Vladimir Vernadsky

   Vladimir Vernadsky - scientist-naturalist, founder of the Patriotic geochemistry and biogeochemistry, the teachings of biosphere and noosphere, academician, the first president of the Academy of Sciences of USSR (1918-1921).

    Vladimir Vernadsky was born on February 28 (March 12 - New Style) 1863 in St. Petersburg, still Ukrainian by origin. His ancestor Verna served on the side of the Cossacks during the liberation war of Ukrainian people 1648-1654 years; the children were the Cossacks elders. His great-grandfather was a zaporozhian cossack. His grandfather Vasyl earned nobility, since then appeared Vernadsky. His grandfather worked in the Kiev military hospital. His father V. Vernadsky (1821-1884) – was a pupil, then a professor of political economy and statistics at Kiev University, since 1850 - Professor of Moscow, in 1886 - the Main Pedagogical Institute and the Alexander Lyceum in St. Petersburg. His mother - Anna Petrovna (1837-1898) came from the family of Ukrainian officers  Konstantinovich, grew up in a private hostel in Kiev, and sang in the choir.

   In 1868 in connection with his father's illness, the Vernadsky family moved from St. Petersburg to Kiev, where I. Vernadsky got a job as director of the Kharkov Bank. He maintained friendly relations with leaders of Ukrainian culture. He was familiar with Taras Shevchenko, a friend of M. Maksymovych, K. Alchevskaya. Each summer the Vernadsky family spent on the estate of Ukrainian writer G. Kvitka-Osnovianenko. V. Vernadsky was the second cousin of V. Korolenko.

   In 1873 V. Vernadsky entered the Kharkov school. In 1876 he continued his studies at St. Petersburg High School. In 1885 he graduated from St. Petersburg University. In 1888-1890 he studied abroad. He worked in the mineralogical study of St. Petersburg University.

   In 1886 V. Vernadsky married Natalya Staritskaya. Wife’s father Egor Staritsky (1825-1899) was a lawyer, head of the Senate legislation also came from a Ukrainian Cossack and petty officers family. After retirement he settled in Poltava. Every summer Vladimir with his wife and children came to him.

   V. Vernadsky began his scientific activity in Poltava in 1883-1884 as part of the expedition of soil scientist Vasily Vasilyevich Dokuchaev. In 1890 the expedition route passed through Poltava and Kremenchug counties. The work was done by means of Poltava Province Zemstvo. V. Vernadsky continued to explore the grounds of Kremenchug county and even after funding was discontinued. He also expanded the program of researches. He started to chart not only soil samples, but the mounds. the map and few stone idols Vernadsky handed Poltava Museum, founded by Dokuchayev (donated 4 thousand soil samples, 500 rock samples and 800 sheets of the herbarium).

   Working as lecturer (from 1890), as a professor (since 1898) of Moscow State University, participating in expeditions, traveling abroad, V. Vernadsky visited Poltava annually. He lived in Poltava, and carried out tours in the vicinity of the city and remote areas, maintained close relations with the Poltava local boards and the Natural History Museum. On the instructions of the Zemstvos in 1901 he made several trips to areas of Poltava, Kremenchug, Lubny, studied the structure of Isachnivsky hill in the valley of the confluence of the Dnieper and its tributary Sula, near the village Isachok. In May 1904 Vernadsky toured the provinces of Poltava and Zhytomyr with two students.

   In 1913 V. Vernadsky settled in Shyshaky. He bought 12 acres of the household plots on the left bank of the river Psel, the so-called Butovo Mount (25 miles from Great Sorochintsy) and began building a house in the Ukrainian style designed by V. Krichevsky (was built by peasant of Shyhaky L.T. Serdyuk). The summer of 1914 Vernadsky moved into more rough housing (3 bedrooms downstairs, 7 - on the main floor and one - in the attic and at the end of the Civil War the house was looted and burned). In 1916 V. Vernadsky bought 4 acres of field land, which were cultivated with a son and a daughter.

   The summer months V. Vernadsky worked in Shyshaky. Here he began to write book about the role of living creatures in the geological history of the earth ("Living matter in the Earth's crust and its geochemical significance", the work was published in 1978). In August 1917 V. Vernadsky was summoned to Petrograd, but on November 22 mathematics department of the Academy of Sciences seconded to the South (due to ill health) to continue the scientific work on living matter. Settled in Poltava, where he lived until the fall of 1918, when he was called to Kiev to participate in the establishment of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences.

   Vernadsky combined intense theoretical work with field research and scientific popularization. In Poltava he organized a society for lovers of nature (1918), he was an active member of the Poltava Society "Prosvita". Vernadsky did not break off ties with Poltava and in subsequent years, particularly with the museum, helped it. This is confirmed by three letters addressed to the head of the department of nature N. Gavrylenko, stored in the Poltava museum.

   Vladimir Vernadsky died 6 January 1945 from a brain hemorrhage.

   In honor of the illustrious countryman, a genius scientist there is a memorial tablet in Poltava, was called a lane, opened a memorial sign in Shyshaky.

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