Scientists and doctors
Volodymyr Vernadsky
March 12, 1863 — January 6, 1945
- Naturalist
- first Academy president
Founder of geochemistry and the biosphere concept. In Kyiv in 1918 he created the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences and the National Library that now bears his name.
Biography
Volodymyr (Vladimir) Vernadsky was born in St Petersburg on 12 March 1863, the son of the economist Ivan Vernadsky. He spent his childhood in Ukraine — in Poltava and Kharkiv — and visited Kyiv, where his grandmother lived in the Lypky district. He won world fame for his work in mineralogy, geochemistry and radiogeology, and for the concept of the biosphere.
On 9 May 1918, under Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky, Vernadsky came to Kyiv and stayed with the historian Mykola Vasylenko on Tarasivska Street. He chaired the commission that drafted the law founding the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences and the National Library of the Ukrainian State. The Academy opened at the end of 1918 with Vernadsky as its first president (1918–1921); in 1919 it acquired the building at 54 Volodymyrska Street that still houses its Presidium.
Vernadsky left Kyiv in 1919, served as rector of the Taurida University in Crimea in 1920 and returned to Petrograd in 1921; he died in Moscow on 6 January 1945. In Kyiv his name is borne by the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine (3 Holosiivskyi Avenue) and a boulevard in Akademmistechko, where a monument to him was unveiled in 1981. His portrait appears on Ukraine’s 1,000-hryvnia banknote.
Kyiv in their life
- Tarasivska Street — he lodged here with Mykola Vasylenko after arriving in May 1918.
- 54 Volodymyrska Street — the Academy’s building since 1919.
- Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine (3 Holosiivskyi Avenue).
- Vernadsky Boulevard (Akademmistechko) — named in 1973; monument (1981).
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