Konstantin Dorimedontowitsch Pokrowski

Konstantin Dorimedontowitsch Pokrowski

Konstantin Dorimedontowitsch Pokrovsky ( Russian Константин Доримедонтович Покровский * May 11. ^{. Jul} / 23. May  1868 ^greg. In Nizhny Novgorod , † 5. November 1944 in Kiev ) was a Russian astronomer , astrophysicist and university teachers .

Life

The priest's son Pokrovsky attended the humanistic high school in Nizhny Novgorod. He completed his subsequent studies in the mathematics department of the physical- mathematical faculty of Moscow University (MGU) in 1891 with a first class diploma. Then he was an unscheduled assistant at the Krasnopresnenskaya Observatory of the MGU. From October 1892 to July 1895 he taught at the Moscow Middle School. In addition, he headed the freely accessible private observatory of the trading house F. Schwabe from 1890 (until 1895).

In 1896 Pokrowski became an observing astronomer at the University of Dorpat . He joined the Nizhny Novgorod Circle of Friends of Physics and Astronomy (1897–1902), which was the first scientific astronomical society in Russia . In 1902 he defended his master's thesis on the formation of periodic comets . In 1906 he was elected professor of astronomy at the Free University in St. Petersburg without giving up his activity at the University of Dorpat. In 1907 he was elected associate professor at the University of Dorpat. 1908–1915 he was director of the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Dorpat. In November 1915 he received his doctorate in astronomy and geodesy from MGU after defending his dissertation on the structure of the comet's tail in 1910 . In 1916 he was appointed full professor at the University of Dorpat and immediately sent to Perm as acting rector to initially organize the new University of Perm as a department of the University of Petrograd . He was unanimously elected rector of the new university and held the office until 1918. One of his most famous students was Grigory Abramowitsch Schain . Pokrovski's successor as rector of Perm University was Nikolai Viktorovich Kultaschew .

After the October Revolution , Pokrovsky gave lectures on astronomy at Tomsk University from 1919 to 1920 . In 1920 he was elected senior astronomer at the Russian Main Astronomical Observatory (GRAO) in Pulkovo and senior head of the Military Geodesy Department of the Moscow Land Survey Institute . He became an honorary member of the Russian Society of Friends of Universe and co-editor of the Society's magazine. In January 1927 he was elected a Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (AN-SSSR, since 1991 Russian Academy of Sciences (RAN)). 1930–1932 he was Vice Director of the Pulkovo Observatory . At the same time he taught at the Military Engineering Academy , the Leningrad Mining Institute and the Herzen Institute of Education . Repeatedly he was the council chairman of the Association of Astronomers of the RSFSR .

In 1933 Pokrovsky became chairman of the Odessa department of the All-Russian Society for Astronomy and Geodesy. To this end, he was elected chairman of the Commission for the Construction of Planetariums in Ukraine , which is part of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic . In September 1934 he became director of the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Odessa (OGU). To this end, he headed the chair for astronomy from 1934 , where he set up an apprenticeship, and was dean of the physical-mathematical faculty of the OGU from 1937–1938 . The focal points of the investigation were the laws of motion of binary stars , the formation of meteors from comets , the sun during solar eclipses and the spectrometry of stars . He was an honorary member of the Russian Astronomical Society and the Moscow Society of Friends of Astronomy.

At the beginning of the German-Soviet war , Pokrowski could not be evacuated because of his age and the illness of his wife. He continued to work as director of the observatory and professor at the OGU. On September 15, 1943 Pokrowski gave a lecture on the painful sides of history in the Institute for Anti-Communist Propaganda (since October 1943 Institute for Social Sciences ) set up by the Romanian occupying power at the OGU in May 1943, with reference to the Pulkovo Affair 1936-1937 of the Pulkovo Observatory. After Odessa was retaken by the Red Army on April 10, 1944 , Pokrovsky was arrested on the night of May 10th, 1944 and accused of treason because of his lecture on September 15, 1943. On July 7, 1944, he was transferred to Kiev, where he died in the prison hospital. He was rehabilitated on July 27, 1993.

Since 1992 there has been a Konstantin Dorimedontowitsch Pokrovski scholarship at the University of Perm.

Honors, prizes

• Little Peter the Great Prize (1894)
• Nicholas II Prize (1894)
• Order of Saint Stanislaus III. Class (1901)
• Order of Saint Vladimir IV Class (1917)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Костицын В. И .: Покровский Константин Доримедонтович . In: Костицын В. И. Ректоры Пермского университета. 1916-2006 . 2nd Edition. Перм. ун-т., Perm 2006, ISBN 5-7944-0613-5 , pp. 25–28 ( psu.ru [PDF; accessed February 6, 2019]).
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Permski Krai: Покровский Константин Доримедонтович (accessed February 7, 2019).
3. ↑ ^{a b c d} Александр Бирштейн: Покровский Константин Дормидонтович (accessed February 7, 2019).
4. ↑ Список членов Русского Общества Любителей Мироведения, его научных корреспондентов, сотруденатов, сотруденатовй юнелеледнитовелелуднаблеле . Государственная типография им. Волковича. Ленинградский Гублит, 1927.
5. ↑ RAN: Покровский Константин Доримедонтович (accessed February 7, 2019).
6. ↑ ^{a b c} Smirnow WA : Астрономия в Одессе в 30–40-е годы XX века (по материалам архивно-следственных дел и дртукум) . Nauka , Moscow 2001, p. 170-190 .