Longinov, Vitaliy Vitalievich

Vitaliy Vitalievich Longinov was born in the Tver province, in Vyshnevolotsky district, in the village of Glubokoe, in the Gorka family estate of the Longinovs. His father is a former officer, cavalry officer, full-time state adviser , justice of the peace , horse breeder Vitaly Vasilievich Longinov ; mother - Marianna Zakharovna Longinova (née Marianne Maklotlin, daughter of the English merchant Richard Maklotlin, in the English transcription Richard Watson McLothlin). After graduating from the Smolensk Gymnasium, Vitaliy entered Moscow University , but in 1906 , in protest against the dismissal of the democratic professors during the First Russian Revolution , he left the university and continued his studies in Switzerland, at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1908.

While studying, he met a student, Adeline Dalberg from Poland, who became his bride, and at the wedding, who took the name Ada Ignatievna Longinova. In the fall of 1908 , the Longinov couple returned to Russia, to Moscow, where a year later they had a son, Vladimir (the future famous Soviet oceanologist Longinov, Vladimir Vitalievich ).

Versatile in nature, Vitaly Longinov was known among students as a talented essayist, violinist, excellent draftsman and photographer, who has repeatedly received awards from the Moscow Union of Photographers.

Upon returning to Russia, Vitaly Vitalyevich continued his studies, first as a student (1909-1911), and then in graduate school under the guidance of Academician Nikolai Zelinsky . In 1912 he defended his dissertation on the subject: “On the question of the structure of phenol ”, left to work at the Department of Analytical and organic chemistry at Moscow University , where he worked until 1932 . Here in 1922 he defended his doctoral dissertation. At the end of 1918 he achieved organization and became the first director of the Institute of Pure Chemical Reagents (now Federal State Unitary Enterprise IREA ).

In 1920-30. V.V. Longinov repeatedly went on business trips to European countries (Germany, France, Switzerland) and the United States to conclude contracts for the supply of equipment. In 1936, V.V. Longinov was accepted as a member of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures for a major contribution to the standardization of chemical research and the production of highly pure reference substances.

In 1937 , at the age of 51, Vitaly Longinov suddenly died of lung cancer. He bequeathed to cremate himself. His ashes are buried in the New Don cemetery .

The supply needs of the Russian army during the First World War revealed a catastrophic situation in the Russian Empire with chemical equipment and chemical reagents . The traditional supply routes from Germany , a recognized leader in the chemical industry of the early 20th century, were impossible due to the war with it. And the military industry demanded an increasing amount of explosives, ammunition. After a chemical attack near Iprom in 1915 , the threat of the use of chemical weapons on the Eastern Front sharply increased. Teacher Vitaly Vitalievich Zelinsky N.D. hurriedly developing the world's first gas mask . But without the supply of industry with reagents, any chemical production became impossible. On the initiative of the Military Chemical Committee at the Russian Physicochemical Society, permission to create the Institute of Clean Reagents, whose task was to “take care of planting its own reactive production in Russia,” was signed on January 1, 1917 (according to a new style) by Emperor Nicholas II. However, the events of the February Revolution prevented the implementation of this progressive decision for that time. They returned to the idea after the Bolsheviks came to power. December 25, 1918 a decree was signed on the establishment of the institute. From that moment until the end of its days, the institute was headed by V.V. Longinov. ^[1] .

As a member of the Moscow Commission for the Improvement of the Life of Scientists, V.V. Longinov does everything possible to make life easier for scientists in the difficult hungry years of the civil war and devastation. Many remarkable scholars in these years felt his delicate help.

In the mid-1920s science moved closer to production. The Kharkov and Donetsk branches of IREA are being created. Interdepartmental reactive commission created. Together with IREA, she developed programs for individual plants. ^[2] Demands for chemically pure reagents continued to grow. Many new universities and research institutes appeared, and an extensive network of factory and other laboratories grew. Taking into account the interests of the chemical and other industries, as well as the interests of the country's defense, IREA organized the production of chemically pure reagents at a number of pharmaceutical plants ^[3] . The activities of IREA saved significant resources for the country. As soon as a method was developed for the preparation of one or another imported reagent, its import from abroad immediately ceased ^[4] .

Here is one of the surviving statements of Vitaly Vitalievich of those years:

“The restructuring of the work of the institutes will not be able to be brought to an end if the most decisive measures are not taken to improve the supply of their equipment and reagents.”

- (Newspaper "Technique", 1933, M.)

The title of the article in the newspaper to which they were sent is also noteworthy: “Where analyzes are carried out in tea glasses, there can be no high technical culture” ... Vitaly Vitalievich was well aware that without reliable supply of reagents, the development of chemical science in the country is absolutely impossible ^[5] .

Despite the enormous organizational burden of the director of the institute, Vitaly Vitalievich remained an active research chemist all his life. VV Longinov studied the reduction of sodium esters in an alcoholic medium, proposed methods for the synthesis of ethylene and diene hydrocarbons, alcohols, esters, terpenes, and heterocyclic compounds ^[6] . This allowed a short time to organize a large-scale production of gasoline, dyes, and medicines in the country.

Under his leadership, a whole galaxy of remarkable chemists worked at IREA: E. S. Przhevalsky (professor at Moscow State University, head of the laboratory at IREA), P. P. Borisov , I. V. Kulikov , N. I. Gavrilov and others. The closest scientific V.V. Longinov kept in touch all his life with his teacher, academician N. D. Zelinsky .