Andrenko Leonid Leonidovich General data:
31.03.1903 - 25.11.1966
Place of birth: Zolochiv city, Kharkiv province, Russian Empire
Studied in: Academy of Theoretical Knowledge (since 1999 V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University) (1920-1926);
Key interests: astronomy
Biography:
He was born on March 31, 1903 Zolochiv of Kharkiv Province of Russian Empire in the family of a Zemstvo veterinarian of Kharkiv district.
In 1920 he graduated from the First Kharkiv Men's Gymnasium, the same year he entered the astronomical department of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the Academy of Theoretical Knowledge, which in 1921 was reorganized into the Kharkiv Institute of Public Education. Until 1926 he studied first at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics, and then at the Faculty of Geology and Geography.
Since the autumn of 1925 he has been working at the PF Lesgaft Scientific Institute in Leningrad.
During 1926-1931 he worked as a researcher in the astronomical department of this institution.
In 1926 he was elected a full member of the French Astronomical Society. In 1927 he was awarded commemorative gold and silver medals of the society for popularizing the ideas of the society. He was also invited to collaborate with the International Institute of Metaphysics in Paris and the International Biocosmic Association, of which he was soon admitted.
Influenced by the ideas of K. I. Tsiolkovsky, with whom he corresponded from March 1928, he became a member of the initiative group of the Committee for the Establishment of the International Institute for Interplanetary Communications in Paris city.
In 1928 he corresponded with V. I. Vernadsky. He asked the scientist to write a review of his monograph "Life in the Universe".
In February 1931 he was arrested by the United State Political Administration. He was accused of participating in a counter-revolutionary group in the Russian Society of World Studies and sentenced to 3 years serving a sentence in Eastern Siberia. On the eve of his active dissemination of the philosophical ideas of the French astronomer Camille Flammarion and literary research abroad.
While serving his sentence in Irkutsk, he continued his astronomical research at the jakutsk Hydrometeorological Institute. In November 1931 he was released early at the request of Academician M. O. Morozov. Only in September 1989 was he posthumously rehabilitated.
During 1932-1935 he was in Kharkiv city, where he promoted astronomical topics through lectures and publications, as well as giving radio lectures on All-Ukrainian radio. For a long time he worked at the Kharkiv Astronomical Observatory as a researcher-computer.
Since the autumn of 1936 to 1942 he was the director of the Second Astronomical Observatory in Odessa city.
In 1936 he was elected an Honorary Member of the Stuttgart Observatory in Germany.
In 1937, the astronomer-scientist was awarded the Honorary Diploma of the Greek Astronomical Society, the honor of the Czech Astronomical Society in Prague, as an "officer of the Academy" by the French "Order of Academic Palms".
On the eve of the Great Patriotic War of the USSR against Nazi Germany, which was part of World War II, was persecuted by fellow astronomers for their own "scientific views" and "original inventions." There were even attempts to ban his scientific activities as pseudo-scientific.
During World War II, he implemented his own scientific program of observations, heading a number of private astronomical stations in 1942-1943 in Krynica city and Krakow city in Poland, in 1944 in Lviv city, Warsaw city and Czestochowa city in Poland, also Plauet city in Germany, and in 1945 in Sigmarshgen city in Germany.
During 1946-1950 he continued his scientific work in private observatories in Germany of Iberlingen city and Sigmarshgen city.
In 1951, the scientist emigrated to the USA, where he worked at the private observatory of Columbia University in New York until the late 1950s. He publishes books in the genre of science fiction.
He died on November 25, 1966 in Manhattan State Public Hospital and is buried in the Russian Orthodox cemetery of the New Diveevo Monastery in Nanueta city, near New York city.
He is the author of more than 700 publications, most of which are popular science, collaborating with leading European, American and Latin American studios.
He left a small legacy as a talented artist. Participated in the design of one volume of Morozov M. O. "Christ", 1928, author and sculptor of the bust of Camilo Flpammarion, in 1932 made sketches for the bust of K. E. Tsiolkovsky, was the author of a number of astronomical maps and globes. He made a number of watercolor landscapes of Ukraine and Germany.
Sources:
1 Äî ³ñòî𳿠Õàðê³âñüêî¿ àñòðîíî쳿: Ëåîí³ä Ëåîí³äîâè÷ Àíäðåíêî (2017). Ìàòåð³àëè 16-¿ Âñåóêðà¿íñüêî¿ íàóêîâî¿ êîíôåðåíö³¿ «Àêòóàëüí³ ïèòàííÿ ³ñòî𳿠íàóêè ³ òåõí³êè» / ³äï. ðåä. Ë.Î.Ãð³ôô³í. Êè¿â: Öåíòð ïàì’ÿòêîçíàâñòâà ÍÀÍ Óêðà¿íè ³ ÓÒÎϲÊ, 23-27. / To the history of astronomy in Kharkiv: Leonid Leonidovich Andrenko
2 ×óâàêîâ Â. Í. Íåçàáûòûå ìîãèëû (Ðîñìéñêîå çàðóáåæüå: íåêðîëîãè 1917-1997) -Ò1- Ì. Ïàøêîâ äîì 1999- Ñ. 86
