Biographical Essay Research Articles

Sergey Vasilyevich Lebedev (1874–1934): a Biographical Essay to the 150th Anniversary of the Birth of the Russian Chemist

Sergey Vasilyevich Lebedev (1874–1934): a Biographical Essay to the 150th Anniversary of the Birth of the Russian Chemist

Suzanne: Fragments of Memories

Little has been written about Suzanne Beckett, née Suzanne Déchevaux-Dumesnil (1900–1989). In biographies of Samuel Beckett, and in the even more numerous memoirs and commentaries discussing Beckett’s life, Suzanne disappears quickly – sometimes as soon as she is evoked – and she has rarely been acknowledged as someone who led a rich and interesting life in her own right. Her maiden name, Déchevaux-Dumesnil, has been widely and persistently misspelt as ‘Deschevaux-Dumesnil’ or ‘Déschevaux-Dumesnil’, although it appears just above Beckett’s own name on their tombstone at the Montparnasse Cemetery – a tombstone visited by so many, and photographed so often. The most caricatural portrayals render her as someone who complains when he receives the Nobel Prize, squanders his money and hinders his aspiration to have a good time. Overall, based on some accounts, it can be difficult to understand how a writer like Beckett would have wanted to spend his life with her and why their relationship lasted over fifty years. This biographical essay written by Michèle Tholozan-Warluzel, Suzanne’s great-niece, and translated by Emilie Morin, gives us a fuller view of this remarkable person. Suzanne, Michèle Tholozan-Warluzel tells us, had no time for sentimentality; she inhabited the here and now; she believed that women should be liberated from the weight of conventions; she held the institution of marriage in profound contempt; she felt passionately about the preservation of human and animal life; she frequented concert halls, museums and theatres assiduously throughout her life and loved Paris deeply. She was much loved by her family and friends. This biographical essay brings to life a strikingly modern woman, who seems in some ways better suited to our time than hers.

Historical and biographical essay. Memories of life of Dovlet Pozadovich Achegu, a surgeon of a superior expert category (1919–1963)

The relevance of the research is due to the growing interest of researchers and readers in the experience of the Soviet period of history, through life paths, biographies, and the results of the activities of ordinary people. The problem of the research is to analyze sociocultural processes through sources of personal origin (documents, photos, memories, etc.). The purpose of the research is using the biography of Achegu D.P. to understand social, cultural, professional and psychological aspects of the Soviet period. The historical and biographical method became the basis of the research methodology for examining the life and work of a superior expert category Dovlet Pozadovich Achegu (1919-1963), the first head of the surgical department of the Adyghe Regional Hospital. The methods of scientific analysis and generalization were also used. The research results. The description and analysis of the life story of Dovlet Pozadovich allows us to generalize and understand social, cultural and psychological phenomena of a certain historical period. The fate of Achegu included the main milestones of the Soviet period. He experienced all the joys and hardships of difficult military-political and ideological processes. All significant historical events of those years run like a red thread through his life. Undoubtedly, Dovlet was not unique; he was formed as a highly qualified specialist and an interesting person under the influence of the system of Soviet culture, education, norms of behavior and attitude towards the profession. Key findings. The younger generation of doctors and medical students need to know such stories and biographies as an example of service to the profession and duty of a doctor. The life and work of Achegu D.P. can serve as an example for the formation of personal meanings and value guidelines for modern youth. Such “microhistories” related to the humanistic direction of the study of history, analyze the cultural, professional, and family values of people. They describe small elements that are important for knowledge and understanding of a certain era, which help answer big questions and build the continuity of generations.

Професор Олександр Комарніцький: вражаючі досягнення талановитого історика, краєзнавця, педагога (до 50-річчя від дня народження та 25-річчя педагогічної та науково-педагогічної діяльності)

Modern Ukrainian historical science and national university education periodically undergo changes in their personnel as an important condition for renewal, improvement, and progress. The reproduction of scientists takes place at the highest level every time, considering modern requirements, advanced national and world practices, and the quality of training. It is important that this process leads to the emergence of a cohort of bright, talented, generally powerful, and patriotic personalities capable of ensuring the development of national industries in accordance with world trends. Fresh scientific and teaching forces from time to time replenish their structures practically throughout Ukraine, enrich their worldview and practical activities, and receive fair recognition at the level of their collectives; that is why it is so important to know and popularize their experience to take into account in the training of the next generations of scientific and teaching personnel, which will guarantee the necessary progress. The purpose of the article is a complete and extensive biographical essay about the formation of a personality, multifaceted scientific-pedagogical, administrative and public activities of the well-known Ukrainian historian, local historian, organizer of scientific research in the section of the Faculty of Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor Oleksandr Borysovych Komarnitskyi, who is an example of faithful service to Ukrainian historical science, local history, as well as the training of highly qualified pedagogical and scientific personnel for our country. The methodological basis of the research is the principles of historicism, objectivity, comprehensiveness, and systematicity. They are implemented by applying such research methods as analytical, synthetic, descriptive, chronological, biographical, synchronous, diachronic, and others. The scientific novelty of the work lies in presenting for the first time the main stages of the life and professional journey of the well-known historian, professor, and public figure O.B. Komarnitskyi, their most significant results and achievements, which are important for understanding the personality of the scientist, his role in the development of the scientific and pedagogical team of the faculty, as well as the possible consideration of this accumulated experience in the process of training the next, patriotically minded, generations of teachers, scientists, and local historians. Conclusions. The personality of the well-known scientist-historian, professor O.B. Komarnitskyi, was formed and improved over a long period of time in fairly favorable family, school, industrial, and university conditions, among which the home, school, and university upbringing, extremely positive moral and psychological climate and high-quality professional level in the workforce of Kamianets-Podilskyi Ivan Ohiienko National University. Decisive in this process was great organization, diligence, purposefulness, and perseverance of the student, and therefore of the young scientist, his mentors’ professional efforts, and the university management’s help. The impressive achievements of the scientist not only contributed immensely to various components of Ukrainian historical science, local studies, and the improvement of the practice of training national personnel but also revealed new facets of his talent, opportunities, and prospects for even greater creative self-realization, became an undeniable example for talented youth to follow.

Первые леди в истории США: историко-библиографический обзор

The introduction of this article delves into the author’s contemplations on the role of the first ladies of US presidents in maintaining their image and electoral appeal. The author highlights that the general public’s lack of knowledge regarding the intelligence, education, mentality, and character of first ladies is an evident historical injustice. Currently, modern historians are actively rectifying this oversight. The purpose of the study is to analyze modern literature on the role and significance of first ladies in the history and political life of the United States and to provide a chronology of published biographical research on this issue in English-language and domestic historiography. The methodology employed is rooted in specialized historical research methods, including comparative-historical analysis, which allows for an exploration of research trends in this historical domain. Additionally, historical systemic and retrospective methods are employed, along with elements of the historical biographical method. The author’s historiographical analysis is founded on principles of historicism and historical objectivity. The materials used in the study are memoirs, biographical essays, documents, scientific monographs and articles, and Internet resources, including the official websites of the White House and the National First Ladies’ Library. The “Analysis” section contains the main part of the article’s text, that is, an analysis of literature and other sources, including autobiographies and memoirs of first ladies, interesting information about the authors of modern biographical studies, as well as the chronological order of published works of Englishlanguage and domestic authors. The results of the research are encapsulated in the author’s conclusions on the topic. It is determined that the historiography surrounding the role and significance of first ladies in American history is currently underdeveloped and, often, subjectively biased. Typically, more attention and subsequent publications are dedicated to the spouses of the most popular presidents, overshadowing other first ladies, even if they were remarkable individuals themselves.

„Wyobrażam sobie albo pamiętam…”. Strategie narracyjne dokumentu historycznego na przykładzie filmu „Mała Zagłada” Natalii Korynckiej-Gruz

The article is an in-depth, contextual analysis of Natalia Koryncka-Gruz’s film A Minor Genocide. The author focuses on its narrative structure, in which the documentarian tried to reflect the nature of the work of memory and post-memory. The film is a documentary adaptation of Anna Janko’s (auto)biographical essay. The narrative complexity of the literary text is reflected in the film version, which takes the shape of a palimpsest. Its individual layers consist of verbal narratives from three generations of women, contemporary sequences, archival photographs and stylistically diverse animated sequences. The memory of traumatic experiences is superimposed on the idea of them. For the author, A Minor Genocide is an example of bringing Polish documentary film and literature closer together, as well as a new formula of a historical document.

The Biographical Essay to the 140th Anniversary of the Russian Philosopher and Publicist Ivan Aleksandrovich Il'in (1883–1954)

The Biographical Essay to the 140th Anniversary of the Russian Philosopher and Publicist Ivan Aleksandrovich Il'in (1883–1954)

В.Т. Суслин: последний первый секретарь ростовского обкома КПСС

The article presents the first scientific biographical essay about the last first secretary of the Rostov regional Committee of the CPSU Vitaly Timofeyevich Suslin (1937). His work history began at a metallurgical plant in Taganrog, and the heyday of his party career fell on the late Brezhnev period and the Perestroika period of the Soviet era. For ten years (late 1970s – late 1980s) V.T. Suslin was one of the leaders of the Rostov regional Committee of the CPSU. And after working in the Central Committee of the CPSU (1988–1990) on an alterna-tive basis, he was elected first secretary of the Rostov regional party committee during the rapid collapse of its authority (1990–1991) and the reduction of power resources. The “tug-of-war” with the new regional Council of People’s Deputies headed by L.A. Ivanchenko, a fellow party member and recent competitor of the hero of the article for the position of the regional party leader, became a characteristic of the time. After the ban of the CPSU and the collapse of the USSR, V.T. Suslin took an active part in the restoration of the party structures of the Communist Party, but did not aspire to become a public political figure. V.T. Suslin died in Taganrog at the age of 60 (1997).

Father Taylor Boston's Sailor Preacher As Seen and Heard by His Contemporaries. Compiled and with a biographical essay by William H. Armstrong. Np: Amazon Self-Publishing. xiv + 496 pp. $6.59 paper, $6.59 eBook.

Father Taylor Boston's Sailor Preacher As Seen and Heard by His Contemporaries. Compiled and with a biographical essay by William H. Armstrong. Np: Amazon Self-Publishing. xiv + 496 pp. $6.59 paper, $6.59 eBook.

ВСЕ МЕНЯЕТСЯ, НИЧТО НЕ ИСЧЕЗАЕТ - К ЮБИЛЕЮ МИХАИЛА ВАСИЛЬЕВИЧА ШУНЬКОВА

The biographical essay is dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the famous researcher of the Eurasia ancient past — Mikhail Vasilyevich Shunkov, whose scientific activity relates to the solution of such fundamental problems as human settlement in the North and Central Asia territory,the formation and development of cultural traditions at diff erent stages of the Paleolithic, geochronology, Pleistocene paleogeography and paleoecology of ancient human. Signifi cant dates and events in the life of the hero of the day that infl uenced his formation as a scientist are given. It tells about the active scientifi c-organizational and expeditionary activities of the researcher. The essay also presents the most important scientifi c results of Mikhail V. Shunkov, obtained mainly during a comprehensive study of the multilayer Paleolithic objects of Altai, such as the Denisova Cave and the Karama Early Paleolithic site. Publication activity, pedagogical activity and the main directions of the administrative work of the scientist are covered.

In Memoriam – Joseph Wieczerzak

Dr. Joseph Walter Wieczerzak was born on January 1, 1931, in Newark, New Jersey, and passed away on September 10, 2022, at 91 years old, in Greenwich, Connecticut.Dr. Wieczerzak attended Stuyvesant High school as a science major, graduating in 1946. In 1952, he earned a BA from Brooklyn College. During the Korean War in 1952–1955, Wieczerzak served in the US Army as a translator at the rank of sergeant. Under the GI Bill, Wieczerzak earned his MA and then PhD in European history from New York University. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and was fluent in several languages.Dr. Wieczerzak's distinguished academic career included tenure as a European history professor at Bronx Community College, where he taught for over twenty years. He was also the Editor-in-Chief of The Polish Review, a quarterly journal of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America, for seventeen years. Dr. Wieczerzak was active in the Kosciuszko Foundation, Polish American Historical Association (President, 1970; Miecislaus Haiman Award, 1980), and the Polish National Catholic Church, serving for many years as Dean of Students at the Savonarola Seminary in Scranton, Pennsylvania.In 2008 Dr. Wieczerzak was honored with a City of New York Commendation for inspiring generations of students at Bronx Community College, and for his scholarly achievements. Among others, he authored A Polish Chapter in Civil War America: The Effects of the January Insurrection on American Opinion and Diplomacy (1967) and edited Bishop Francis Hodur: Biographical Essays (1998). Together with Theodore L. Zawistowski, Dr. Wieczerzak worked to create the PNCC History and Archives Commission, which he eventually chaired and served as editor of the scholarly journal, PNCC Studies. He also served on the Bishop Hodur Biography Commission of the Central Diocese PNCC.Outside the world of scholarship, Joseph Wieczerzak loved to sing, including in concerts of the PNCC United Choirs of the New York–New Jersey Seniorate. He was a friend, mentor, and collaborator to many in PAHA, being always willing to share his advice and knowledge with others.He will be greatly missed.

Recollection of the Parisian painters in 1650–1800

The article is dedicated to research of sources and documents linked with recollection of Parisian painters of 1650–1800 by contemporaries and scholars. Since the origin of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture appeared regularly a sum of biographical essays devoted to French academic masters. The texts were created by historiographer of Academy until the middle of the 18th century. Later it were connoisseurs of fine art who continued to produce these writings. The authors were recruited from members of Academy as well as friends and relatives of an artist. After research of such sources and documents, the author strives to define a role of memory and posthumous glory for the most eminent artists and representatives of artistic milieu. The author takes in consideration an image of a Parisian painter displayed before his descendants. The article also treats an idea of personal glory connected with artists’ aim to make the Academy and its pictorial school flourish and rule throughout Europe. The research novelty is based on the lack of fundamental publications on the topic in Russian and Western historiography. The relevance of this study is caused by recent trends of social art history interested in everyday life and worldview of a real artist in the real world. Author’s careful work with authentic documents helped to trace a certain scheme used in such biographical writings. They contain biographical data, a tribute to personal qualities of the late artist and, finally, a scrupulous description of his works. The texts written by artist’s friends and relatives are usually more sentimental and have a touch of biographical novel. Virtually, both of these genres were intended not only to keep memory of artist’s creative heritage but also to represent his individuality. In doing so the biographers of any artist not only aimed to compose several individual vitae but also to create a panoramic view of French school of painting as the leader of artistic progress of the time.

Russell Earl Marker and the Beginning of the Steroidal Pharmaceutical Industry.

A biographical essay is presented on the chemical research of Russell E. Marker (1902-1995). The biography begins in 1925 with Marker's decision to forgo a Ph.D. in chemistry because he did not wish to complete the course requirements at the University of Maryland. Marker then took a position at the Ethyl Gasoline Company where he helped develop the octane rating for gasoline. He then moved to the Rockefeller Institute where he studied the Walden inversion, and then to Penn State College where his already prolific publication record soared to even greater heights. In the 1930s, Marker became fascinated with steroids and their potential as pharmaceuticals and collected specimens from plants in the southwest US and Mexico, discovering many sources of steroidal sapogenins. With his students at Penn State College, where he rose to full professor, he discovered the structure of these sapogenins and invented the "Marker degradation" that converted diosgenin and other sapogenins into progesterone. Together with Emeric Somlo and Federico Lehmann, he co-founded Syntex and began the manufacture of progesterone. Shortly thereafter, he left Syntex, began another pharmaceutical company in Mexico, then quit chemistry altogether. A discussion of Marker's legacies and the ironies in his professional career is provided.

Foundational research in accounting: professional memoirs and beyond

It was with particular pleasure that, several years ago, I accepted the invitation of ChuoUniversity to write a professional, biographical essay about my own experience with accounting. My relation with this university is a long-standing one. Shortly after two of my books, Accounting and Analytical Methods and Simulation of the Firm Through a Budget Computer Program, were published in the USA in 1964, Professor Kenji Aizaki (then at Chuo University) and his former student, Professor Fujio Harada, and later other scholars from Chuo University, began actively promoting my ideas in Japan. And after a two volume Japanese translation of the first of these books was published in 1972 and 1975 (through the mediation of Professor Shinzaburo Koshimura, then President of Yokohama National University), my research found fertile ground in Japan through continuing efforts of three generations of accounting academics from Chuo University. I suppose it is thanks to these endeavours that my efforts became so well known in Japan, and that during some three decades many Japanese accounting professors contacted me either personally or by correspondence. Then from 1988 to 1990 Prof. Yoshiaki Koguchi, again from Chuo University, came as a visiting scholar to the University of British Columbia, audited some of my classes, and became a good friend and collaborator, which further strengthened my ties to this university.

Ramsey and Keynes revisited

Abstract This paper re-assesses Ramsey’s influence on Keynes. It is argued that the Standard View has restricted attention to the implications for probability theory of Ramsey’s criticisms of Keynes’s concepts of logical probability-relations and non-numerical probabilities. Building on the work of both Coates (1996) and Misak (2016), an Alternative View is proposed in which Ramsey’s influence on Keynes is seen as principally philosophical. Specifically, the Alternative View recognises Ramsey’s adoption of the logical pragmatist philosophy of C. S. Peirce from 1924 onwards with a dispositional theory of belief in which beliefs are treated not only as useful mental habits that can successfully guide future actions but also as able to provide true explanations of observed empirical facts. The textual evidence is examined, particularly Keynes’s biographical essay on Ramsey, which, it is argued, supports the contention that Keynes fully appreciated and was sympathetic to Ramsey’s pragmatism especially the importance of vague knowledge and the need for the development of human logic as the study of reasonable human behaviour.

Biographical essay of the Mukalov family through the prism of archive-criminal cases of the OGPU-NKVD

Biographical essay of the Mukalov family through the prism of archive-criminal cases of the OGPU-NKVD

КОНСТРУИРОВАНИЕ ОБРАЗА И.В. СТАЛИНА В БИОГРАФИЧЕСКИХ ОЧЕРКАХ О В.И. ЛЕНИНЕ (1924-1956 ГГ.)

The author of this article considers the formation and development of the image of I.V. Stalin in biographical essays about V.I. Lenin and published in the period from 1924 to 1956. That is the time stages of this process and the tools used by the authors of the texts to construct the image of I.V. Stalin. The process of “Stalinization” and “de-Stalinization” of biographies can be divided into three stages. The late 1920s – early 1930s are characterized by a quantitative increase in the number of mentions of the leader in texts. The second half of the 1930s reflects a qualitative change in the image of I.V. Stalin, in which he turns from a simple comrade-in-arms of V.I. Lenin into a figure of global historical scale. The heir of V.I. Lenin begins to manifest himself as a separate historical figure who copies personal qualities from his teacher, performs tasks of a historical nature and creatively develops the ideas of MarxismLeninism. The last biography of the period under consideration, published in 1955, in turn, testifies to the process of latent “de-Stalinization” of biographies of V.I. Lenin, in which I.V. Stalin, though having not yet become an object of criticism, he loses many of his personal qualities and once again acts as an ordinary comrade-in-arms of V.I. Lenin.

“Abhorrent Zionism, Israel are not the Solution”: Dialectics of the Soviet and the National in Ego-Documents of the 1970s–80s

Drawing on late-Soviet Jewish ego-documents: memoirs, diaries and letters, primarily on a corpus of (auto)biographical essays on the life of a Leningrad journalist, the author explores her protagonists' obsessive reflections on anti-Semitism and Zionism, evoked by the acute dissonance between their sincerely internalised communist ideology of internationalism and the widespread practice of anti-Semitism, as well as between Soviet patriotism and Jewish memory, Jewish solidarity and the temptation of emigration to Israel. The study of “ordinary” people’s ego-documents not intended for publication enables one to penetrate into their inner world and to extrapolate the obtained observations onto Soviet Jewish majority; in addition, it allows to explain the position of prominent Soviet authors of Jewish origin, such as playwright and publicist Tsezar Solodar, poet and editor-in-chief of Sovetisch Heymland Aron Vergelis, author of critical popular books on Judaism Moisei Belenkii, and others, who stigmatised Judaism and Zionism. Ego-documents allow for tracing not only Soviet, but also Jewish origins of late-Soviet anti-Zionism, which went back to the position of the poor strata of shtetl society, who, while leaning towards socialism, associated Zionism with the hostile bourgeoisie. The paper partly polemicises, partly complements the existing historiography on late Soviet Jewish identity, which is based mainly on post-Soviet interviews or the émigrés’ experience and therefore tends to simplify the picture, reducing the diversity of identities, attitudes and behaviours to two binaries, either to “thin culture”/“symbolic ethnicity”, or to hidden emigration aspirations presented as natural and self-evident.

“Between Finland and Bohdan Khmelnytsky’s land”: Ukrainian national project through the eyes of Herman Gummerus

This article considers the cooperation between the Ukrainian and Finnish national movement in the first quarter of the twentieth century. The political aspects of the cooperation are viewed through the lens of Herman Gregorius Gummerus’ biography (1877-1948). In contemporary historiography, Herman Gummerus is mostly known for his historical studies that focus on the economic history of ancient Rome. Whereas the majority of studies on Ukrainian-Finnish cooperation in the early twentieth century contain only fragmentary evidence of his political and diplomatic activities, the author of the article considers it necessary to present the biographical essay with a special focus on Herman Gummerus’ participation in the Finnish activists’ movement during two periods of “Russification of Finland” (1899-1905, 1908-1917) and after World War One. Herman Gummerus’ attitude towards the Ukrainian national state project (including the Ukrainian State or the Second Hetmanate, dated 1918) is reconstructed on the basis of his memoirs “Ukraine on the cusp. Six months at the head of the Finnish Embassy in Kyiv” (Ukrainan murrosajoilta - Kuusi kuukautta lähetystön päällikkönä Kievissä) (1931).

Ранние биографии Канта и их значениедля понимания его философии

For a long time, there have been disputes about the importance of philosophers’ biographies for understanding their philosophical ideas. Some scholars have defended radical positions, from a complete denial of the necessity of taking into account the life circumstances of a thinker to the attempts to absolutize these circumstances and perceive philosophical ideas exclusively through the optics of the life path of their creator. This paper will focus on the example of the first Russian edition of Kant’s early biographies (which includes biographies of Borowski, Wasianski, Jachmann, Rink and a fragment from Reike’s “Kantiana”). Using this example, we will demonstrate the connection between the philosopher’s life and his philosophical views, the importance of biographical essays for a better understanding of philosophical ideas, and the necessity to take them into account as an auxiliary source for our understanding of the philosophical system of a particular thinker.