Otto Yulievich Schmidt is a hero, navigator, academician and educator. Newest discoveries (XX century): Otto Yulievich Schmidt About Schmidt, what did he discover?

The history of Soviet and Russian science knows many names of outstanding figures who dedicated their lives to it. Thanks to them, the level of technical progress in our country and the general education of its citizens were raised to the proper height. One of them was Schmidt Otto Yulievich, whose biography formed the basis of this article.

First steps into science

The famous Soviet scientist Otto Yulievich Schmidt was born on September 30, 1891 in Mogilev. His paternal ancestors were German colonists who settled in Livonia in the 18th century, and his maternal ancestors were Latvians. From early childhood, he showed extraordinary abilities, which, combined with perseverance and love of knowledge, brought brilliant results.

Having graduated from a classical gymnasium with a gold medal, and then in 1913 from the physics and mathematics department of Kyiv University, Otto Yulievich Schmidt received the right to remain within the walls of the educational institution and prepare to receive a professorship. During that period, the result of his work in the field of mathematics was a monograph published in 1916.

Social activities combined with science

As a person filled with a sense of civic duty, the young scientist could not stay away from the events that gripped the country in 1917. Without interrupting his scientific activities, Schmidt became involved in the work of the Ministry of Food created by the Provisional Government, and after the victory of the Bolsheviks he became part of the People's Commissariat of Food. At the same time he joined the ranks of the Russian Social Democratic Party.

In the 20s, Otto Yulievich Schmidt taught at various higher educational institutions in the country, and in 1929 he became the head of one of the departments at Moscow University. In parallel with this, he launched extensive activities in the field of public education. With his participation, centers for training qualified personnel for the country's enterprises were created, technical schools were opened and the higher education system was reformed. The fruit of his many years of work was the publication of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, of which he was the editor-in-chief.

From the Pamirs to the Arctic

While in Austria in 1924, where he was sent for treatment of chronic tuberculosis, Otto Yulievich Schmidt received a unique opportunity to graduate from mountaineering school. In those years she was the only one in the world. The skills acquired during his studies were useful to him during the international expedition to the Pamirs, which the Soviet scientist led in 1928. Participating in numerous ascents, he did a lot of work studying the glaciers that covered this vast mountainous country.

However, the main business of Otto Yulievich’s life was the development of the Arctic. He started working on it in 1929, and devoted the next decade to this activity. The whole country then, without stopping, followed the unprecedented, at that time, expeditions of three Soviet icebreakers - Sedov, Chelyuskin and Sibiryakov, also headed by Schmidt.

Three victorious expeditions to the Arctic

As a result of the first of them, carried out in 1929 on the icebreaker "Sedov", scientists managed to reach Franz Josef Land, where in Tikhaya Bay, under the leadership of Otto Yulievich, a polar geophysical observatory began work, which made it possible to study the straits and islands of the archipelago.

A year later, a new expedition was made. Otto Yulievich Schmidt and the scientists accompanying him then mapped five previously unknown islands, which later received the names Domashny, Dlinny, Isachenko, Voronin and Wiese. However, the true triumph of the explorers of the North was the transition they made in 1932. For the first time in the history of the expedition led by Schmidt, the icebreaker Sibiryakov managed to travel from Arkhangelsk to the Pacific Ocean during one navigation.

This achievement laid the foundation for the subsequent development of the Arctic in the interests of the national economy. Schmidt Otto Yulievich, who had headed the All-Union Arctic Institute since 1930, after an unprecedented voyage on the Sibiryakov, was appointed head of the Main Directorate that controls shipping along the Northern Sea Route.

The tragedy and feat of the Chelyuskinites

The name of Otto Yulievich is inextricably linked with the famous epic of the Chelyuskinites, which attracted the attention of the whole world in 1933. It began with the fact that at the beginning of the next navigation along the route previously traversed by the Sibiryakov, the Chelyuskin ship was sent under the command of O. Yu. Schmidt and V. I. Voronin. The purpose of the voyage was to test the possibility of using the transport fleet in the Arctic Ocean.

The crew consisted of 104 people, among whom, in addition to members of the ship's crew, were polar scientists with their families who were to land on Wrangel Island, as well as workers for the construction of all structures necessary in the conditions of the polar night. This voyage, which began quite happily, ended in tragedy. On one section of the route, the ship, unable to cope with strong winds and currents, was crushed by ice, and sank after a short period of time.

Rescue and return to homeland

Fortunately, none of the expedition members were injured. As witnesses of those events later said, Otto Yulievich Schmidt was the last to leave the doomed ship. The polar explorers had to spend two months on the ice floe before they were discovered and transported to the mainland by polar aviation pilots. All participants in the rescue of the Chelyuskinites were then presented with high government awards.

For Otto Yulievich, the result of a two-month stay among the polar ice was severe pneumonia, for which he went to Alaska to treat. After returning to his homeland, where he was greeted as a hero, Schmidt repeatedly gave reports in which he scientifically substantiated the further prospects for the development of the North. In 1937, for the exploration of the Arctic and the creation of a drifting scientific station, he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

last years of life

During the Great Patriotic War, Otto Yulievich supervised the evacuation of scientific institutions and the establishment of their work in the rear. During this period, tuberculosis, which had tormented him since childhood, worsened significantly and forced the scientist to spend a long time in various medical institutions. Despite all the doctors' efforts, Schmidt's condition deteriorated irreversibly. In recent years, he was practically confined to a hospital bed. On September 7, 1956, this outstanding man passed away, opening the path to science for many of his followers and students. His ashes rest at the Novodevichy cemetery in the capital.

Wife and children of an outstanding scientist

After Schmidt's death, his three sons remained. The eldest of them, Vladimir, was born from the marriage of Otto Yulievich with Vera Fedorovna Yanitskaya, who became famous as an outstanding teacher and psychoanalyst. Their son also made his contribution to science, becoming a professor and a candidate of technical sciences.

The mother of the second son Sigurd (photo is in the article) was Margarita Emmanuilovna Golosovker. A literary critic by training, she held a prominent position in the USSR Academy of Sciences. Sigurd Ottovich became a famous Soviet and Russian historian. He passed away relatively recently - in 2013.

And finally, Schmidt’s youngest son, Alexander, was born to a participant in the Chelyuskin expedition, Alexandra Alexandrovna Gorskaya. Like all the participants in that unforgettable epic, she was presented with a government award - the Order of the Red Star.

(1891-1956) - famous polar explorer.

He was an outstanding astronomer, mathematician, geophysicist, and explorer of polar latitudes.

In 1930, Schmidt went on the icebreaker Georgiy Sedov to Earth, where he organized a geophysical observatory. The following year, the icebreaker Georgy Sedov sails further into the unexplored northern regions. Here, in August 1930, the island of Wiese was discovered, named after the scientist, explorer, who theoretically predicted its location there. This expedition discovered many more islands.

Since 1930, O.Yu. Schmidt was appointed director of the Arctic Institute. In subsequent years, a lot of research work was carried out and polar stations were built.

In 1932, Schmidt decides to travel the route - the shortest distance between and off the coast - in one navigation. On July 28, the icebreaker Sibiryakov left Arkhangelsk. Schmidt decided to go around the high latitudes like no one had ever sailed. The expedition encountered heavy ice. The Sibiryakov lost its propeller blades, then the propeller shaft burst. The ship was made of tarpaulin and sails were set. The icebreaker entered the strait, completing this path for the first time in history in one navigation.

In 1933, Schmidt led an expedition on the icebreaker Chelyuskin to once again travel the Northern Sea Route without wintering and finally convince those who did not believe in the feasibility of developing the route. An authoritative commission, which included leading shipbuilders, considered the ship unsuitable for long-distance voyages, nevertheless, the icebreaker “Chelyuskin” went on an Arctic voyage with over a hundred people on board. The steamer reached the strait, but here it was frozen and carried far to the north, to the center. After a hard winter, the ship was crushed by ice. This happened on February 13, 1934.

The inevitable happened: the left side of the Chelyuskin was torn apart by ice. This is how the radio operator of the ship later described this picture: “In the gray twilight, a terrible thing happened - our ship, our home was dying... Gnashing, roaring, flying debris, clouds of steam and smoke...” During the disaster, one person died, who did not have time to jump onto the ice floe. Everyone else found themselves in relative safety in the Schmidt ice camp. In the foreign world, few people doubted the tragic outcome - the inevitable death of 104 Chelyuskinites. But their courage and endurance, the great organizational talent of O.Yu. Schmidt and his assistants helped people find peace and hope.

There was not a single sign of panic on the ice floe; scientific research continued around the clock according to the broadest program. People living in tents on meager rations did not lose their presence of mind. Salvation came to them from heaven. Civilian and military pilots rushed to help people. On April 13, exactly two months after the death of the ship, the last Chelyuskin was brought ashore.

Under the leadership of O.Yu. Schmidt, the first drifting polar station “-1” was organized. On June 6, 1937, her crew began drifting in the Arctic ice. This expedition marked the beginning of a new stage in.

In 1944, O.Yu. Schmidt developed. Its occurrence was due to the fact that new data appeared that were difficult to explain using the Kant-Laplace hypothesis. A new hypothesis was needed that would explain these data. It was developed by V.G. Fesenko and O.Yu. Schmidt. According to this theory, the Earth and other celestial bodies of the solar system were formed from cold space and dust, which had a disk shape. The movement of the cloud around its axis led to its compaction and the formation of celestial bodies. After the formation of the Earth, its heating and massive outpouring of lava began, which led to the appearance of primary lava and the formation of primary lava. The formation of the primary atmosphere provoked rainfall and the formation of the primary ocean.

O.Yu. Schmidt’s services to the fatherland are great, and the peninsula in the northern part, the peak and the pass, and other objects are named after him.

The foreign press called him Red Columbus. Otto Yulievich's father was not a captain. And Schmidt himself could rather become a tailor and shoemaker, but not a scientist and traveler. But he was lucky: his relatives jointly decided to educate the gifted boy, no matter the cost.

He was born in 1891. Otto was not yet 18 years old when he was seized by the idea of ​​becoming a scientist. The future mathematician and researcher approached his dream from the point of view of accurate and scrupulous calculation - he decided to compile a list of necessary literature with an approximate number of pages and hours. The young mathematician was in for deep disappointment - no human life would be enough to complete his planned program - after all, it would have taken him 1000 years to read the most necessary and educational things!

In his first year at university, he wrote a scientific paper that got mathematicians talking about it. Lenin appointed Schmidt a member of the board of the People's Commissariat for Food, and then a member of the board of the Commissariat of Finance. Schmidt understood finance very quickly, even wrote a scientific work “Mathematical Laws of Money Issue” and derived several special formulas.

In 1926, Franz Josef Land was declared the territory of the USSR; all that remained was to hoist the flag and establish a polar station.

In 1929, the “red academician” received an offer from the Soviet government to lead an expedition to the Arctic. The goal of the expedition is to reach Franz Josef Land, deliver winterers there and organize the northernmost scientific station. Schmidt was appointed both the head of the expedition and the government commissioner of the Franz Josef Land archipelago, as well as other islands that the expedition could discover within the borders of the USSR.

On the first day of the voyage we crossed the Arctic Circle. The further they went north, the thicker the ice fields became with hummocks randomly piled on them. It became difficult to navigate - the seafarers’ ship, the Sedov, is not an icebreaker, but an “icebreaking steamer”, five times smaller in size than the Krasin.

It happened that during an entire shift - four hours - at the cost of enormous efforts and a large amount of coal burned in the furnaces, the icebreaking steamer "Sedov" made its way only to the hull. Off the coast of Franz Josef Land, Otto Yulievich could have died more than once. Before sailing to the mainland, Schmidt decided to once again check whether the polar explorers were well accommodated. He was about to head back to the icebreaker when the wind blew heavy ice floes into the bay. The icebreaker was maneuvering far from the shore and could not approach - there were shoals near the shore. Schmidt decided to travel without a boat. He took the hook and began to jump from one ice floe to another. Sometimes he swam on an ice floe, pushing off with a hook. The ship sent a boat to help him. Schmidt jumped into the boat and it immediately capsized. A larger boat was lowered from the ship and the academician was brought on board.

On July 28, Franz Josef Land appeared. The station was set up on Cape Sedov, under a cross erected by Sedov himself.

On August 21, “Sedov” set out on a scientific voyage to the Far North. The ship sailed towards the 83rd parallel and reached 82° 14 north latitude. This is how the world record for swimming in the Eurasian sector of the Arctic was broken. 700 kilometers separated Sedov from the North Pole.

Suddenly, the ship was captured by ice, and Schmidt and a group of volunteers decided to get to Franz Josef Land on foot. 28 hours of wandering on drifting ice did not yield any results. The ice carried further and further from the shore, and the waters became wider and wider. The hope of salvation was disappearing every minute. And only by a miracle, “Sedov” escaped from the icy captivity and saved Schmidt and his companions.

On August 30, “Sedov” set off on its return journey. Ice hampered progress, and Schmidt proposed an original solution - to go south through north. This roundabout path turned out to be difficult, but passable. By the end of the voyage, the ship was extremely worn out.

On September 11, 1929, Schmidt's first Arctic campaign ended. And when the government decided to concentrate all Arctic research in one institution and created the Arctic Institute, Schmidt was appointed director of this institute. During the second Arctic expedition, Schmidt decided to land a group of volunteers on Severnaya Zemlya for a period of two years.

The second voyage of the Sedov from Arkhangelsk was supposed to solve much more complex problems: again it was necessary to reach the shores of Franz Josef Land, replace the winterers delivered there and expand the station.

The icebreaker "Sedov" left Arkhangelsk on July 15, 1930. First, he entered Franz Josef Land in Tikhaya Bay and replaced the winterers. After Tikhaya Bay, the icebreaker set off for Severnaya Zemlya. Then they found out that Severnaya Zemlya is not an island, but an archipelago.

Two years later, Schmidt returned for the winterers on the icebreaker Sibiryakov, replaced the winterers and decided to go around Severnaya Zemlya from the north. Schmidt had a map of the archipelago compiled by the expedition.

However, the ship was covered in ice; the ice ahead along the course was blown up with dynamite. The coal has run out. But the Sibiryakov circled Severnaya Zemlya because Schmidt suggested setting sail. And on October 1, at 14:45, the icebreaker Sibiryakov, under sail, entered the Bering Strait and entered the Pacific Ocean. For the first time in the history of mankind, the entire Great Northern Sea Route was covered in one navigation. On October 1, 1932, Schmidt turned 48 years old.

“Sibiryakov” was solemnly greeted in all ports, and in Japan a new shaft was installed for her. For the first time, this expedition managed to overcome the Northern Sea Route from Arkhangelsk to the Bering Strait in one navigation.

Schmidt again celebrated his next birthday in the ice on the Chelyuskin steamship. Almost a hundred years before this voyage, the navigator of the Russian fleet Semyon Chelyuskin was the first European to reach the northernmost point of the Asian continent, named Cape Chelyuskin in his honor. The ship was also named after that.

Breakdowns of the Chelyuskin began in the Baltic Sea, and when the ship fell into the ice of the Kara Sea, rivets immediately flew out, several seams came apart, and such a crack appeared in the ship’s hull that people passed mittens through it to each other. Everyone believed that icebreakers would guide the Chelyuskin through the difficult ice. But the Krasin's shaft broke, and the Litke ice cutter suffered an accident. And “Chelyuskin” went all the way on his own. The ship was dragged by ice for several months. Schmidt had no doubt that “Chelyuskin” would be crushed by ice, but he hid it from everyone.

This happened on February 13th. It was very difficult to save the Chelyuskinites: the ship sank in an area of ​​the Arctic Ocean where neither icebreakers nor planes could reach in winter. Schmidt organized the construction of a camp and an airfield, and gave lectures in the evenings.

“What would an Englishman do in Schmidt’s place? - Lloyd George said to the Soviet ambassador, Academician Maisky. - Well, of course, to maintain the spirit of his comrades, he would load them with work. I would take up sports, hunting... But read lectures! Only a Russian could have thought of this!”

Cracks split the ice floe. One of them broke the barrack in half. People built ice bridges across the cracks. On April 7, the planes of Slepnev, Molotkov and Kamanin landed on an ice floe. Women and children flew first, Schmidt decided to fly last. The planes were small. The pilots loaded people not only into tiny cabins, but even into plywood boxes that were tied under the wings.

Ice was advancing on the camp again. Schmidt became seriously ill; he lay in the headquarters tent and continued to supervise all work in the camp.

“The camp director must be the last to fly,” he said.

And only by order of the government did Schmidt agree to fly to an American hospital in Alaska. He was carried to the airfield on a stretcher.

After the rescue of Chelyuskin, polar aviation appeared in the North.

Schmidt dreamed of serious scientific work at the Pole. To do this, you need to live near the pole, live for a long time, several months. Schmidt selected people for the expedition himself. The government began to doubt whether Schmidt himself should be allowed to go to the Pole? But he went on strike: he could not leave people at the Pole without living in their tent for at least a few days. Schmidt lived with the Papaninites for 16 days.

On May 21, 1937, the first heavy four-engine aircraft, the flagship of the Soviet air expedition headed by Professor O. Yu. Schmidt, reached the North Pole, flew a little further and landed on an ice field at 89°26 north latitude and 282° east longitude. On this day, the North Pole station was organized.

May 26 - June 5, the remaining planes of the polar squadron landed on the same ice field. They delivered the necessary materials and supplies to the organized station.

The organization of the North Pole station with the help of heavy aircraft was a great achievement. Soviet pilots began landing on ice fields at the throat of the White Sea back in 1927. But the state of the ice near the pole was almost unknown. When organizing the North Pole station, heavy aircraft made thirteen accident-free landings and ascents from ice fields both in the area of ​​the pole itself and between 84 and 85° north latitude. It was a triumph of Soviet science and Soviet technology.

On June 6, all the planes flew back to the mainland, leaving the winterers on the ice. Soviet polar explorers not only reached the North Pole, but also, for the first time in the history of the Arctic, organized a well-equipped scientific station there.

Before the organization of the North Pole station, little was known about the movement of ice in the polar region. It was assumed that the station would remain here for about a year, after which it would be removed by the same aircraft. But reality did not live up to these expectations.

The ice field on which the station was built began to move - slowly at first, and then faster and faster - towards the strait between Greenland and Spitsbergen, and then into the Greenland Sea. The North Pole station has turned into a real expedition.

On February 19, 1938, when the station was located at 70°47 north latitude and 340°12 east longitude, the winterers of this station were removed from the almost broken ice field by the approaching icebreaking steamships "Taimyr" and "Murman". In total, the station's drift lasted 274 days over a distance of about 2,100 kilometers, if we count in a straight line.

As a result of the work of the North Pole station, it was established that there are not and cannot be any islands or lands in the area of ​​the North Pole; the topography of the seabed was studied throughout the entire drift; it has been established that warm Atlantic waters penetrate deep from the Greenland Sea to the Pole; assumptions about the almost complete lifelessness of the polar region have been refuted; The movement of ice and upper (up to 900 meters) layers of water under the influence of wind was studied. Gravimetric and magnetic observations provided valuable results. Meteorological observations destroyed previous ideas about the structure and circulation of the atmosphere in the polar regions; in particular, they showed that cyclones, at least in the summer, break through to the pole every now and then, while some suggested that an area of ​​​​high pressure constantly remains above the pole.

Observations of the drift and behavior of the ice fields of the Central Arctic are of great importance - practical and theoretical. The very fact that the winterers ended up south of 71° north latitude after 9 months, contrary to the assumption that they would spend about a year in high latitudes, proves how erroneous were the ideas about the movement of ice in the Arctic basin.

O. Yu. Schmidt led several polar expeditions to open the Northern Sea Route. Schmidt's greatest achievement was the preparation and organization of the first drifting stations led by Papanin.

In 1939, Schmidt was elected first vice-president of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He founded the Institute of Geophysics of the Earth and was the creator and editor of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia. Schmidt Otto Yulievich died in Moscow in 1956. In the last years of his life, the scientist developed a new version of the origin of the Earth.

Otto Yulievich Schmidt(September 18, 1891, Mogilev - September 7, 1956, Moscow) - Soviet mathematician, geographer, geophysicist, astronomer. Explorer of the Pamirs (1928), explorer of the North.

Professor (1924). Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences (06/01/1935, corresponding member from 02/01/1933), Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (05/27/1934), Hero of the Soviet Union (1937).

Biography

The paternal ancestors were German colonists who moved to Livonia (Latvia) in the second half of the 18th century, and the maternal ancestors were Latvians with the surname Ergle. As a child, he worked in a writing instruments shop. He studied at the classical Mogilev men's gymnasium (now gymnasium No. 3 of Mogilev). Money for the gifted boy’s education in the gymnasium was found from his Latvian grandfather Fricis Ergle.

Student at Kyiv University

He graduated from high school in Kyiv with a gold medal (1909). He graduated from the physics and mathematics department of Kyiv University, where he studied in 1909-1913. After graduating from the university, he was left to prepare for a professorship and, under the guidance of Professor D. A. Grave, began his research in group theory. Since 1916, private assistant professor at Kyiv University.

From October 1917, head of the product exchange department of the People's Commissariat of Food, in 1918-1920 member of the board of the People's Commissariat of Food. In 1918 he joined the RSDLP (internationalists), in 1918-1919 a member of the Central Committee. In 1919, together with the entire party, he was accepted into the RCP (b), while his time in the internationalist party was counted in his party experience.

In 1928, O. Yu. Schmidt took part in the first Soviet-German Pamir expedition, organized by the USSR Academy of Sciences. The purpose of the expedition was to study and climb the highest peaks of the Western Pamirs.

One of the founders and editor-in-chief of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1924-1942).

In 1929 he founded the Department of Higher Algebra at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Moscow State University (since 1933 - Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University), which he headed until 1949.

In 1930-1934 he led the famous Arctic expeditions on the icebreaking ships Sedov, Sibiryakov and Chelyuskin. In 1930-1932 - director of the All-Union Arctic Institute, in 1932-1938 - head of the Main Directorate of the Northern Sea Route (GUSMP).

Contribution to science

He developed a cosmogonic hypothesis for the formation of solar system bodies as a result of the condensation of a circumsolar gas-dust cloud. Works on higher algebra (group theory). Contributed to the study of the northern polar territories. In 1932, he was the head of an expedition on the icebreaking steamship Sibiryakov, which made the first voyage in history along the Northern Sea Route in one navigation. The initiator and ideological inspirer of the creation of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, was the editor-in-chief on behalf of the government of the Soviet Union. He was the initiator of the creation of the Academic Institute of Geophysics.

Family

Otto Schmidt has three sons, Vladimir, Sigurd and Alexander:

• Vladimir Ottovich Schmidt (March 2, 1920 - December 25, 2008) - candidate of technical sciences, professor. Mother - Vera Fedorovna Schmidt; sister of the librarian, bibliologist, bibliographer, historian, geographer, statistician, doctor of geographical sciences, professor Nikolai Fedorovich Yanitsky.
  • Daughter - Vera Vladimirovna Schmidt (February 3, 1944 - November 7, 2014) - pediatrician.
  • Son - Fyodor Vladimirovich Schmidt (b. October 3, 1946) - proctologist.
• Sigurd Ottovich Schmidt (April 15, 1922 - May 22, 2013) - Soviet and Russian historian. Mother - Margarita Emmanuilovna Golosovker (April 19, 1889 - November 8, 1955), museum and literary critic, head of the artistic illustration sector of the Institute of World Literature of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1935-1949), author of the monograph “M. Yu. Lermontov: life and creativity" (M.: Iskusstvo, 1941); sister of the philosopher and translator Ya. E. Golosovker.
• Alexander Ottovich Schmidt (September 15, 1934 - June 11, 2010). Mother - Alexandra Aleksandrovna Gorskaya (1906-1995), a participant in the expedition on the steamship "Chelyuskin" (listed as a cleaner), awarded the Order of the Red Star.

Geographical objects bear the name of the scientist (an island in the Kara Sea, a cape and a village on the coast of the Chukchi Sea, a peak and pass in the Pamirs, a plain in Antarctica), an icebreaker for research purposes, minor planet No. 2108 (asteroid Otto Schmidt), a crater on the Moon, Russian- German laboratory at the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, streets in populated areas. O.Yu. Schmidt achieved worldwide recognition in various fields of science, but for him these were interconnected areas of a single Science. Schmidt's creative activity is characterized by the strict logic of a mathematician, the breadth of horizons of a scientist-encyclopedist, the romance of a pioneer traveler, the practical determination of an enterprising public and statesman, and the inspiration of an educator. He was gifted with both the talent of theoretical abstract thinking and the ability to realize his plans in concrete practice. He was not afraid of risk. The scale of his interests and abilities are amazing; his favorite images of the Past were Leonardo da Vinci, Lomonosov, Goethe, and he himself was compared to the titans of the Renaissance, both in terms of the significance of what he created and in the way he behaved in life.

Otto Yulievich was born in 1891 in the Belarusian city of Mogilev. His paternal ancestors were German farmers who moved to Courland (Latvia) in the second half of the 18th century, and his maternal ancestors were Latvians from a neighboring farm. As a boy, he showed extraordinary curiosity and a desire for knowledge, which amazed his grandfather, on whose farm the family visited every summer. At the family council, the father of Otto Yulievich’s mother said: “If we all work out, we will be able to send him to study at a gymnasium, and not to a craft.” Due to family moves, the boy studied at gymnasiums in Mogilev, Odessa and Kyiv. In 1909, Otto Yulievich graduated from the Kyiv Classical Gymnasium and entered the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Kyiv University. While still a student, he received a prize for a mathematical work written under the guidance of D.A. Grave, and upon graduation in 1913 he was left at the University “to prepare for a professorship.” In 1916, he published the monograph “Abstract Group Theory,” which became a fundamental work in this area of ​​mathematics. The young private assistant professor distinguished himself both as an organizer of science and as a public figure, heading the association of scientific youth of the university (“Young Academy”), which sought to reform higher education. At the same time, he became an employee of the Kyiv city government, taking charge of providing the population with food. In the summer of 1917 O.Yu. were sent to Petrograd as a delegate to the congress on higher education affairs, and at the same time to organize the supply of food and manufactured goods to the population. Soon he became an employee of the Ministry of Food of the Provisional Government.

Otto Yulievich welcomed the October Revolution and prevented sabotage in this ministry. With the formation of the People's Commissariat for Food O.Yu. became head of the Product Exchange Department and moved to Moscow with the government. Time demanded, according to O.Yu., instead of mathematical formulas, to master the “military weapon of the algebra of the revolution.” O.Yu. Schmidt worked as a member of the boards of the People's Commissariats of Food, Finance, and Education. Turning to financial problems, O.Yu. for the first time in Russian science he studied the laws of the emission process (article 1923 “Mathematical laws of money emission”). Since 1920, he resumed teaching mathematics at universities; since 1929, he has been a professor at Moscow University, where he headed the department of algebra and created a scientific school on group theory. For his mathematical works in 1933, he was elected a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The most diverse and effective in the 1920s were his activities in the field of education: organizing vocational education for school-age youth, creating technical schools, providing advanced training for workers in plants and factories, restructuring school education, and reforming the university system. It was he who introduced the word “graduate student” into use.

In 1921-1924 O.Yu. was the head of the State Publishing House. Under his leadership, the world's largest publishing house was formed, which set “not commercial goals, but cultural and political ones.” The publication of scientific journals and research monographs has also resumed. At the same time, the plan to prepare a large reference publication began to be implemented, uniting, according to Schmidt himself, “the enlightenment of our era” - the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, of which he was appointed editor-in-chief in 1925. The preparation of this multi-volume publication brought together the efforts of scientists and cultural figures, specialists from older, pre-revolutionary generations and their followers (“specialists”), those who were convinced of the need for socialist transformations. The encyclopedia, which arose from his idea, O.Yu. He devoted a lot of effort: he edited and wrote articles even on expeditions.

It is clear that such work contributed to increased interest in problems of natural science and the history of science, and O.Yu. heads the section of natural and exact sciences at the Communist Academy, gives lectures on the history of these sciences. O.Yu. was a born lecturer and loved this activity, giving lectures and reports on a variety of topics both to a wide audience and at scientific conferences, meetings of government agencies, as well as in German to workers of the Comintern. The need to briefly and clearly substantiate scientific positions in lectures, in his opinion, stimulated and facilitated research work. He also considered it important to form teams of like-minded scientists working on various problems.

Even in his youth, O.Yu. fell ill with pulmonary tuberculosis, and the disease worsened every 10 years. In 1924, he was given the opportunity to go to Austria for treatment, where he attended a mountaineering school in Tyrol. In 1928, Otto Yulievich, as the leader of a mountaineering group as part of a Soviet-German expedition, explored the glaciers of the Pamirs. In 1929, he was appointed head of an expedition to Franz Josef Land to consolidate the sovereignty of the USSR in this territory. This expedition on the icebreaker "Sedov", as well as the 1930 expedition on the same icebreaker again to Franz Josef Land and then to Severnaya Zemlya, allowed him to appreciate the importance of polar research and the possibilities of sailing in those latitudes. Therefore, it became quite natural for O.Yu. organizing an expedition with the goal of passing through the Northern Sea Route in one navigation. This was first carried out in 1932 on the icebreaker Sibiryakov under the leadership of O.Yu. and captain V.I. Voronin.

The success of the expedition (for which its leaders were among the first to be awarded the Order of Lenin) proved the possibility of active economic development of the Arctic. For the practical implementation of this opportunity, the Main Directorate of the Northern Sea Route (GUSMP, Glavsevmorput) was created. O.Yu. was appointed his boss. The GUSMP was entrusted with the development and technical equipment of the Northern Sea Route, exploration of the subsoil of the polar territories, and organization of diverse scientific work. The construction of weather stations along the coast, the development of radio communications, polar aviation, and the construction of icebreakers and ice-class vessels began.

To test the possibility of sailing transport ships across the Arctic Ocean in 1933, the steamship (not icebreaker) Chelyuskin, headed by O.Yu., was sent along the route of the Sibiryakov. and V.I. Voronin. The expedition involved scientists of various specialties; it was also supposed to land a group of winterers with their families on Wrangel Island; There were also carpenters on the ship, sent to build houses for the winterers. In conditions of unusually heavy ice conditions, the Chelyuskin made its way into the Bering Strait, but was unable to enter the Pacific Ocean: winds and currents pulled it, along with the ice field, back into the Kara Sea. Wintering the ship became inevitable. On February 13, 1934, the ice broke the side and two hours later the Chelyuskin sank. During this time, pre-prepared emergency supplies were unloaded onto the ice. There were 104 people on the ice, including 10 women and two small children (Karina Vasilyeva was born in the Kara Sea, which is why she received her name). “The Chelyuskin Epic” - the epic of the life of the Chelyuskin residents in the ice “Schmidt Camp” and their rescue by the pilots - shocked the whole world, and O.Yu. then became world famous. They wrote abroad that Schmidt’s name was “inscribed in the golden book of science”, “the entire world press wrote about his extraordinary adventures in the style of Jules Verne” (reported in the Izvestia newspaper on June 3, 1934).

Maintaining discipline and good spirits on the ice floe was largely the merit of the “ice commissar”, who not only enjoyed authority among the Chelyuskinites, but also gained their love. O.Yu. and in the camp he continued to give lectures, the variety of topics of which is characteristic of his erudition and educational inclinations: about modern problems of the natural and social sciences, about historical materialism, the teachings of Freud, the national question, the tasks of developing the Arctic, Russian and foreign literature... O .YU. taken to the USA, where he met with President Roosevelt and many scientists. His return through Europe to Russia and, especially, the return of the Chelyuskinites by train from Vladivostok to Moscow, the ceremonial meeting and rally on Red Square with the participation of the country's leaders were triumphant. All Chelyuskinites were awarded the Order of the Red Star, and the pilots who saved them were the first to be awarded the title “Hero of the Soviet Union,” which was approved at that time.

O.Yu. Schmidt became a Hero of the Soviet Union in 1937, when he organized an expedition to the North Pole to create the first drifting station there, later called “SP-1”. This idea was born among the Chelyuskinites back in the “Schmidt Camp”, and it is no coincidence that of the four participants drifting on SP-1, two - E.T. Krenkel and P.P. Shirshov - were both Siberian and Chelyuskinites, and from four aircraft commanders who landed at the Pole for the first time, two - M.V. Vodopyanov and V.S. Molokov - rescued the Chelyuskinites. The entire organization of the expedition, both in the preparation process and during its conduct and rescue, was led by O.Yu. 1937 is the second peak of his fame. For the authority of O.Yu. at that time, it was indicative of his appointment as deputy chairman of the Central Election Commission for elections to the first Supreme Soviet of the USSR, although no less significant is the fact that he was never elected to the highest party bodies.

In 1935, for services in the field of geography O.Yu. elected academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences in the Department of Mathematical and Natural Sciences. He also gives reports on scientific results and prospects for the development of the Arctic. He was approved as chairman of the geographical group of the Academy of Sciences, under which a geophysical section was created. In 1937, at the initiative of O.Yu. The Institute of Theoretical Geophysics of the USSR Academy of Sciences was created, of which he himself became the director. In 1946, this institute was merged with the Seismological Institute into the Geophysical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences (GEOFIAN), and O.Yu. he headed it until 1949. Later, part of the Geophysical Institute was transformed into the Institute of Earth Physics named after O.Yu. Schmidt.

In January 1939 O.Yu. elected first vice-president of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He did a lot to reorganize the work of academic institutions both in the original centers - Moscow and Leningrad, and on the periphery to implement research results into practice, attract young scientists to academic research, and popularize scientific knowledge. Since the beginning of the Great Patriotic War O.Yu. supervised the evacuation and establishment of activities of academic institutions in the new environment.

Back in 1923 O.Yu. took part in the work of the Special Commission for the study of the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly. Having mathematically processed the data from instrumental measurements, he showed that there is no large ore body in that area. Interest in geophysics led to a desire to understand the process of the emergence of the Earth and other planets, the patterns of their physical and other characteristics. Gradually, the foundations of cosmogonic theory were formed, the in-depth development of which he had the opportunity to engage in after J.V. Stalin removed O.Yu. in March 1942. from the leadership of the Academy of Sciences; he soon ceased to be the editor-in-chief of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia.

A group of employees was created as part of the Institute of Theoretical Geophysics, which in 1945 became, under the leadership of Otto Yulievich, the “Department of Earth Evolution.” Based on his hypothesis, O.Yu. laid the idea of ​​an initially cold Earth, accumulated from small solid bodies. Explaining the mechanism of its formation, he put forward the hypothesis of the capture of a preplanetary swarm by the Sun and then mathematically proved the fundamental possibility of capture in a three-body system. This hypothesis made it possible to explain the contradiction between the concentration of almost the entire mass of the Solar System at its center, but almost the entire angular momentum at its periphery.

Reported to the scientific community for the first time in 1943, the hypothesis was not immediately accepted; some of its provisions (swarm capture) aroused criticism from astronomers. But O.Yu. with collaborators, primarily B.Yu. Levin and G.F. Hilmi, successfully continued to develop it and considered it necessary to summarize it in “Four Lectures on the Origin of the Earth,” which he read at the Geophysical Institute in 1948 and published in 1949 d. This book was republished in 1950, and then in a revised form in 1957. It was this 3rd edition, translated into English, that was published in London (publishing house 1-a\otepse apo UU|zpaP) in 1959. The seriously ill scientist devoted most of his strength to this work. He wrote his last article a month before his death.

Currently, the theory of the origin of the Earth and planets, the development of which was started by O.Yu., continues by his employees and their students, is generally recognized in the world. This recognition was facilitated by the only correct formulation of the problem in the 40s by O.Yu. Schmidt, who formulated the problem of the origin of the Earth and planets as a complex astronomical and geophysical problem. He divided it into three main parts: 1) the origin of a pre-planetary cloud orbiting the Sun, 2) the formation of a planetary system in this cloud with its features, 3) the early evolution of the Earth and planets from their initial state to the modern one studied by the Earth sciences. The first part can be solved only with the development of astrophysical observations, which in the 40-50s. was clearly not enough. O.Yu. Schmidt considered the second part to be the central task of planetary cosmogony, justifying this by the fact that whatever the origin of the preplanetary cloud (capture by the Sun or joint formation from a single rotating clump), the cloud had to develop according to its internal laws, and all the main stages its transformation into a planetary system should be clarified without waiting for the solution of the first problem. For almost half a century since then, V.S. Safronov, a follower of O.Yu. Schmidt, has been working on this problem. The evolution of the gas-dust preplanetary cloud (disk) was studied step by step, starting from the interaction of primary dust particles and the gas component. It has been shown that it is unstable, i.e. disintegrating into clumps could only be a dust subdisk. This meant that massive gas protoplanets could not form in the cloud. This means that neither the Earth nor other planets were formed from massive cooling clumps of solar composition (this hypothesis was still popular in the 50s of the 20th century). The transformation of dust clumps into compact bodies was studied, the process of their unification and fragmentation was studied, it was shown that the bulk of the mass was contained in a few largest bodies - potential embryos of planets, and that the main increase in the Earth's mass took 100 million years. Large thousand-kilometer bodies took part in the formation of the Earth, the heat from the impacts of which served as a source of heating of the Earth’s interior and its differentiation into the mantle and core. Estimates of the initial temperature of the Earth served as a starting point for studying the subsequent thermal history of the Earth and planets, which were also studied at the Institute of Physics of the Earth under the leadership of B.Yu. Levin. This third part of the problem also included the construction of models of the internal structure of planets for comparative analysis with the Earth. We can say that in formulating this problem, O.Yu. in fact laid the foundation for comparative planetology, which blossomed later thanks to space exploration. In accordance with the hypothesis of O.Yu. Schmidt, at the Institute that bears his name, a model of the formation of the Moon and planetary satellites was developed as a process accompanying the accumulation of planets. Natural explanation in the theory of O.Yu. found ideas about the origin of asteroids and comets. In one of his last articles, O.Yu. considered the asteroid belt as an unformed planet, then this idea was supported by calculations of disturbances from bodies formed in the zone of Jupiter adjacent to the asteroids. All giant planets participated in the formation of distant clouds of comets, throwing preplanetary bodies there with their gravitational disturbances.

Thanks to O.Yu. Schmidt, domestic planetary cosmogony developed 10-15 years earlier than in developed Western countries. In the West, in the last two decades, gas and dust disks have begun to be observed around young solar-mass stars and even planets (so far only very massive ones) around other stars. The conditions are already ripe for solving the first part of the problem - the origin of the preplanetary cloud. This is done in different countries, including Russia. The achievements of the domestic school of O.Yu. Schmidt’s followers are recognized in the West. V.S. Safronov’s monograph “The Evolution of the Preplanetary Cloud and the Formation of the Earth and Planets,” after its translation into English in the USA in 1972, became one of the most cited books in the specialized literature. The Schmidt-Safronov model is a working tool in the interpretation of space observations.

The last period of O.Yu.’s life Schmidt was perhaps the most heroic. Since the winter of 1943-44, tuberculosis progressed and spread not only to the lungs, but also to the throat. O.Yu. periodically forbidden to speak, he spent a lot of time in sanatoriums in the Moscow region and in Yalta, and in recent years he was essentially bedridden - mainly at the dacha in Mozzhinka near Zvenigorod, where he died on September 7, 1956. But, straining his will, O.Yu. used the slightest improvement in his condition for scientific work. When he had enough strength, he gave lectures in Moscow and Leningrad. He was among those whose lectures opened classes in the new high-rise building of Moscow University in 1953. He founded and headed the Geophysical Department at Moscow State University in 1951, and conducted scientific seminars at home and in the country. O.Yu. gradually abandoned all administrative positions, he agreed only to become editor-in-chief of the journal Nature in 1951, reviving this publication.

In the life and work of O.Yu. There have been sharp turns many times: mathematician - statesman - creator of the encyclopedia - traveler-discoverer - reorganizer of the Academy of Sciences - cosmogonist. Some of them occurred at the will of O.Yu. himself, others - under the influence of circumstances. But he always worked at full strength, did not know how and did not allow himself to do otherwise. This was facilitated by his tireless curiosity, broad erudition, clear logic of thinking and organization in work, the ability to highlight the most important tasks of work, the ability to cooperate with others, and democracy in relations with people. A man of irrepressible creative energy, accustomed to public practical activities, a lover of life, a witty conversationalist, due to illness he found himself cut off from people. But I still read a lot - the latest scientific and fiction literature, history books, and memoirs (mainly in foreign languages), and took note of music broadcasts on the radio in advance. He knew that he was doomed and left this life with wise dignity. Three months before his death, O.Yu. said: “I am grateful to fate for the life it gave me. There was so much good and so much interesting! I'm not afraid to die."

We said goodbye to academician O.Yu. Schmidt in the building of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences, was buried in the first alley of the Novodevichy cemetery. It was decided to perpetuate his memory not only by naming the Institute of Earth Physics after him, but also by publishing his selected works. Three books: “Mathematics”, “Geographical Works”, “Geophysics and Cosmogony” were published in 1959-1960, now the fourth book of works is being prepared for publication (reports and articles by O.Yu. as an organizer of work in the field of education and the history of science ). In 1959, a large collection of articles and memoirs, “Otto Yulievich Schmidt. Life and activity". About O.Yu. Dozens of books and articles have been published. Most of them are named in G.V. Yakusheva’s unique book “Otto Yulievich Schmidt - Encyclopedist” - a brief illustrated encyclopedia prepared for the centenary of his birth in 1991. After this, books were published about O.Yu. and in the academic series “Scientific and Biographical Literature” (book by L.V. Matveeva, 1993), and in the series “People of Science” by the publishing house “Prosveshchenie” (book by N.F. Nikitchenko, 1992), articles in magazines “Bulletin of the Academy of Sciences”, “Nature” and others. Bas-relief depicting O.Yu. installed on the building of the Institute of Earth Physics. The time has come to prepare the book “Otto Yulievich Schmidt” in the academic series “Materials for the biobibliography of scientists.” Otto Yulievich Schmidt is one of those outstanding creators of science and cultural figures, respectful interest in whose life and work continues into the new millennium, and whose creative heritage remains the basis of our modern culture.