Fersman А.Е., (1883-1945), geochemist

Categories / Science. Education/Personalia
FERSMAN Alexander Evgenievich (1883-1945), geochemist and mineralogist, member (1919), vice-president (1927-29) and the Presidium member (since 1929) of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. He graduated from the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of Moscow University in 1907. He came to St. Petersburg in 1911. From 1912 to 1919, he held the professorship at the Higher Women's Courses (Bestuzhev Courses), working also as chief custodian of the Mineralogical Museum of the Academy of Sciences, which he headed in 1919-30. He initiated the establishment of the Commission for Raw Materials and Chemicals attached to the Committee for Military and Technical Assistance, which he chaired in 1915. At the same time he held the post of a secretary of the Commission upon the Study of Russian Natural Productive Resources attached to the Academy of Sciences. From 1919 to 1935, Fersman was a professor at Petrograd (Leningrad) University . The president of the Radium Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1922-26). From 1920 to 1928 he was president of the Institute of Geography, then, in 1927-34, he became the head of the Institute of Aerial Photography. He took part in the expeditions to Kola Peninsula, Tian Shan, Kyzyl- Kum and Kara Kum, the Urals, Transbaikalia and other regions of the country. He was one of the founders of geochemistry and one of the first to prove the necessity of application of geochemical prospecting for mineral deposits search. He wrote popular books and articles (Reminiscences about Minerals, 1940; Entertaining Mineralogy, Entertaining Geochemistry, 1948, etc.). He was awarded the Lenin Prize in 1929 and the Stalin Prize in 1942. The house, where Fersman lived from 1920 to 1936 (1/2 Lieutenant Shmidt Embankment), bears a memorial plaque.

References: Александр Евгеньевич Ферсман. 2-е изд., доп. М., 1964; Перельман А. И. Александр Евгеньевич Ферсман, 1883-1945. 2-е изд., перераб. и доп. М., 1983.

O. N. Ansberg. Fersman Alexander Evgenievich
Lenin (real name Ulyanov) Vladimir Ilyich
Stalin (real name Dzhugashvili) Iosif Vissarionovich
Leitenanta Schmidta Embankment/Saint Petersburg, city, house 1/2
Александр Евгеньевич Ферсман. 2-е изд., доп. М., 1964
Перельман А. И. Александр Евгеньевич Ферсман, 1883-1945. 2-е изд., перераб. и доп. М., 1983 Russian Academy of Sciences
Bestuzhev's Courses
Commission for the Study of Russian Natural Productive Resources,
State University, St. Petersburg
Khlopin Radium Institute