Balinsky Boris Ivanovich General data:
23.09.1905 - 01.09.1997
Place of birth: Kyiv City, Kyiv province, Russian Empire
Studied in: Mikhail Petrovich Drahomanov Higher Institute of Public Education, (since 1999 Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University) (1923-1928);
Key interests: observational astronomy, astronomy, theology
Biography:
He was born on September 10, 1905 (according to the Julian calendar or 23 Gregorian calendar) in Kyiv City of Kyiv province of the Russian Empire. He was the eldest son of a family history teacher and biology teacher.
The boy received a good upbringing, was interested in poetry, history, music. Boris took tennis lessons, played the piano, and admired Wagner's operas. From an early age he was fascinated by Ukrainian folk songs. Vacations were spent in the Severyntsi village which is 80 kilometers from Kyiv City, in the house of his maternal grandfather, who was a priest.
In 1923 the young man entered the Mikhail Petrovich Drahomanov Higher Institute of Public Education (since 1926 - Kyiv Institute of Public Education), where he studied zoology.
In 1925 he published his first scientific article, and in 1932 his monograph "On the development of the embryo from the egg" was published in Ukrainian. The following year, 1933, he became a professor of embryology at the university and at the same time deputy director of the Institute of Zoology of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR.
In 1936, his wife was arrested for "anti-Soviet activities." The young scientist is fired and fired. He managed to get a job at the Kyiv Medical Institute, where he was able to continue his scientific experiments. But with the outbreak of World War II, the medical institute was evacuated to Kharkiv. He moved there with his wife (released from the camps in March 1939) and BI Balinsky. The Kyiv Medical Institute was later evacuated to Chelyabinsk in connection with the German offensive, but the zoologist remained in German-occupied Kharkiv city. He became a professor of zoology, where in 1943 his wife died of peritonitis.
B, I/ Balinsky with his mother and nine-year-old son left the Soviet Union with the retreating German troops. He first moved to Poznan (the territory of Poland, which was under German occupation). Here the scientist got a job at the Institute of Fisheries. By the end of the war had to change residence several more times in Berlin, Tübingen, Heidelberg. Eventually, the Balinsky family found themselves in Munich, where the scientist became a professor of histology at the Provisional University, which was founded by the United Nations.
After the closure of the temporary university, B. I. Balinsky moved with his family (married for a long time) to Great Britain, where the scientist was hired at the Institute of Animal Genetics at the University of Edinburgh. In 1949, shortly after the birth of his daughter, the scientist was offered a position as a lecturer in the Department of Zoology at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa, where for five years B. I. Balinsky headed the Department of Zoology.
In 1956 he went on a research trip to the United States, to Yale University. During 1954-1973, the scientist held the position of Head of the Department of Zoology at the University of Witwatersrand, where since 1965 to 1967 he was Dean of the Faculty of Biology.
Until 1987, B. I. Balinsky headed the Department of Zoology at the University of Johannesburg city. He held the post of head of the St. Prince Vladimir Russian Orthodox parish in Johannesburg city. He also served as a reader during services at the Russian Church in Johannesburg city.
The scientist was one of the first to intensively use electron microscopic methods in his research in the field of embryology. The entomological heritage of the scientist is also not small, he discovered and described dozens of species of insects, mostly freckles, scale insects and dragonflies. He has published more than 140 scientific papers, 22 of them in Ukrainian, a number of books, mainly in the field of experimental embryology and entomology.
Since 1947 he has been a member of the International Institute of Embryology, the Royal Society of South Africa, chairman of the Zoological Section of the South African Association for the Development of Science; member of the Entomological Society of South Africa, chairman of which he was elected in 1966; He was the founder and eleven-year-old president of the South African Electron Microscopy Society from 1962 to 1973.
In addition to zoology, he was interested in playing the piano, painting, gardening and astronomy. As an amateur astronomer, he twice made astronomical observations of Halley's Comet.
He died on September 1, 1997 in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Sources:
1 ru.wikipedia.org
2 Профессор-эмбриолог, который любил музыку и астрономию, Юрий Салыга, 21 октября, 2005,
3 Balinsky's Darwinian roots/B. Fabian//S. Afr. j. sci. vol.105 n.11-12 Pretoria Nov./Dec. 2009
4 Русское Православие в Южной Африке (на примерах русской эмиграции XX в.)Материалы для биобиблиографического словаря/игумен Ростислав (Колупаев)
