Professor of physics at three Imperial Universities of Russia B.V. Stankevich: milestones of scientific biography and stages of teaching activity

Abstract

The article considers the main stages of the scientific and pedagogical activity of one of the students of the great Russian physicist A.G. Stoletov – Professor Boris Vyacheslavovich Stankevich (1860–1924), who taught at three Imperial universities of Russia during his long-term teaching career. A set of little-known facts about his biography are reported. The research work of B.V. Stankevich at the Imperial Warsaw University is briefly described, indicating the main scientific works he prepared. He is characterized as a talented theoretical physicist and talked about his scientific work in the fields of geophysics and observational astronomy. The pedagogical activity of B.V. Stankevich at three Imperial Universities – in Warsaw, Novorossiysk and Moscow – is described in more detail. Particular attention is paid to his service at Moscow University in 1911–1917, since until now this question has been poorly covered in historical and pedagogical research. The state of physics education at Moscow University in those years is studied, including the structure of the experimental physics lecture course that was given at that time, the staffing of the educational process, and the general situation at the university’s physics department. An assessment is made of B.V. Stankevich’s contribution to the development of physics teaching at the Imperial Moscow University in the crisis pre-revolutionary period.