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At the origins of polarography in the USSR: Tatyana Alexandrovna Kryukova

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Abstract

When teaching electroanalysis, always reference should be made to its history, which mainly started with polarography. Since Tatyana Kryukova played an important role in the development of polarography, students should be made aware of her life. The scientific achievements of Kryukova on polarographic maxima, her principal scientific field will be discussed in a paper, written by Galina Tsirlina (for ChemTexts). Here, we provide information about the biography of Tatyana Kryukova and her relatives, her studies and work, difficulties of fate and creative successes, and the most significant achievements in polarography and education in electrochemistry. In the material preceding the biographical data, the state of polarography in the USSR in the mid-1930s is considered. It was a time when the hardships and problems of researchers were largely due to politics.

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Data availability

Photo 1, 7a, and 9 and some data obtained from open archival and literary sources. Other photo and data about Tatyana Kryukova and her relatives provided by Tatyana Pritula.

Note on sources

The authors used archival data from the National Archives of the Archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ARAN, 411, 42, 584; ARAN, 518, 3, 211; ARAN, 524, 5, 192), the Central State Archive of St. Petersburg (TsGA SPb, R-3121, 1, 99; TsGA SPb, R-814, 1, 500), the Central State Historical Archive of St. Petersburg (TsGIA SPb. 19, 128, 1887), the Central State Archive of Scientific and Technical Documentation of St. Petersburg (TsGANTD SPb, R-195, 2, 1882), and archival data from open literary and network sources.

Change history

  • 17 October 2023

    Springer Nature’s version of this paper was updated to present correct supplementary file.

Notes

  1. St. Petersburg was renamed Petrograd in 1914, Leningrad in 1924, and returned to the name St. Petersburg in 1991.

  2. Now Kharkiv, Ukraine.

  3. Now Odesa, Ukraine.

  4. Yevgeniy Kronman (1901–1938) was arrested on charges of spying for Germany and preparing to poison scientists loyal to the Soviet regime. He was shot on May 28, 1938.

  5. Commission for the Improvement of the Life of Scientists.

  6. Self-congestion was a Soviet term denoting the process of “voluntarily” moving additional tenants in someone’s premises.

  7. The 2nd Moscow State University was organized in accordance with the decision of the Board of the People’s Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR of October 16, 1918 by transforming the Moscow Higher Women’s Courses, which had existed since 1872. By order of the People’s Commissariat of Education No. 234 dated April 18, 1930, the 2nd Moscow State University was reorganized: Faculty of Medicine—to the 2nd Moscow State Medical Institute (now the Russian National Research Medical University named after N.I. Pirogov), Department of Chemistry—to the Moscow Institute of Fine Chemical Technology (later the Moscow State University of Fine Chemical Technologies named after M.V. Lomonosov, attached in 2015 to MIREA with the formation of the Moscow Technological University).

  8. The People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the USSR is the central government body of the USSR for combating crime and maintaining public order, and in 1934–1943 also for ensuring state security.

  9. See note 8.

  10. People’s Commissariat for Heavy Industry of the USSR.

  11. Capital of the Komi Republic in Russia.

  12. Now Samara, Russia.

  13. Special Troika consisted of three people—the head of the district department of the NKVD, a representative of the regional committee of the CPSU (b) and the prosecutor, which served as the basis for their name (troika in Russian is equal three).

  14. Now Maloyaroslavets, Kaluga region, Russia.

  15. Now Ekaterinburg, Russia.

  16. Zeutenhorst, Brandenburg, Germany.

  17. Wustrau, Brandenburg, Germany.

  18. Mṻnchehof, Lower Saxony, Germany.

  19. United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.

  20. Chief Personnel Department.

  21. State security branches, namely MGB and later KGB.

  22. The “fifth point” is an expression used in a figurative sense, meaning an indication of nationality in documents as a fact of belonging to a certain ethnic community. In the USSR, column number 5 for indicating nationality was in the form of the Personal sheet for registering personnel of the passport authorities of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs.

  23. “Rubbing glasses in” stands for lying.

  24. Ivan Kablukov is a Soviet physical chemist who proposed an idea of the solvation of ions and initiated the unification of the physical and chemical theory of solutions.

  25. playfully ironic proverb about a woman forced to do all the male work and household.

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Acknowledgements

The authors express their sincere gratitude to Tatyana Pritula for the opportunity to use the preserved documents of the Bilenkin family for publication. We are grateful to Konstantin Sheyko and Yana Soldatova for their help in preparing the final version of the manuscript. Our thanks go to Fritz Scholz and Galina Tsirlina for their valuable comments and recommendations for an earlier version of the manuscript.

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  1. HSE University, 101000, Moscow, Russian Federation

    Vitaliy Yu. Kotov

  2. IM Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University (Sechenovskiy University), 119991, Moscow, Russian Federation

    Dmitriy D. Protsenko

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Correspondence to Vitaliy Yu. Kotov.

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Kotov, V.Y., Protsenko, D.D. At the origins of polarography in the USSR: Tatyana Alexandrovna Kryukova. J Solid State Electrochem 28, 1205–1223 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10008-023-05699-0

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