle of liberal orientation "Priyutino Brotherhood". Like some other members of the circle, he strove for public education, collaborated in the Posrednik publishing house, in the St. Petersburg Literacy Committee.
In 1886, Vernadsky married Natalia Egorovna, daughter of a member of the State Council, E. P. Staritsky.
The beginning of the creative path
In 1885-1888 Vernadsky - curator of the Mineralogical Cabinet of St. Petersburg University; in 1888-1891 in the best laboratories in Italy, Germany, France and Great Britain he prepared his dissertation "On the sillimanite group and the role of alumina in silicates." In 1890-1898 Vernadsky was a Privatdozent at Moscow University; defended his doctoral dissertation "The phenomenon of slip of crystalline matter".
Vernadsky turned the scattered collections of the Mineralogical Cabinet of Moscow University into a valuable museum collection, and the cabinet itself into a genuine research institute, in which the famous Vernadsky school arose. He makes numerous geological and soil science excursions in Russia and Europe, studies geological, paleontological, mineralogical and meteorite collections in the largest museums of the world, and participates in international congresses. Actively involved in social and political activities: zemstvo vowel of the Morshansky district of the Tambov province; in 1891 together with L. N. Tolstoy (cm. TOLSTOY Lev Nikolaevich) and the newspaper "Russian Vedomosti" creates a broad public organization to help the starving.
Public and scientific recognition
From the beginning of the 20th century Vernadsky occupies a prominent place in the scientific community and political life Russia. He maintained active scientific and personal contacts with scientists all over the world, as far as Japan. In 1898-1911 - professor at Moscow University, assistant to the rector at the same university, one of the founders and teachers of Moscow University. Shanyavsky. In 1906, Vernadsky was elected an adjunct of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and appointed head of the mineralogical department of the Geological Museum. Peter the Great, in 1908 he was elected an extraordinary academician, in 1912 - an ordinary academician, in 1914 - director of the Mineralogical and Geological Museum of the Academy of Sciences, in 1915 - chairman of the Commission for the Study of the Productive Forces of Russia (KEPS), created largely on his initiative. Subsequently, institutes were formed from KEPS: ceramic, radium, optical, physico-chemical, platinum, etc.
In 1903 Vernadsky's monograph "Fundamentals of Crystallography" was published, and in 1908 the publication of separate issues of "Experiments in Descriptive Mineralogy" began.
In 1907, Vernadsky began research on radioactive minerals in Russia, and in 1910, he created and headed the Radium Commission of the Academy of Sciences. Work at KEPS stimulated the development of Vernadsky's systematic research on the problems of biogeochemistry, the study of living matter and the biosphere. In 1916 he began to develop the basic principles of biogeochemistry, the study of the chemical composition of organisms and their role in the migration of atoms in the geological shells of the Earth.
In 1902 Vernadsky began lecturing on the history of Russian science. Since then, historical and scientific problems have become an integral part of his scientific work. The historical-scientific essay On the Scientific Worldview, published in 1902, has been reprinted more than once. Peru Vernadsky owns "Essays on the history of natural science in Russia in the XVIII century", "The Academy of Sciences in the first century of its history", essays on the history of crystallography and soil science, articles about outstanding Russian and foreign scientists.
In the pre-revolutionary years, Vernadsky actively participated in the zemstvo movement, in the creation of the journal "Liberation (cm. RELEASE)", formed around him" Union of Liberation (cm. UNION OF LIBERATION)", and in 1905 in the organization of the Academic Union (cm. UNION OF UNIONS). He is one of the founders and a member of the Central Committee of the Cadets Party, an active supporter of agrarian reform and the abolition of death penalty. In 1906 and 1915 Vernadsky was elected a member of the State Council from the Academic Curia.
Revolution and civil war
After the February Revolution, Vernadsky - Chairman of the Scientific Committee of the Ministry of Agriculture, Chairman of the Commission on Scientific Institutions and Scientific Enterprises, Deputy Minister of Education. He actively participated in the organization of the Free Association for the development and dissemination of positive sciences, in the development of plans for the creation of universities, research institutes and academies. After the October Revolution, Vernadsky became a member of the Small Council of Ministers, which declared the Soviet government illegal. Hiding from arrest, Vernadsky went to the south of Russia, where he experienced all the horrors of the repeated change of power.
In the years civil war Vernadsky was the president of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (1919), which he created together with N.P. Vasilenko, and the rector of Tauride University. Returning to Petrograd in 1921, where he was arrested for a short time, Vernadsky was engaged in the creation of the Radium Institute and its leadership, the Commission on the History of Knowledge. He conducted intensive biogeochemical research and prepared a large manuscript "Living Matter", published only in 1978, published books "The Chemical Composition of Living Matter" (1922) and "The Beginning and Eternity of Life" (1922).
Extended business trip and return home
In the 1920s and 30s, Vernadsky's main works were written in the field of biogeochemistry and the doctrine of the biosphere, philosophy and the history of science. In 1922-1926 Vernadsky was abroad, where he lectured at the Sorbonne, worked in the Mineralogical Laboratory of the Museum of Natural History and the Radium Institute. Pierre Curie. He tried to find funds for the organization of the International Institute for the Study of Living Matter and in 1924 published in French Essays on Geochemistry, in which he first set forth his biogeochemical views in the form of a monograph. In 1926 Vernadsky returned to Soviet Russia, in the same year published the famous book "Biosphere", created the Biogeochemical Laboratory (1928). In 1938, the first cyclotron in our country began to work at the Radium Institute headed by him. He was one of the initiators of the development of work on the intensive study of the atomic nucleus in order to use the energy of radioactive decay.
Contribution to science
Vernadsky made a significant contribution to mineralogy and crystallography. In 1888-1897, he developed the concept of the structure of silicates, put forward the theory of the kaolin core, refined the classification of silica compounds, and studied the slip of crystalline matter, primarily the shear phenomenon in rock salt and calcite crystals.
In 1890-1911 he developed genetic mineralogy, established a connection between the form of crystallization of a mineral, its chemical composition, genesis and formation conditions.
In the same years, Vernadsky formulated the main ideas and problems of geochemistry, within the framework of which he carried out the first systematic studies of the regularities of the structure and composition of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere. Since 1907, Vernadsky has been conducting geological studies of radioactive elements, laying the foundation for radiogeology.
In 1916-1940 he formulated the main principles and problems of biogeochemistry, created the doctrine of the biosphere and its evolution. Vernadsky set the task of quantitatively studying the elemental composition of living matter and the geochemical functions performed by it, the role of individual species in the conversion of energy in the biosphere, in the geochemical migrations of elements, in lithogenesis and mineralogenesis. He schematically outlined the main trends in the evolution of the biosphere: the expansion of life on the surface of the Earth and the strengthening of its transformative influence on the abiotic environment; an increase in the scale and intensity of biogenic migrations of atoms, the appearance of qualitatively new geochemical functions of living matter, the conquest of new mineral and energy resources by life; transition of the biosphere into the noosphere (cm. NOOSPHERE).
In the 1960s, the “Renaissance of Vernadsky’s ideas” began in the USSR, and in the 1990s there was a boom in reprints of his works in European languages: since 1993, Biosphere has been published four times in Italy, Spain, Germany, France and the United States and three times - "Scientific thought as a planetary phenomenon". His ideas were used in the construction of closed ecosystems in space flights and in the grandiose project to create an artificial biosphere ("Biosphere-2") in the United States.
In historical and scientific works, Vernadsky abandoned the cumulative model of the progress of knowledge, showed continuous transformations of the picture of the world and the value of the obtained facts and generalizations, predetermined by a complex of cognitive and socio-cultural factors.
The doctrine of the biosphere and noosphere
In the structure of the biosphere, Vernadsky singled out seven types of matter: 1) living; 2) biogenic (arising from the living or undergoing processing); 3) inert (abiotic, formed outside of life); 4) bio-inert (arising at the junction of living and non-living; bio-inert, according to Vernadsky, includes soil); 5) a substance in the stage of radioactive decay; 6) scattered atoms; 7) matter of cosmic origin. Vernadsky was a supporter of the panspermia hypothesis. Vernadsky extended the methods and approaches of crystallography to the substance of living organisms. Living matter develops in real space, which has a certain structure, symmetry and dissymmetry. The structure of matter corresponds to a certain space, and their diversity indicates the diversity of spaces. Thus, living and inert cannot have a common origin, they come from different spaces, eternally located side by side in the Cosmos. For some time, Vernadsky associated the features of the space of living matter with its alleged non-Euclidean character, but for unclear reasons he abandoned this interpretation and began to explain the space of living matter as a unity of space-time.
Vernadsky considered an important stage in the irreversible evolution of the biosphere to be its transition to the stage of the noosphere. (cm. NOOSPHERE). The main prerequisites for the emergence of the noosphere: 1) the spread of Homo sapiens over the entire surface of the planet and its victory in competition with other biological species; 2) the development of planetary communication systems, the creation of a single information system for mankind; 3) the discovery of such new sources of energy as atomic energy, after which human activity becomes an important geological force; 4) the victory of democracies and access to government of the broad masses of the people; 5) the increasing involvement of people in science, which also makes humanity a geological force.
Vernadsky's work was characterized by historical optimism: in the irreversible development of scientific knowledge, he saw the only proof of the existence of progress.
The appearance of a scientist and a person
The origins of Vernadsky's life values ​​are the views of the intelligentsia of post-reform Russia, who called for the transformation of society. These views were formed under the influence of the growing worldwide prestige of science, amazing discoveries and their technical implementation. Vernadsky believed in the mission of science as the main factor in the improvement of society. Understanding that the development of science in Russia is possible only with the support of the state, the eternal critic of the authorities Vernadsky made every effort to strengthen the scientific potential of the country, realizing that the Romanovs and Lenins were leaving, and Russia had to withstand the cataclysms of the 20th century. Vernadsky actively defended the freedom of scientific creativity and believed that under the influence of the successes of science, the most immoral regime was being transformed.
From his teachers (A. N. Beketov, A. M. Butlerov, V. V. Dokuchaev, D. I. Mendeleev, I. M. Sechenov, etc.) Vernadsky inherited a broad scientific approach and high ethical standards. He fought for the honor, freedom, and sometimes the life of his students, friends and employees who fell under the millstones of the punitive system. Dozens of times Vernadsky addressed letters to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, to the Council of People's Commissars, to the Prosecutor's Office of the USSR, to the NKVD.
From the first steps in the scientific field, Vernadsky established himself as a broad-minded naturalist. He tried to integrate various areas human knowledge, to create major natural science and worldview concepts. This attracted many scientists to him, which made it possible to create powerful scientific schools of world significance.

encyclopedic Dictionary. 2009 .

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Well-known mineralogist, professor of mineralogy Imp. Moscow University, the son of the economist IV Vernadsky (see). Genus. in 1863. In 1885 he graduated from St. Petersburg. university; in 1890 he acted as a privat docent at Moscow. university; since 1891 he has been in charge there ... ... Big biographical encyclopedia

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