Vasily Dokuchaev
Vasily Dokuchaev is an outstanding scientist, naturalist, geologist and soil scientist. In the 1888-1894 years at the invitation of the Poltava Province Zemstvo he led an expedition which studied the soil, vegetation and geological conditions of Poltava. Drew soil maps of province. With the assistance of Vasily Dokuchaev created Poltava natural history museum (now - Poltava Museum). The museum collection served as the samples, which were found in the Poltava province during an expedition led by the professor. Among the participants of the expedition were the disciples of V. Dokuchaev, later world-famous natural scientists: academician Vladimir Vernadsky, Konstantin Glinka, Franz Levinson-Lessing.
Vasily Dokuchaev was born February 17 (March 1) in 1846 in the village Milyukovo Sychevsky county province of
Smolensk in the family of a village priest. The Dokuchaev family had seven children: three brothers and four sisters. His childhood Vasily Dokuchaev spent among the children of serfs belonging to the landlord. His father taught him to read, forced him to read independently all religious books, and when his son turned 11, gave him to Vyazma religious school, hoping that his son would follow his footsteps. From Vyazma Dokuchaev successfully was transferred to Smolensk, where he graduated in 1861 from religious school, then he entered the seminary.
Vasily Dokuchaev abandoned a cleric career, having entered the Physics and Mathematics at St. Petersburg University, dooming himself to half-starved existence.
Dokuchaev was given a diploma, which stated: "by submition the thesis was worthy the scientific degree of Candidate, in which he approved by the University Council on Sept. 20, 1871".
Scientific activities of Dokuchaev devoted mainly to study of the soil. From 1871 to 1877 years he has organized several tours through northern and central Russia and southern Finland, to study the geological structure, method and time of formation of river valleys and geology of the rivers.
This research had as result a substantial work: "Methods of formation of the river valleys of European Russia". In this work Dokuchaev hypothesizes: the origin of the river valleys associated with the activities of ravines and gullies.
In March 1872 Dokuchaev was elected a member of the St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists. In the summer of that year he was sent to Smolensk Province for the continuation of previously initiated investigations. In 1873, Dokuchaev became a member of St. Petersburg Mineralogical Society. Early next year he was elected secretary of the Division of Geology and Mineralogy, St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists. From the first of his research he tried not to study individual sciences, but the real problems of the knowledge of nature and human activities, involving for this diverse information. Most of all he was interested in dynamic geology, topography and the formation of new deposits.
In 1875 came the first major scientific work of V. Dokuchaev: "On the Draining of the Marshes in general and in Particular the Drainage of Polesie". Dokuchaev said he was considering the swamp from the viewpoint of a geologist, naturalist, as a phenomenon of nature.
Dokuchaev wrote noting the features of wetlands and emphasizing their role in nature: "Before we spend millions to drain the swamps, it is necessary to prove that the rivers that originate in the swamp, can do without it, otherwise we will have more labor and resources for irrigation of reclaimed sites".
Dokuchaev investigated the results of the expedition to drain Polesie and concluded that the justification of the project has not reasons. It was recognized that in Polesie problem is not in the restructuring of the landscape, but maintaining it.
In 1876 Dokuchaev made a long report "Projected Shallowing of the rivers of European Russia", he published an article about the formation and significance of ravines. Successfully defended his dissertation, Dokuchaev had the opportunity to give lectures on mineralogy and geology. In particular, he was perhaps the world's first read lectures on Quaternary geology and geomorphology, that is the formation of new deposits and the origin of the modern landscape.
In 1879 Dokuchaev was suggested the place of the head of the Department of Mineralogy of the St. Petersburg University. He became an assistant professor and since 1883 he was a professor. After that he had a possibility to escape from poverty, have his own science lab and students. However, mineralogist and geologist V. Dokuchaev did not like mineralogy, and even more so crystallography. Mineralogical works of Dokuchaev proved extremely fruitful, despite the fact that he treated them as matters of secondary importance to the occupation and not even bothered to design them in the form of solid scientific monograph. Very strange that Dokuchaev was not particularly fond of mental journeies in ancient geological times and the depth of the crust. He began his research on the relatively young sediments of mammoths (the ice age). He did not moved to the more ancient, but, conversely, to even more recent sediments, so that, finally, looked closely at the top of young natural formations.
In the years 1892-1893 Dokuchaev as a chief of special expedition of the forest department, supervised the geological and soil studies in the steppe areas of eastern Ukraine.
In the last three years of the XIX century in the last three years of active creative life of Vasily Dokuchaev, he made
three visits to the Caucasus and even was in the Karakum Desert.
His life ended tragically. From the end of 1900 he was hopelessly ill. He could not work, slowly and painfully lost his mind. V. Dokuchaev died in St. Petersburg on October 26 (November 8), 1903.
V. Vernadsky wrote: "In full consciousness of the horror opened before him, V. Dokuchaev tried in vain, already sick, to find salvation in a vigorous and broad scientific work, with a touching force turned mind and heart to the deepest mysteries of the human soul. It seemed as if he sought to contrast approaching disaster, all his forces, all of his personality".
V. Dokuchaev was buried at the Smolensk Lutheran Cemetery beside his wife, Anna Dokuchaeva Sinclair (1846-1897).
One of the streets of Poltava named after an eminent scientist. In the Donetsk region town Dokuchayevsk named after Vasily Vasilyevich.
