Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2016 number

The article considers the activities of Academician L.V. Kirensky (1909-1969) as an organizer of the Institute of Physics and Krasnoyarsk Scientific and Educational Complex in Krasnoyarsk. L.V. Kirensky was an outstanding magnetologist and specialist in the physics of magnetic phenomena and biophysics. His name is inextricably connected with the history of academic science and education in Eastern Siberia in the 1940s - 1960s. The purpose of this article is to show based on the study of archival documents and memories of scientists the formation of L.V. Kirensky as a scientist and organizer of science. L.V. Kirensky’s path to science was not easy. A native of Yakutia, after finishing school he worked as a teacher for several years before entering the Moscow State University in 1931. A talented young scientist under the influence of his mentors became so much engrossed in studying the problems of the physics of magnetic phenomena, that this field of research became his life’s work. After a thesis defence the young scientist began teaching at the Krasnoyarsk State Pedagogical Institute (KSPI). The research capacity gained at the Moscow State University was used by L.V. Kirensky during his work in the Magnetic Laboratory at the Department of Physics of KSPI, which he had started creating before the war. During the war the laboratory gained prominence owing to the development of certain military devices. Further research work in the Magnetic Laboratory of KSPI led to the establishment of the first academic Institute of Physics in Krasnoyarsk in 1956. Under the leadership of L.V. Kirensky the Institute turned into a leading center for research on the problems of physics of magnetic phenomena in the country. At the same time, the Institute of Physics became a kind of «incubator» for several Krasnoyarsk Scientific Research Institutes (SRI), which grew out of its departments. The article also deals with the activities of L.V. Kirensky on creation and development of a complex of academic institutions in Krasnoyarsk and establishment of the Krasnoyarsk State University.