ISSN 10193316, Herald of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2013, Vol. 83, No. 2, pp. 173–182. © Pleiades Publishing, Ltd., 2013. Original Russian Text © B.E. Paton, 2013, published in Vestnik Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk, 2013, Vol. 83, No. 3, pp. 246–255.
Profiles DOI: 10.1134/S1019331613020056
Vladimir Vernadsky and Ukraine On the 150th Anniversary of the Birth of Academician V.I. Vernadsky
V.I. Vernadsky (1863–1945).
The name of Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky, an outstanding mineralogist and geochemist, a reformer of science and the founder of new scientific branches, and an administrator and historian of science, is known not only to the Ukrainian scientific commu nity but also to any educated Ukrainian. Some know him as the first president of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences; others, as the author of the theory of the noosphere; and still others, as the reformer of miner alogy and the creator of geochemistry, biogeochemis try, and radiogeology. One hundred and fifty years have passed since the birth of this outstanding person, and it is nearly 70 years since his death, but interest in his creative work has not faded. Proceeding from modern criteria, Vernadsky’s sci entific heritage is not very large (about 400 publica tions) [1]. Some of his works saw the light of day years after the scientist’s death, and others remain unavail able to a wide readership. Many of the works published during his lifetime remained unfinished. For example, the planned large work on mineralogy—Essay on Descriptive Mineralogy (1908–1922)—was published in part. In the seven books of the twovolume work, out of the entire vast kingdom of minerals, the author managed to cover only the class of native elements and
sulfur and selenium compounds. Another large work, History of the Minerals of the Earth’s Crust, also remained unfinished. “In point of fact, all my life and all my time are in scientific work, but progress is slow, and much is unfinished,” Vernadsky wrote in the mid dle of his scientific career [2, p. 34]. He left diaries, let ters, memorandums, and bibliographic records, which allow us to learn more about Vernadsky’s personal qualities and to trace how his worldview—scientific, political, and civil—changed, how he undertook one scientific problem after another, and how he took to heart science and its future and lamented about the barbarian attitude of man to nature and the foolish exploitation of natural resources. Vernadsky belongs to the galaxy of outstanding persons of the 20th century, whose allround activity left a deep footprint in the history of science. Several periods of Vernadsky’s personal and professional life were connected with Ukraine and, in particular, with Kiev. He was connected with Ukraine through his ori gin and later affinity. Vernadsky was born into an old cultural Ukrainian family. One of his paternal ancestors belonged to the Cossack officership (starshina) and took part in the military actions of Bogdan Khmel’nitskii’s army. One of Vernadsky’s grandfathers was a graduate from the KyivMohyla Academy. His father and mother were born in Kiev, adhered to national Ukrainian tradi tions, and were interested in and knew Ukrainian his tory. His mother, Anna Petrovna, came from the noble Konstantinovich starshina stock. His father, Ivan Vasil’evich, graduated from Kiev University and became a professor at this educational establishment at the age of 28, but soon moved to Moscow and then to St. Petersburg. It was in St. Petersburg that their son Vladimir was born in 1863. Vernadsky’s future wife, Natal’ya Egorovna, née Staritskaya, also came from a famous Ukrainian family and received a brilliant edu cation. The parents of Vladimir’s mother, as well as Natal’ya Egorovna’s parents, spoke Ukrainian. Ver nadsky knew Ukrainian well because he studied it as a firstyear student at a Ukrainian gymnasium when the family moved to Ukraine for a while [3]. In addition, Vernadsky and Natal’ya knew many European lan guages, which allowed them to travel across Western
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ization in the hill deposits of the mud volcanoes, and found borax. This discovery gave momentum to explo ration in this region, which continued for several decades. In 1916, on the basis of the boron raw mate rial of the Bulganak mud volcano, a pilot plant was commissioned, which processed 4–6 t of borax per year. Vernadsky and his students founded the tradition to name mud volcano mounds after their explorers. One of the mounds on the Bulganak volcano was named after Vernadsky.
Anna Petrovna Vernadskaya.
Ivan Vasil’evich Vernadsky.
Europe without restraint. Unfamiliarity with foreign languages, in Vernadsky’s opinion, testified to a poor education. Vernadsky was quite familiar with Ukrainian culture and knew writings by Lesya Ukrainka and especially Taras Shevchenko, a pocketbook of whose writings he would take with him on all his journeys. “I had a little rest this evening (reading Shevchenko)” [4, p. 191]— one can come across such mentions in his letters to his wife. Another statement makes one conclude that tradi tions of the Ukrainian people were spiritually cognate to Vernadsky: “Always, when undertaking something diffi cult, the old Zaporozhean proverb would cross my mind: ‘No coming home before work is done’” [5, p. 42]. Although Vernadsky often called himself a Ukrainian, he also identified himself as a carrier of Rus sian culture and as a Russian whose life was connected with Ukraine. This is why he, like no other, understood that “freedom for Ukrainian culture is dictated by Rus sia’s interests and that Russia may preserve Ukrainians as Russians only by accepting them in all their national cultural singularity” [6, p. 224]. Vernadsky loved Kiev with all his heart and expressed regret that conditions for scientific activity there were far from ideal compared to Europe and even St. Petersburg. Back in 1890, he could have moved to Ukraine but dismissed this possibility due to his professional interests: “No reason to go to Kiev. Armashevskii failed to become head of the Depart ment of Geology, and Venyukov, whom I do not like at all, became a professor of geology …. So, I have to choose between Kharkov and Moscow” [4, p. 29]. In 1898 and 1899, Vernadsky, a young professor at Moscow University, went on two scientific expeditions to the Crimea [7, p. 826–828]. He studied geological features on the Sevastopol–Feodosiya route, where he paid attention to the mineralogy of Cape Fiolent and the Kara Dag volcano. On the Kerch Peninsula, Ver nadsky was interested in mud volcanoes and iron ores, was the first to point to the presence of boron mineral
Vernadsky’s next visit to the Crimea took place 30 years after his first expeditions, during the hard years of the Civil War, and he had to stay there for a while. At first, he became head of the Department of Mineralogy at the newly opened Taurida University (now Vernadsky National Taurida University), where the créme de la créme of Russian professoriate had gathered by that time, and then, in 1920, he was appointed the university’s rector. In early 1911, Prof. Vernadsky, together with many outstanding scientists of Moscow University, had ten dered his resignation in protest against the tsarist gov ernment’s repressive policies. He bought a small parcel of land in the village of Shishaki near Poltava, to which he moved together with his family. It was there where the theory of living matter and the biosphere was engen dered. In his memoirs (“The First Year of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences”), he wrote, “In Shishaki, on the ‘Mare’ in the woods, I worked with great enthusiasm. I elucidated for myself the main notions of bio geochemistry, the sharp difference between the bio sphere and other shells of the earth, and the main signif icance of the propagation of living matter in it” [8, p. 550]. What was written by Vernadsky in his character istic dense exquisite handwriting in Shishaki on 40 sheets of ruled paper was not yet a course on geochemistry or biogeochemistry, but that text con tained the fundamentals of the new sciences and the germs of the new worldview that overturned older ideas of many geologists. Starting from that time, wherever Vernadsky was and in whatever conditions he lived, he never stopped working, reading, and considering the issues he had posed before himself in those days [9]. Vernadsky moved to Kiev as late as May 1918 at the invitation of N.P. Vasilenko, the Minister of People’s Education in P.P. Skoropadskii’s government. Accord ing to [10], he even delivered a course on geochemistry at Kiev University and presented the first paper about the geochemistry of living matter, thus laying the foun dation for a new science—biogeochemistry. However, the main reason he moved to Kiev was because he had consented to head the Commission on Scientific Establishments and Institutions of Higher Education, one of the priorities of which was the creation of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (UAS). Vernadsky’s experience as a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the fact that he was familiar with the
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organization of academic work in Western European countries and Petrograd were very opportune. Whether the Ukrainian Academy was to become a scientific society or a powerful research center was the question that the commission had to decide as soon as possible. The idea of the academy as a budgetfinanced state research institution won. At the very first meeting of the commission on elaborating a draft law about the creation of the Ukrainian Academy in Kiev, its chair Vernadsky proclaimed the requirements on the activity of such a structure: it should “meet important (1) national, (2) state, and (3) local vital requirements” [8, p. 195]. The national significance of the new academy lay in prompting the growth of Ukrainian national self consciousness and Ukrainian culture; the state require ment, in the academy’s influence on the growth of the Ukrainian productive forces and people; and, finally, the future academy should closely connect its activity with practical local needs. At the same time, the acad emy should be fully autonomous and should run its business independently from the influence of govern mental bodies that could change. The work was advancing so quickly that, two months after his arrival to Kiev, Vernadsky reported to “Hetman of All Ukraine” Skoropadskii that the orga nization of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences was drawing to an end and that it was necessary to work out its charter [8, pp. 248–249]. The latter envisaged the rights of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences as a legal entity, the procedure of selfgovernment and member election, and the possibility to regulate its internal life independently. On November 14, 1918, upon approval by the government, Skoropadskii signed the Law On the Formation of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences and approved its staff, 12 full members. At the first, constitutive, General Meeting, which took place on November 27, UAS academicians unanimously, by secret ballot, elected RAS and UAS Academician Ver nadsky chair–president (golova–president) and A.E. Krymskii continuing (permanent) secretary of the UAS. By Skoropadskii’s next decree of November 30, Vernadsky was approved as golova–president of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in Kiev [8, p. 250]. According to the Charter [11], a number of organi zations appeared under the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences to ensure academic studies, from the National Library, national research museums (anthro pological, mineralogical), and institutes under them to independent basic and appliedscience institutes, including the institutes of medicine, veterinary medi cine, photography, and others. It was Vernadsky’s idea to connect the National Library with the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, because he believed that the book stacks of the people’s library should be formed by the country’s main scientific organization. He also proposed (unfortunately, the government rejected this proposal) that the Ukrainian Academy should take under its wing the Committee of Geology to coordi HERALD OF THE RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
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V.I. Vernadsky with his family in Poltava, 1908.
nate all scientific geological studies on natural resources. This task was finally imposed on the Com mission on Studying Ukrainian Natural Wealth (an analog of the Commission of Studying Russia’s Natu ral Productive Forces, established in 1915), the merit of founding which also belongs to Vernadsky. Later, when Vernadsky had to move to Petrograd, he longed for the time that he had spent in Kiev and continued to show interest in the realities of scientific life in Ukraine. We may judge about this from his let ters to Boris Lichkov: “I appreciate any messages from Kiev, especially from you. Will you kindly write to tell me how things are going with the National Library? May I get editions of Naukovo Tovaristvo [Scientific Society] (from 1917)? I would like to know about your works and works by the Ukrainian Committee of Geology” [2, pp. 21, 22]. Further: “I often think about you and about all people in Kiev, about the Academy, about the Committee of Geology, about Ukraine…. Any message about scientific work in Kiev and Ukraine is dear to me” [2, pp. 27, 34]. Until the end of his life, Vernadsky maintained correspondence with Ukrainian scientists and, remaining an academician of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, was concerned with its future fate: “I hope that the Ukrainian Acad emy of Sciences will survive as an independent estab lishment and will not merge with Naukovo Tovaristvo: their forms of activity are perfectly different, and they both will hardly profit by such a merger” [2, p. 21]. His life in Kiev in the stormy years when the Ukrai nian Academy of Sciences was created proved to be scientifically fruitful for Vernadsky. He found time for his own scientific studies between sessions of commis sions, the preparation of the Charter, and participa tion in meetings. At that time, he was interested in geochemistry and biogeochemistry. Four years later, while preparing his famous book La Géochimie for publication, he acknowledged, “Significant parts of it were thought over and elaborated by me in Kiev in 1918” [2, p. 30]. Despite the many demands on him, Vol. 83
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the scientist spent much time at the Starosel’e experi mental biological station near Kiev. In Starosel’e, the first biogeochemical laboratory was created, the tal ented team of which posed the goal to determine the content of metals in different organisms. The establishment of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences took very little time, but its creation fell on a period extremely saturated with historical events, against the background of a political collapse, eco nomic crisis, and the Civil War. Despite the frequent changes in political power, the academy continued to exist and managed to receive recognition from every new government, because, as Vernadsky wrote to Gen eral A.I. Denikin, “to recover from ruin and bank ruptcy, we should use the productive forces of our country to the fullest and widest…. Now we have no other more powerful means for attaining this result quickly and fully except for the creation of a large scale research center, such as the Academy of Sci ences” [8, p. 361]. The present National Academy of Sciences (NAS) of Ukraine is approaching its centenary. Despite the change in its name, it preserves the structure proposed by Vernadsky, and its national status has made it possible to turn science to serving the interests of the state. Pay ing homage to the talent of the famous scientist, on the initiative of the Commission of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine on the Scientific Heritage of Academician Vernadsky, associates of the academy have prepared for the 150th anniversary of the birth of their first president a tenvolume series of his selected scien tific works to popularize his legacy in different branches of science and to show his contribution to the organiza tion and development of scientific activity in Ukraine. The opening volume of the series is entitled Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky and Ukraine. It consists of two books that include both works concerning Ukraine by Vernadsky himself and numerous docu ments that elucidate the fundamental role played by his participation in the development of the Academy of Sciences and other scientific organizations in Ukraine. The subsequent volumes contain the researcher’s most famous works on natural and social sciences: The Chemical Structure of the Earth’s Bio sphere and Its Surroundings, Living Matter and the Bio sphere, Mineralogical Heritage and Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky, The History of Natural Waters, Works on Geochemistry and Radiogeology, and Selected Works on the History, Philosophy, and Administration of Science. All these works contain comments by authoritative sci entists, who assess Vernadsky’s contribution to science from the positions of the present day. The bibliography of Vernadsky’s works and his correspondence with Ukrainian scientists are published in special volumes. A characteristic feature of Vernadsky’s scientific endeavor is his integral and complex perception of the world—the natural environment, human society, the Earth, the universe, space, and time. Owing to his
encyclopedic knowledge and unique capability of ana lytical consideration, he would ingeniously find gen eral and specific regularities in the diversity of mani fold components of the human cognition of the world. A mineralogist by education, Vernadsky perceived mineralogy as “the chemistry of the Earth”; that was why he paid great attention to studying the chemical composition of geological shells, the migration of chemical elements in the earth’s crust and in space, their interaction, and chronological aspects of chemi cal processes. Unfortunately, many key works by Ver nadsky became available to foreign specialists only a long time after their creation; they were somehow rediscovered and only then were logically integrated into world science. To understand the role of Vernadsky in the develop ment of chemical science, it is enough to assess super ficially the results of his time in Ukraine and the chain of rapid transformations that underlay the emergence of a large number of academic institutes on the basis of the Chemical Laboratory, which he founded in 1918. Under his supervision, the small team of the Chemical Laboratory—a research organization within the Phys ical–Mathematical Department of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences—performed experimental stud ies of the content of inorganic substances, particularly nickel and cobalt compounds, in living organisms. In 1931, the laboratory merged with the Research Insti tute of Chemistry of the People’s Commissariat of Education and received the name Institute of Chemis try of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1945, this organization was called the Institute of General and Inorganic Chemis try, and it was named after Vernadsky in 1993. In dif ferent periods, different divisions of the institute were the basis for a number of new academic establish ments, such as the Institute of Organic Chemistry (1939), the Dumanskii Institute of Colloid Chemistry and Water Chemistry (1968), the Bogatskii Physico chemical Institute (1977), the Institute of Sorption and Endoecology (1991), and the Interdepartmental Division of Electrochemical Power Engineering (1993). In turn, the Institute of Organic Chemistry gave rise to new structures (Institute of HighMolecu lar Compounds Chemistry (1958) and Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry and Oil Chemistry (1987)), while the Institute of Biocolloidal Chemistry was organized on the basis of divisions of the Institute of Colloid Chemistry (1991). The significant scientific achievements of NAS organizations may be inter preted as the creative development of Vernadsky’s ideas concerning interaction between nonliving (inert) matter and living (organic) matter. Mineralogy occupies a special place among the trends of Vernadsky’s diverse scientific activity not only owing to the fact that, according to A.E. Fers man’s calculations, scientific works in this area of knowledge constitute the largest share in Vernadsky’s
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D.I. Bagalei
V.I. Vernadskii
N.F. Kashchenko
V.A. Kosinskii
A.E. Krymskii
O.I. Levitskii
N.I. Petrov
S.I. Smal’Stotskii
F.V. Taranovskii
S.P. Timoshenko
M.I. Tugan Baranovskii
P.A. Tutkovskii
The first twelve members of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences.
creative heritage but also because mineralogy became the basis on which the scientist developed other scien tific trends—geochemistry, radiogeology, and bio geochemistry. Deep knowledge in this discipline allowed him to move further and to replace static descriptive mineralogy with dynamic genetic mineral ogy and to switch from the history of minerals to the history of chemical elements in the earth’s crust, as well as to consider the interaction between living and nonliving nature. Vernadsky worked on mineralogy most intensively in the early period of his scientific activity, from 1885 through 1910. The problems of mineralogy are cov ered in his master’s dissertation (“On the Sillimanite Group and the Role of Alumina,” 1891) and the first articles of the young master. As a reformer of mineral ogy, Vernadsky determined anew its content and tasks. Before him, only external characters of minerals had HERALD OF THE RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
been considered, while Vernadsky became interested in a wider scope of issues, such as the causes of the for mation of minerals, their existence in nature, and their disintegration. Owing to this, studying the history of minerals became his priority. Many modern works quote Vernadsky’s words [7, p. 478]: I took as a basis the broad study of mineralogical pro cesses in the earth’s crust and paid attention not only to the product of the process (mineral) but also (and primarily) to the process itself, not only to the static study of the products of processes but also to the study of these processes….
Hence, it is no wonder that the scientist gave up his work on the monograph Essay on Descriptive Mineral ogy (1908–1922) almost at once and began a new one, entitled The History of Minerals of the Earth’s Crust (1925–1927), which, unfortunately, also remained unfinished. Vol. 83
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Comparing these two large works, one may trace how the views of Vernadsky as a mineralogist were evolving. Already the first monograph, still based on static mineralogy, contained paragraphs about natural changes in minerals, which may be interpreted as a step towards dynamic mineralogy. In the same work, the founder of the noosphere theory first drew attention to the significant role of the biological species Homo sapi ens in the Earth’s chemical processes; in this context, there appeared the paragraph Labor of Man and a description of environmental consequences of mineral production. Here he also first drew attention to the radioactivity of minerals and the possibility to use the spontaneous disintegration of elements as a chronome ter of geological time. Note that this took place at the time when the phenomenon itself had just been discov ered! In addition, already before the development of X ray structural analysis, proceeding only from the com parison of chemical properties of minerals, Vernadsky made a conclusion about the double role of aluminum in silicates. He proposed a hypothesis about the kaolin core that underlay all aluminosilicates. Decades later, upon decoding hundreds of structures of minerals, Aca demician N.V. Belov showed that Vernadsky had been only slightly mistaken and called the kaolin core hypothesis a “fundamental generalization.” Genetic mineralogy is no end in itself but rather a scientific instrument for seeking minerals because only knowledge about how a given mineral species forms makes it possible to predict “under what condi tions and in what regions one may expect to find ores of important metals” [12, p. 307]. In his widely known presentation before scientists “Tasks of Mineralogy in Our Country,” Vernadsky ranked problems of applied mineralogy together with basic problems because “the people that will manage to master new, opening knowledge as fully, quickly, and well as possible and to develop and apply it fully to its life will receive power the use of which for the common good is the main objective of any reasonable state policy” [7, p. 523]. We may state for certain that mineralogy reformed by Vernadsky bore fruit, although his dream to create an institute of mineralogy in Ukraine came true as late as 1969, when the Institute of the Geochemistry and Physics of Minerals (at present, the Semenenko Insti tute of Geochemistry, Mineralogy, and Ore Formation (IGMOF)) was organized. The rapid development of a new science, i.e., thermobarogeochemistry, which originated in Ukraine and propagated globally, in the second half of the 20th century was a logical conse quence of the development of the approach worked out by Vernadsky. Using microscopic gaseous–liquid inclusions in crystals of minerals for genetic construc tions, thermobarogeochemistry supplemented the history of each mineral with specific numerical char acteristics and made it possible to approach the min eralformation process with the number and measure.
Presentday mineralogy is a leading geological trend equipped with physical research methods. Owing to a new generation of instruments, scientists have reached the atomic level of crystals, but the keystone of each study is still issues of the genetic history of minerals and, ultimately, search for regularities in localizing fields of minerals in the earth’s crust. As was mentioned, Vernadsky’s perfect knowledge of mineralogy led him to the creation of new disciplin ary areas, in the consideration of which it is logical to begin with geochemistry. Minerals, just like living organisms, are born, live, and die. They are born from atoms of minerals as a consequence of complicated processes of their concentration from the dispersed state. At different depths of the earth’s crust, under the influence of various sources of energy, minerals con centrate dispersed elements in which humankind is interested. After destruction, a mineral or an ore dis integrates into small particles down to individual atoms, which become involved in the migration pro cess and diffuse around the ore body. Studying the fate of the atoms that constitute minerals means studying the history of the elements that are to become the sub ject of inquiry for another science—geochemistry. According to the definition of its founder, geochemis try studies the history of chemical elements as opposed to mineralogy, which considers only molecules, natu ral compounds, and minerals. Starting from 1899, Vernadsky never stopped pop ularizing geochemical knowledge and published a number of works about the distribution of chemicals in the earth’s crust, the concentration and diffusion of individual chemical elements, and gas exchange. The peak was his monograph La Géochimie (1924), which was first published in French and only then (under the title Essays on Geochemistry) in Russian (1927, 1934). The regularities of the diffusion of chemical elements in the earth’s crust are reflected by local anomalies— deviations of their content from the average level for a given region. The process of diffusion may be regis tered by geological mapping and may be used for met allogenetic forecasts. In addition, a large division of the Essays is dedicated to radioactive elements. Ver nadsky draws attention to radiogeology, a new scien tific field in the development of which geochemistry should play an outstanding role. As an exacting researcher, Vernadsky could not but notice the changes brought into natural geochemical anomalies by anthropogenic products, which “change the ever lasting run of geochemical cycles” [13, p. 183]. Thus, he also touched upon environmental issues, indirectly creating the basis for modern ecological geochemistry. Through E.S. Burkser, Vernadsky’s coworker and follower, the ideas of the founder of geochemistry were anchored in Ukraine. Problems of exploration and environmental geochemistry, along with mineralogi cal problems, are now being successfully solved by the
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Semenenko Institute of Geochemistry, Mineralogy, and Ore Formation, NAS of Ukraine. The best known are the institute’s works on geochemistry of stable and unstable isotopes. Back in 1934, Vernadsky stressed as a priority “determining the age of the Earth on the basis of determining the age of radioactive minerals by the helium and lead methods, primarily for minerals from the Fennoscandian and Ukrainian Shields” [14, p. 33]. From the rostrum of the 17th Session of the International Geological Congress, he called for international collaboration in determining geological time. The geological community supported Vernad sky’s proposal. The development of the scientific trend associated with determination of the isotopic age became more rapid owing to the improvement of mea suring equipment and the introduction of new radio logical methods. Simultaneously, a geochronological map of the Ukrainian Shield is now being compiled with account for the newest data for other shields of the world and against the background of the constant comparison of geochemical and petrologic character istics of similar geological complexes. Common efforts helped obtain experimental data concerning the isoto pic age of different geological formations, which became the basis for determining the duration of geo logical processes in the earth’s crust and creating an integrated and constantly improving school of geolog ical time through the efforts of domestic and foreign scientists. Thus, the determination of the age of ores went beyond the limits of radiogeology, created by Ver nadsky, and was transformed into isotopic geochro nology, which emerged at the interface of radiogeol ogy, radiochemistry, and mineralogy and became an independent branch of isotopic geology. Noting changes in minerals with time under the action of geological forces, Vernadsky stressed the decisive—both direct and indirect (primarily through living matter)—role of water in this process. In his opinion, water is also a mineral, and The History of Natural Waters is only a division of the History of Min erals of the Earth’s Crust. Owing to Vernadsky’s works, an independent scientific field—the mineralogy of natural waters—was formed, the scientific basis of which rested on his postulates about the omnipresence of water in the upper part of the planet, the integrity of natural waters, different forms of their connection with the environment, and so on. Vernadsky consid ered natural waters in all their manifestations and interaction with as many factors as possible. The sci entist’s theses about the hydrosphere as an integral system connected by massexchange processes proved to be correct and fruitful. To investigate deeply into the fundamental prob lems of the formation of natural waters, Vernadsky examined many important issues. They included the dissymmetry of the earth’s crust and the resultant pro cesses, the structure of the planet’s geospheres, the HERALD OF THE RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
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determination of the specific properties of natural waters, structural characteristic features of water, the isotopic composition of hydrogen and oxygen, the decomposition and synthesis of water molecules, the temporal changeability of the hydrosphere and water properties, the harmonization of changes in the com position of waters, gaseous–liquid inclusions, the hydrogeochemical zoning of underground waters, and so on. The History of the Earth’s Waters also character izes different states of water, determined by its interac tion with rocks, from film, hygroscopic to constitu tional. Gaseous components of water systems were viewed by Vernadsky as the main participants in the course of geochemical processes in the hydrosphere. Among them, he especially appreciated oxygen, which ensured the development of aerobic bacteria and oxi dation reactions. The classification of natural waters illustrates the advantages of Vernadsky’s basics of the classification of minerals. To cover maximally fully all interacting substances of the planet, he included in his classifica tion liquid and gaseous components that often become the initial material under the crystallization of the mineral phases. Vernadsky stressed [15, p. 201]: The classification underlying the study of the miner alogy of natural waters is obviously considerably dif ferent from the numerous attempts made in this sphere…. First, the proposed classification of natural waters is an integral part of the general classification of minerals and considers all natural waters as min erals of the same group. Second, it embraces all forms of natural waters without exception.
The scientist was especially convincing in charac terizing the participation of living matter in the pro cess of the formation of different properties and com positions of natural waters. He was one of the first to draw attention to the decisive role of man in changes in the quality of natural water, although he had no idea yet about the negative consequences of human inter vention in the hydrosphere. At the same time, Vernad sky defined water as the initial precondition for the emergence and development of life. This dependence is commonly recognized now and is used in looking for planets suitable for life. In assessing Vernadsky’s contribution to the study of natural waters, we have to state that some of his con structions proved to be incorrect. However, this could not be otherwise because, despite the lack of informa tion, Vernadsky was always bold enough to look over the horizon in various fields of natural sciences. His methodology of systematic allembracing complex studies; selected and substantiated vectors of scientific search; and fundamentally developed general basics of scientific knowledge about water, the biosphere, geochemistry, and genetic mineralogy remain unsur passed and instructive examples of thorough and cre ative studies for present and future generations of researchers of nature. Vernadsky, with his characteris Vol. 83
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tic ability to discover the most important tasks and to include them in intensive scientific developments, managed to single out a number of problems of the sci entific cognition of waters, requiring deep analysis and solution. In Vernadsky’s doctrine about living matter and the biosphere, diverse issues of natural science are closely interwoven with philosophical approaches, and the cognition of the role of living organisms in the history of the planet as a research program is reflected most fully. Under the diversity of the sizes, morphology, and physiology of living organisms, the common condition of their life activity is external metabolism. The total effect of the geochemical activity of organisms on the Earth’s external shells, despite the relatively small mass, is of high planetary significance with account for the time factor. Organisms create the biogenic differ entiation of chemical elements in the environment because, in accordance with their physiological needs, they absorb chemical elements selectively. In the bio sphere, everything living forms from the living, and the complex of physicochemical phenomena is precisely determined and limited. The fact of the formation of the living from the living has not been explained scien tifically thus far, and this affords grounds for broaden ing our views on life as a cosmic phenomenon. Proceeding from the laws of dissymmetry, Vernad sky presumed that living matter existed in a special space the geometry of which was different from that of the earth’s abiogenic bodies. The scientist considered the constantly existing planetary totality of organisms from the positions of geochemistry as a special form of matter, the main property of which was the constant and continuous exchange of chemical elements with the environment. In this context, the activity of living matter plays the role of a leading factor in the geochemical evolution of the external part of the planet. These considerations constitute the corner stone of the new scientific trend, biogeochemistry, which studies the history of the formation of the litho sphere’s chemical composition under the influence of living matter and inseparably connects living matter and inert matter of our planet, divided by an insuper able border. Vernadsky made no distinction between the notions living matter and biogeochemistry. It was this point that made the editorial board of the above mentioned tenvolume edition of the scientist’s selected works unite his works about the formation, evolution, and interaction of living matter with non living matter under one volume, The Geochemistry of Living Matter. In Vernadsky’s opinion, any organism, as an inte gral part of the earth’s crust, is simultaneously the mechanism that changes it. The organism may be sep arated from the earth’s crust only in terms of abstrac tion; hence, we may have a full idea about it only after a generalizing study of its morphological and physio
logical properties together with the geological or, to put it more precisely, geochemical ones. The modern differentiation of natural sciences has made us lose the understanding of the connection between natural phe nomena and that of the causes of the interdependence of natural processes. Vernadsky stressed more than once that, in studying the earth’s life, biology concen trated on the living organism, tearing it from the envi ronment and paying no attention to its functional dependence on it. Although biologists were aware of its immanent high degree of organization, they did not account for the organization of the environment in which the organism lived, i.e., the biosphere. By this critical analysis of the vector of biological studies, Ver nadsky actually laid the foundations of modern ecol ogy—the science about the interaction of organisms and their groups between themselves and the environ ment. Although Vernadsky had been interested in bio chemical problems from the time of his professorship at Moscow University, he began his longstanding work on the creation of “the science of life” as late as 1916. First of all, he needed to develop approaches to an unbiased assessment of living matter and the effect of its activity. Ways toward solving this problem were outlined by him in 1918–1919, when the first bio chemical studies were performed under his supervi sion within the walls of the newly organized Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. Vernadsky understood that the significance of living matter might be assessed only when, first, one knew the average elementary compo sition of living organisms and, second, when this com position was expressed quantitatively, i.e., when the mass of living matter was known. Then the composi tion and mass should be connected with that of the environment in which the matter of the earth was. Unfortunately, the largescale and laborconsuming work on determining the mass of living organisms remained unperformed in Vernadsky’s time. Only in the second half of the 20th century did ecologists, soil scientists, and oceanologists obtain data about the dynamics of living matter, which fully confirmed his assumptions about the biological cycles of the migra tion of chemical elements as the basis of the bio sphere’s existence. Back in the late 19th century, the young researcher Vernadsky paid attention to the growing technical power of humankind, whose scale of influence was comparable with the consequences of geological pro cesses. Later, in 1914–1916, Vernadsky developed the theory of the biosphere as a unique shell of the planet, in which life was concentrated, and, at the same time, studied the influence of humankind on changes in nature. The biosphere as the area of the planet’s living matter, which has been forming the face of the Earth for millions and billions of years, cardinally deter mines the dynamics of lithospheric, hydrospheric, and
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atmospheric processes. Over this period, the biosphere has formed complicated selfregulating mechanisms that ensure its internal selfdevelopment and means of protection against destructive factors of the cosmic medium. Vernadsky concluded that the evolution of species, which led to the creation of life forms stable in the biosphere, was most likely directed toward an increase in the biogenic migration of atoms. He for mulated the most important biochemical principles and determined migration factors, among which he called the most powerful form the changes in the posi tion of atoms caused by new substances emitted into the biosphere. The results of his study of the biosphere were presented by the scientist in numerous articles, the book Biosphere, and the fundamental work Chem ical Composition of the Earth’s Biosphere published after his death. In the last decade of his life, Vernadsky came to a conclusion about the inevitable evolution of the earth’s biosphere into the noosphere as a consequence of the activity of the human mind and the develop ment of scientific thought. Today, the term noosphere has become a symbol of the future of our civilization. Natural–philosophical aspects of the biosphere’s evo lution and noosphere’s formation were presented by Vernadsky in his work Scientific Thought As a Planetary Phenomenon (1937–1939). Owing to the evolution of species, which never stops, the reflection of living matter in the environment changes sharply. The evolu tion of species transforms into the evolution of the bio sphere. Over the last thousand years, the influence of one species of living matter—civilized humankind— on changes in the biosphere has been growing. Note that the evolutionary process acquires its specific geo logical significance owing to the fact that a geological force—the scientific thought of social humankind— is forming. Under the influence of scientific thought and human labor, the biosphere transforms into a spe cial state—the noosphere. The restructuring of the biosphere by scientific thought through organized human labor is the newest result of the spontaneous natural process that has existed for more than 2 billion years. Analyzing the evolution rates, Vernadsky anticipated the activation of global geological processes as a result of the trans formation of the environment. This anticipation proved to be prophetic and is topical today against the background of the powerful weapons, catastrophic technologies, and poisonous wastes created by human thought. Having acquired the status of “the main geo logical force,” humankind is not quite aware of the con sequences of its application. However, Vernadsky hoped that our intellect and consciousness would be sufficient not to destroy the house in which we would live. Proceeding from rich naturalscience material, Vernadsky made a great contribution to the history of science. In 1912, in his article “From the History of HERALD OF THE RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
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Ideas,” he required that natural scientists and mathe maticians should always know the past of their science in order to understand its present: this was the only way toward the correct and full assessment of the results of modern science, which it presented as important, valid, or necessary [16]. According to Ver nadsky, the history of science, or, as he sometimes put it, “the history of human thought,” should connect the facts discovered by science with each other, sys tematize them, and seek generalizations. This corre sponds to its modern understanding as a basic disci pline studying the internal logic of the development of science; the genesis of scientific ideas, theories, and laws; and their evolution, consequences, and signifi cance. As new scientific facts and theories appear, the assessment of old ones should change. In other words, science in its progress not only creates the new but also reassesses the old; hence, it is necessary to create a his tory of science adequate for the present day rather than to rewrite it in accordance with opportunistic tasks. Vernadsky also insisted that scientists should be responsible for the results of their activity. He called science a historical force, anticipating its significance as a powerful accelerator of scientific–technological and social advance, which it acquired in the second half of the 20th century. The unique character of Vernadsky’s personality, as was noted in the editorial of the first volume of the jubilee series of his selected works [8, p. 170], is constituted by many components that, in their integrity, created the great scientist and person. His erudition, broad systematic knowledge, outstanding industry, consistency of views together with the con stant deepening of knowledge and the improvement of scientific worldview ideas, and ability to unite likeminded persons into teams of talented scientists created favorable conditions for the implementation of his plans …. Vernadsky’s powerful intellect and scientific and organizational experience and author ity allowed him to unite the best forces of Ukrainian intellectuals and to show the scale and strength of their potential for developing science.
The ingenious nature of his scientific works lies not only in their encyclopedic character, thorough approach to the results of scientific studies, and con sistent methodology but also in the intuitive prophecy of conclusions, based on deep analysis and synthesis of a large scope of information. Vernadsky’s scientific legacy will remain for many years to come a crystal clean spring from which many generations of future researchers will scoop knowledge and ideas. B.E. Paton, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, President of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Vol. 83
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REFERENCES 1. E. M. Apanovich, “V.I. Vernadsky’s handwritten mate rials in the stock of the Central Scientific Library of the USSR Academy of Sciences,” in Handwritten Stock of the V.I. Vernadsky’s Central Library: A Collection of Sci entific Works (Naukova Dumka, Kiev, 1989) [in Rus sian]. 2. Correspondence between V.I. Vernadsky and B.L. Lich kov (19181939), Ed. by V. S. Neapolitanskaya (Nauka, Moscow, 1979) [in Russian]. 3. E. M. Apanovich, “The book in the life and creative work of V.I. Vernadsky,” in Bulletin of the Commission for the Development of Academician V.I. Vernadsky’s Scien tific Legacy (Nauka, Leningrad, 1988), No. 2 [in Rus sian]. 4. V. I. Vernadsky, Letters to N.E. Vernadskaya (1889– 1892), Ed. by N. V. Filippova (Nauka, Moscow, 1991) [in Russian]. 5. V. I. Vernadsky, Letters to N.E. Vernadskaya (1886– 1889), Ed. by N. V. Filippova (Nauka, Moscow, 1988) [in Russian]. 6. Selected Works by Academician V.I. Vernadsky, Vol. 1: Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky and Ukraine, Book 2: Selected Works (Drukarnya NBUV, Kiïv, 2011) [in Ukrainian]. 7. Selected Works by Academician V.I. Vernadsky, Vol. 5: The Mineralogical Legacy of Vladimir Ivanovich Ver nadsky (TOV Avanpost Reklama, Kiïv, 2012) [in Ukrai nian].
8. Selected Works by Academician V.I. Vernadsky, Vol. 1: Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky and Ukraine, Book 1: Scientific and Organizational Activity (Drukarnya NBUV, Kiïv, 2011) [in Ukrainian]. 9. L. I. Gumilevskii, Vernadsky (Molodaya Gvardiya, Moscow, 1961) [in Russian]. 10. History of Kiev University, Ed. by O. Z. Zhmuds’kii (Vidvo Kiïv. untu, Kiïv, 1959) [in Ukrainian]. 11. “The Charter of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in Kiev,” Derzhavnii Visnik, Nos. 75, 76 (1918). 12. V. I. Vernadsky, “Genesis of minerals,” in Encyclopedic Dictionary, Ed. by F. A. Brokgauz and I. A. Efron (St. Petersburg, 1892), Vol. 8 [in Russian]. 13. V. I. Vernadsky, Biosphere (Mysl’, Moscow, 1967) [in Russian]. 14. “The minutes of the 120th meeting of the Learned Council of the State Radium Institute of June 23, 1934,” in Bulletin of the Commissions for the Develop ment of Academician V.I. Vernadsky’s Scientific Legacy (Nauka, Leningrad, 1988), No. 3 [in Russian]. 15. V. I. Vernadsky, Selected Works in 6 Volumes (Izdvo AN SSSR, Moscow, 1960), Vol. 4, Book 2 [in Russian]. 16. V. I. Vernadsky, “From the history of ideas,” in Works on the General History of Science, 2nd ed. (Nauka, Mos cow, 1988) [in Russian].
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