Vladimir Vernadsky

Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky (Template:Langx),<ref name=":12222">Template:Cite web</ref> also spelt Volodymyr Ivanovych Vernadsky (Template:Langx;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Template:OldStyleDate – 6 January 1945), was a Russian, Ukrainian,<ref name="University of Pittsburgh Press">Template:Cite book</ref> and Soviet mineralogist and geochemist who is considered one of the founders of geochemistry, biogeochemistry, and radiogeology.<ref name=brit/> He was one of the founders and the first president of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Верна́дський Володи́мир Іва́нович. Універсальний Словник-Енциклопедія</ref> (now National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine).<ref name="the_biosphere_and_noosphere_reader_a02">Template:Cite book</ref> Vladimir Vernadsky is most noted for his 1926 book The Biosphere in which he inadvertently worked to popularize Eduard Suess's 1875 term biosphere, by hypothesizing that life is the geological force that shapes the earth. In 1943 he was awarded the Stalin Prize. Vernadsky's portrait is depicted on the Ukrainian ₴1,000 hryvnia banknote.

Early life

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Vladimir Vernadsky, Paris 1889

Vernadsky was born in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire, on Template:OldStyleDate in the family of the native Kyiv residents Russian Imperial economist Ivan Vernadsky and Anna Konstantinovich, who came from an old Russia noble family.Template:SfnTemplate:Full citation needed<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> According to family legend, his father's ancestors were Zaporozhian Cossacks.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Ivan Vernadsky had been a professor of political economy in Kyiv at the St. Vladimir University before moving to Saint Petersburg; then he was an Active State Councillor and worked in the Governing Senate in St. Petersburg. Ivan was a Russian Imperial economist and editor of a censorship and serfdom opposed liberal journal and Anna Konstantinovic was a music instructor as well as a Russian noblewoman of Ukrainian Cossack descent.<ref name=":02">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="ReferenceA">В.В. Томазов. Генеалогія В.І. Вернадського: походження та родинні зв'язки tr. V.V. Tomasov. Genealogy V.I. Vernadsky: a voyage of motherland</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>Vladimir's mother was a Russian noblewoman.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

In 1868 his family relocated to Kharkiv, where he continued his education, and in 1873 he entered the Kharkiv provincial gymnasium.<ref name=":03">Template:Cite journal</ref> His father gifted scientific books that including The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin and Cosmos by Alexander Humboldt, which was his introduction to early evolutionary theory in relation to nature.<ref name=":13">Template:Cite journal</ref> Along with the books, his uncle Evgraf Korolenko, a retired civil servant, mentored Vernadsky, taking him on long walks under the stars to discuss the earth and the cosmos. This introduction turned Vernadsky's attention from humanities to science.<ref name=":04">Template:Cite journal</ref> Vernadsky graduated from Saint Petersburg State University in 1885. As the position of mineralogist in Saint Petersburg State University was vacant, and Vasily Dokuchaev, a soil scientist, and Alexey Pavlov, a geologist, had been teaching Mineralogy for a while, Vernadsky chose to enter Mineralogy.

He made the decision to fill this role because the proximity to his childhood home allowed him to care for his recently widowed mother.<ref name=":2">Template:Cite journal</ref> This influenced Vernadsky's decision to specialize in minerology. Vernadsky went on to study as faculty at Saint Petersburg State University in the Physics-Mathematics program where he specialized in crystallography and mineralogy.<ref name=":13"/> Vernadsky graduated from Saint Petersburg State University in 1885 with a thesis on isomorphous mixtures in minerals.<ref name=":05">Template:Cite journal</ref>

In 1886, Vernadsky married a woman named Natalya E. Staritskaya, although there is not much documented information on her as an individual.<ref name=":2" /> He wrote to his wife Nataliia on 20 June 1888 from Switzerland:Template:Blockquote In 1888–1890, he traveled through Europe, studying the museums of Paris and London, and worked in Munich and Paris.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> During this time, he studied in Germany, France, England, Switzerland, and Italy and studying the museums of Paris and London, and worked in Munich and Paris.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":06">Template:Cite journal</ref> While abroad, he studied under Henry Le Chatelier , Paul Von Groth, and Ferdinand André Fouqué, supporting his decision to focus his studies in crystallography and minerology.<ref name=":06" /> While trying to find a topic for his doctorate, he first went to Naples to study under crystallographer Arcangelo Scacchi, who was senile by that time. Scacchi's condition led Vernadsky to go to Germany to study under Paul Groth, curator of minerals in the Deutsches Museum in Munich. Vernadsky learned to use Groth's modern equipment, which included a machine to study the optical, thermal, elastic, magnetic and electrical properties of crystals. He also gained access to the physics lab of Leonhard Sohncke (Direktor, Template:Lang, 1883–1886; Professor der Physik an der Technischen Hochschule München 1886–1897), who was studying crystallisation during that period. In the year 1888, Vernadsky had the opportunity to attend the 4th International Geological Congress held in London before moving on to study under Fouqué and Chatelier in Paris.<ref name=":22">Template:Cite journal</ref> In 1889, when Dokuchaev declined to attend, Vernadsky took over the World Exhibition in Paris on his behalf.<ref name=":3">Template:Cite journal</ref> His exhibit featured a display on Russian soils where he earned a gold medal for his organization and presentation.<ref name=":3" />

In his childhood, his father had a huge influence on his development, he very carefully and consistently engaged in the upbringing and education of his son. It was he who instilled in Volodymyr interest and love for the Ukrainian people, their history and culture. The future scientist recalled that before moving from Kharkiv to St. Petersburg, he and his father were abroad and in Milan, they read about a circular in Pyotr Lavrov's newspaper "Forward" that forbade printing in Ukrainian in Russia. In his memoirs, he wrote:

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In St. Petersburg, a 15-year-old boy noted in his diary on 29 March 1878:

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Political activities

Vernadsky participated in the First General Congress of the zemstvos, held in Petersburg on the eve of the 1905 Russian Revolution to discuss how best to pressure the government to the needs of the Russian society; became a member of the liberal Constitutional Democratic Party (KD); and served in parliament, resigning to protest the Tsar's proroguing of the Duma. He served as professor and later as vice rector of Moscow University, from which he also resigned in 1911 in protest over the government's reactionary policies Template:Citation needed.

Following the advent of the First World War, his proposal for the establishment of the Commission for the Study of the Natural Productive Forces (KEPS) was adopted by the Imperial Academy of Sciences in February 1915. He published War and the Progress of Science where he stressed the importance of science as regards to its contribution to the war effort:<ref name="Oldfield">Template:Cite web</ref>

After the war of 1914–1915 we will have to make known and accountable the natural productive forces of our country, i.e. first of all to find means for broad scientific investigations of Russia’s nature and for the establishment of a network of well equipped research laboratories, museums and institutions ... This is no less necessary than the need for an improvement in the conditions of our civil and political life, which is so acutely perceived by the entire country.<ref name="GW,RCW & BS">Template:Cite journal</ref>

After the February Revolution of 1917, he served on several commissions of agriculture and education of the provisional government, including as assistant minister of education.<ref>Josephson P., Dronin N., Mnatsakanyan R., Cherp A., Efremenko D., Larin A. (2013) An Environmental History of Russia. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 54–57. Template:ISBN. Template:Doi</ref>

Vladimir Vernadsky had dual "Russian–Ukrainian" identity<ref name="University of Pittsburgh Press"/> and considered the Ukrainian culture as part of Russian imperial culture,<ref name="auto1">Template:Cite web</ref> and even declined to become a Ukrainian citizen in 1918.<ref name="auto1"/>

Scientific activities

In 1898, Vernadsky moved to Moscow in order to teach at Moscow University. As head of the mineralogical office, he had the opportunity to restore the Freyesleben collection where he fully cataloged and systemized it.<ref name=":3" /> During his work as a professor at Moscow University, he conducted 65 field excursions across Russia with students to Siberia, Urals, Caucasus, and Crimea.<ref name=":3" />

Through his work, Vernadsky first popularized the concept of the noosphere and deepened the idea of the biosphere to the meaning largely recognized by today's scientific community. The word 'biosphere' was invented by Austrian geologist Eduard Suess, whom Vernadsky met in 1911.

In Vernadsky's theory of the Earth's development, the noosphere is the third stage in the earth's development, after the geosphere (inanimate matter) and the biosphere (biological life). Just as the emergence of life fundamentally transformed the geosphere, the emergence of human cognition will fundamentally transform the biosphere. In this theory, the principles of both life and cognition are essential features of the Earth's evolution, and must have been implicit in the earth all along. This systemic and geological analysis of living systems complements Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection,Template:Citation needed which looks at each individual species, rather than at its relationship to a subsuming principle.

Vernadsky's visionary pronouncements were not widely accepted in the West. However, he was one of the first scientists to recognize that the oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere result from biological processes. During the 1920s he published works arguing that living organisms could reshape the planets as surely as any physical force. Vernadsky was an important pioneer of the scientific bases for the environmental sciences.<ref>Weart, S.R. (2003) The Discovery of Global Warming, Cambridge, Harvard Press</ref>

Vernadsky was a member of the Russian and Soviet Academies of Sciences since 1912 and was a founder and first president of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in Kyiv, Ukraine (1918). He was a founder of the National Library of Ukrainian State and worked closely with the Tavrida University in Crimea. During the Russian Civil War, he hosted gatherings of the young intellectuals who later founded the émigré Eurasianism movement.<ref>See Vernadsky's diaries in the "Works" section, summarized in Sergei Glebov. "Russian and East European Books and Manuscripts in the United States" in Russian and East European Books and Manuscripts in the United States: Proceedings of a Conference in Honor of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Bakhmeteff Archive of Russian and East European History and Culture (Slavic and East European Information Resources, Volume 4, Number 4 2003), eds. Jared S. Ingersoll and Tanya Chebotarev, The Haworth Press, 2003, Template:ISBN p. 29</ref>

In the late 1930s and early 1940s Vernadsky played an early advisory role in the Soviet atomic bomb project, as one of the most forceful voices arguing for the exploitation of nuclear power, the surveying of Soviet uranium sources, and having nuclear fission research conducted at his Radium Institute. He died, however, before a full project was pursued.

On religious views, Vernadsky was an atheist.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He was interested in Hinduism and Rig Veda.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Vernadsky's son George Vernadsky (1887–1973) emigrated to the United States where he published numerous books on medieval and modern Russian history.

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Vernadsky family in Poltava in 1908. Right-left: Vladimir, his daughter Nina, wife Nataliia and her brother Pavlo, son George.

The National Library of Ukraine, the Tavrida National University in Crimea and many streets and avenues in Ukraine and Russia are named in honor of Vladimir Vernadsky.

UNESCO sponsored an international scientific conference, "Globalistics-2013", at Moscow State University on 23–25 October 2013, in honor of Vernadsky's 150th birthday.

Family

• Father – Ivan Vernadsky, Russian Imperial economist
• Mother – Аnna Konstantinovich, Russian music instructor
• Wife – Nataliia Yegorovna Staritskaya (married in 1887 in Saint Petersburg)
• Son – George Vernadsky, American Russian historian, an author of numerous books on Russian history and philosophy
• Daughter – Nina Toll, Doctor-psychiatrist

Impact of Early and Later Life Experiences on Scientific Theory

Vernadsky was born into a Ukrainian family of intellects and progressives. His grandfather was a military doctor, who was honored by Napoleon for his humanitarianism, and his father freed his serfs before serfrom was officially abolished.<ref name=":4">Template:Cite journal</ref> Throughout Vernadsky's life, there were many influential moments that led to many of his important philosophical and scientific beliefs that paved the way for the biogeochemistry, minerology, and chemistry that exists today. Vernadsky's father's background in politics encouraged Vernadsky's own interests in humanistic and interdisciplinary perspectives in scientific fields, and was a big reason why this was his first choice of study before he made his way to minerology.<ref name=":13"/> In addition to his father's background, the gift of the scientific books from him to Vernadsky was also his first introduction to evolutionary theory and the interconnectedness of nature.<ref name=":13" /> His upbringing was immersed in his Ukrainian culture, as he was surrounded by the music from his mother, and the intellectual discussion with his uncle and father.<ref name=":4" /> While at school at St. Petersburg, Vernadsky was engaged in student activism and was even a part of the Priyutino Brotherhood, which emphasized ethical living and societal reform.<ref name=":4" />

When Vernadsky was teaching at Moscow University in 1891, the link between biology and biochemistry was made to inspire his theories in the biogeochemistry realm.<ref name=":13" /> His work with various collections, such as the Freyesleben collection, helped to advance the way that collections had been previously organized. His methods transitions this organization from a description classification, to a mechanism and deeper chemical explanation classification.<ref name=":5">Template:Cite journal</ref> This new organization strategy emphasized Vernadsky's personal view thae the Earth's crust is a massive chemical labratory forming minerals.<ref name=":5" />

Vernadksy was not shy to participating in politics.<ref name=":13" /> Close friendships with those involved in revolutionary groups, such as those of Ivan Pokhitonov, also helped to expose him to different political ideas and underground literature.<ref name=":4" /> Vernadsky was in the opinion that society could be improved through science and that it must not be kept hidden and isolated from the public.<ref name=":4" /> His philosophies reflected this sentiment and they smoothly integrated natural science, philosophy, and ethics together, promoting freedom of thought and intellectual change.<ref name=":4" /> Throughout his life and career, Vernadsky emphasized this idea of sharing scientific thought and knowledge as he remained deeply connected to different universities with the main goal and supporting and mentoring young scientists.<ref name=":4" /> He was in the strongest belief that the key to national progress and reform was through the support of academic institutions.<ref name=":4" />

Legacy

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1000 hryvnia banknote (Ukraine's largest) depicting Vladimir Vernadsky

• Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine is the main academic library in Ukraine
• Ukrainian Antarctic station Akademik Vernadsky
• Tavrida National V.I. Vernadsky University, university in Simferopol
• Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry, a research institution of the Russian Academy of Sciences
• Vernadsky State Geological Museum is the oldest museum in Moscow
• Vernadsky Mountain Range is a mountains in Antarctica and is an extension of the Gamburtsev Mountain Range.
• Several avenues in major cities in the former USSR, including Kyiv, Moscow and his native Saint Petersburg, bear his name.
• Vernadskiy (crater), a lunar crater
• Vernadsky Medal awarded annually by the International Association of GeoChemistry
• 2809 Vernadskij, an asteroid

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Vernadsky portrayed on a 1963 Soviet stamp

On 25 October 2019 the National Bank of Ukraine put in circulation a ₴1,000 hryvnia banknote with Vernadsky's portrait.<ref>Ukraine starts printing new 1,000-hryvnia banknotes, UNIAN (1 October 2019)</ref>

Selected works

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1993 Russian 1 rouble coin commemorating the 130th anniversary of Vernadsky's birth

• Geochemistry, published in Russian 1924
• The Biosphere, first published in Russian in 1926. English translations:
  • Oracle, AZ, Synergetic Press, 1986, Template:ISBN, 86 pp.
  • tr. David B. Langmuir, ed. Mark A. S. McMenamin, New York, Copernicus, 1997, Template:ISBN, 192 pp.
• Essays on Geochemistry & the Biosphere, tr. Olga Barash, Santa Fe, NM, Synergetic Press, Template:ISBN, 2006

Diaries

• Dnevniki 1917–1921: oktyabr 1917-yanvar 1920 (Diaries 1917–1921), Kyiv, Naukova dumka, 1994, Template:ISBN, 269 pp.
• Dnevniki. Mart 1921-avgust 1925 (Diaries 1921–1925), Moscow, Nauka, 1998, Template:ISBN, 213 pp.
• Dnevniki 1926–1934 (Diaries 1926–1934), Moscow, Nauka, 2001, Template:ISBN, 455 pp.
• Dnevniki 1935–1941 v dvukh knigakh. Kniga 1, 1935–1938 (Diaries 1935–1941 in two volumes. Volume 1, 1935–1938), Moscow, Nauka, 2006, Template:ISBN,444 pp.
• Dnevniki 1935–1941 v dvukh knigakh. Kniga 2, 1939–1941 (Diaries 1935–1941. Volume 2, 1939–1941), Moscow, Nauka, 2006, Template:ISBN, 295 pp.

See also

• Gaia theory (science)
• Noosphere
• Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
• Prospekt Vernadskogo District
• Russian philosophy

Bibliography

• Template:Cite book
• "Science and Russian Cultures in an Age of Revolutions" Template:ISBN
• Template:Cite news

External links

• The grave of Vernadsky
• Behrends, Thilo, The Renaissance of V.I. Vernadsky, Newsletter of the Geochemical Society, #125, October 2005, retrieved 4 May 2024
• Vernadsky's biography
• Electronic archive of writings from and about Vernadsky (Russian) Электронный Архив В. И. Вернадского