Stratonov Vsevolod Viktorovich General data:
17.04.1869 - 06.07.1938
Place of birth: Odessa city, Kherson province, Russian empire
Studied in: Imperial Novorossian University, Odessa city, Russian Empire (since 2000 I. I. Mechnikov Odessa National University, Ukraine) (1886-1891);
Key interests: astrophysics, solar physics, photographic astrometry, stellar catalogues, variable stars, kinematics of the Galaxy, Galaxy structure, nebulae and galaxies, meteorology, popularization of astronomy
Biography:
He was born on April 4 (according to the Julian calendar or 17 according to the Gregorian calendar) on April 1869 in Odessa city of Kherson province of the Russian Empire in the family of the director of a classical gymnasium.
He spent his childhood in Katerynodar city (Krasnodar city in Russia since 1920), where the family moved in 1871 due to the fact that his father became a prosecutor of the Katerynodar District Court.
In 1886 he graduated with a gold medal from the Kuban Military Gymnasium.
In 1886 he entered the Imperial Novorossiysk University in Odessa, graduating in 1891 with a first degree diploma and a gold medal for the thesis "Passage tool and determination of geographical coordinates." He studied at the Faculty of Law for a year and moved to the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics. He was a student of O. K. Kononovich.
During 1891 - 1892 he worked at the Odessa Observatory, and then was sent to Pulkovo, where he worked for two years under the direction of F. A. Bredikhin. He was especially interested in astrophysics.
For some time he worked at the Novorossiysk Observatory.
During 1895-1904 he worked at the Tashkent Astronomical Observatory as an astrophysicist, the first civilian employee of the observatory (according to some data from 1908), where he was sent on the recommendation of Bredikhin F. A. According to some sources for some time, even held the post of director Tashkent Observatory. During this time, with the help of astrographs designed by him, he received more than 400 photographs of the starry sky, the Milky Way, including about 200 images of scattered and globular star clusters and nebulae, variable stars, the small planet Eros during its rapprochement with the Earth, the solar surface. He studied the nature of the Sun's rotation, the connection of scattered star clusters with the surrounding nebulae, and discovered stellar clouds in our Galaxy. In 1897, the scientist published a "memoir" on the rotation of the Sun, in which he concluded that there is no single law of rotation of the Sun, and each latitudinal belt has its own speed of rotation. "Memoir" was awarded the prize of Emperor Nicholas II.
In the stellar cluster of the Pleiades, he measured the stars' own motions, studied the "luminosity-spectrum" relationship, and the structure of the nebulae surrounding the bright stars, revealing their fibrous and sometimes ragged structure. He studied in detail the scattered star clusters χ and h of Perseus, spherical star clusters in Hercules and the Shield, the ring nebula in Lear, and more. Based on his statistical analysis of 900,000 stars from the Bonn and Cape surveys, the astronomer studied the distribution of Milky Way stars by galactic latitude and longitude, in particular, he derived his law of decreasing the number of stars in the Milky Way with latitude.
He also observed the Leonid meteor shower.
Even before the revolution of 1917 he left astronomy and worked as a director of a small bank, while being its founder in 1911. Eye disease was the reason why the scientist was forced to leave the job of astronomer-observer and moved to the Caucasus in Teflis city, according to some reports. as early as 1904, where he served as an official for special assignments under the governor, in particular he worked as vice-director of the chancellery in 1905-1911. Then he was a controller of the State Bank in Orel, Murom, Tver branches. At his own expense, he published several books on astronomy, in particular, the book "Sun" with numerous illustrations, published in 1910, was awarded the prize of the Russian Astronomical Society in 1914. The prize of the society was awarded to the book "Stars" in 1919.
After the February Revolution of 1917, more precisely in 1918-1920, he was a scientific adviser to the People's Commissariat for the publication of scientific literature.
In the autumn of 1918, the astrophysicist, among some other prominent Russian scientists, became a member of the organizing bureau organized in Moscow City on the instructions of the People's Commissariat of Education, later transformed into an organizing committee of Turkestan State University. in Tashkent, Turkestan University.
In 1918 he received the title of professor. He taught a course in general astronomy at Moscow State University in the 1920's. In 1920, the scientist was elected dean of the physics and mathematics department of Moscow State University.
In addition, during these years he headed the physics and mathematics department of the Main State Library in Moscow city.
In the early 1920s, a scientist proposed to build a large astrophysical observatory in southern Russia. Subsequently, on the basis of the organizing committee of the Main Astrophysical Observatory, founded on March 25, 1921, the State Astrophysical Institute was established with a suburban observatory in Kuchino, which in 1931 became part of the P. K. Sternberg State Astronomical Institute.
In September 1921, the chairman of the organizing committee of the Main Russian Observatory in Pulkovo, the dean of the physics and mathematics faculty of Moscow State University, was introduced to members of the Moscow Society of amateur of Astronomy.
In 1921, the scientist became one of the founders of the Russian Astrophysical Institute, which in 1923 was renamed the State Astrophysical Institute, and in 1931 became part of the State Astronomical Institute named after P.K. Sternberg at Moscow State University. He was its first director.
In February 1921, the situation at Moscow State University became sharply more complicated. The new charter of higher educational institutions, adopted by the People's Commissariat, the low rates of professors, the lack of devices in laboratories caused a wave of professorial strikes in Moscow universities. In 1921, he organized the strikes of professors at Moscow State University, organized to protest against government interference in the activities of the university. In August 1922, the professor was arrested, and in October 1922 he was deported from the USSR (he was among those who gave a commitment within a week to finish their work and go abroad). He briefly settled in Berlin city, where he participated in the organization of the Russian Scientific Institute. He later settled in Czechoslovakia.
He has published textbooks on astronomy and cosmography. He lectured at Prague educational institutions, in particular at the Russian People's University, the Czech Higher Technical School after obtaining Czechoslovak citizenship. He began lecturing on general and practical astronomy at the Czech Higher Technical School. In addition, he gave popular science lectures on astronomy in many cities not only in Czechoslovakia, but also in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. He created his theory of the universe.
He died on July 6, 1938 (some sources indicate 1939) in Prague city. In a state of nervous disorder, he committed suicide: he shot himself. And he was buried in Olshansky cemetery.
Areas of scientific work of astrophysics include the study of nebulae and star clusters, stellar statistics, the motion of small bodies in the solar system, solar physics.
Main publications:
1. Солнце / В. В. Стратонов. - Тифлис : Либерман и К°, 1910. - 242 с
2. Движение Земли / В. В. Стратонов. - Прага : ПЛАМЯ, 1926. - 120 с. : ил.. - (Общедоступная астрономия ; № 4)
3. Звезды / В. В. Стратонов. - М. ; Петроград ; Харьков : Изд-ие т-ва "В. В. Думнов, - наследн. Бр. Салаевых", 1919. - 340 с.
4. Стратонов В.В. Звезды. Астрономическая популярная монография.-Москва, Изд-во Кушнерев, 1919. - 351 с.
Sources:
1 Воронцов-Вельямінов Б. А. Астрономическая Москва в двадцатые годы // Историко-астрономические исследования. Москва: Наука, 1986.- выпуск XVIII. -С.347-348, 349, 359
2 Предварительный поисковый список астрономов, покинувших Россию в конце XIX - первой половине ХХ вв. /М.Ю. Сорокина, Г.А., Савина, Ю.В.Щепанская.- проект "Российское научное зарубежье: биобиблиографический словарь" -2009.-С.2-3
3 ru.wikipedia.org
4 Тимонин Е. И. Вклад русских учёных-эмигрантов в развитие естественных наук // Пространство культуры: исторические, философские, социально-антропологические аспекты: Материалы региональной научно-практической конференции под общ. ред. А. И. Барановского. — Омск: Изд-во Омского экономического института, 2008. — С. 143—144
