Vladimir Vernadsky

On March 12 (February 28, old style) 140 years ago, the scientist Vladimir Vernadsky (1863-1945) was born in St. Petersburg. His scientific interests were wide ranging: from mineralogy and crystallography to history and philosophy. His life story is in many ways representative of the Russian intellectual of the late 19th and early 20th centuries — a time of wars, revolutions and great scientific discoveries.

Vernadsky started his scientific career in tsarist Russia. He taught at the Universities of Moscow and St. Petersburg, headed the Mineralogy Museum, and wrote books. But he also became a leader of Russia’s democratic movement. Together with Peter Struve, Nikolai Berdyayev, Semyon Frank, Sergei Bulgakov and others, he launched the “League of Liberation” (1903), which later became the Constitutional-Democratic Party [Kadets]. Vernadsky was a member of the State Council, and his signature was among four in the 1917 telegram suggesting that Nicholas II abdicate.

After October 1917, Vernadsky had to go into hiding, as he was among those who had called the Bolsheviks “oppressors.” He went to the Crimea, where he became rector of the Tauride University. He intended to emigrate to Great Britain, but changed his mind when all his colleagues pleaded with him not to leave. Wherever he went, Vernadsky tried to save archives, books and items of cultural value.