Alexander Ivanovitch Petrunkevitch (

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

: Александр Иванович Петрункевич, December 22, 1875 in

Plysky Plysky ( uk, Плиски) is a selo in Nizhyn Raion, Chernihiv Oblast, Ukraine. It hosts the administration of Plysky rural hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. The village has a population of 1,333. Here was born American biologist Alexa ...

near

Kyiv Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...

, now Ukraine – March 9, 1964 in

New Haven New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...

) was an eminent Russian

arachnologist Arachnology is the scientific study of arachnids, which comprise spiders and related invertebrates such as scorpions, pseudoscorpions, and harvestmen. Those who study spiders and other arachnids are arachnologists. More narrowly, the study of sp ...

of his time. From 1910 to 1939 he described over 130

spider Spiders ( order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species ...

species. One of his most famous essays was "The Spider and the Wasp." In it he uses effective word choices and some comic touch.

Biography

His aristocratic father, Ivan Illitch Petrunkevitch, was a liberal member of the

First Duma The State Duma, also known as the Imperial Duma, was the lower house of the Governing Senate in the Russian Empire, while the upper house was the State Council. It held its meetings in the Taurida Palace in St. Petersburg. It convened four tim ...

and founded the

Constitutional Democratic Party The Constitutional Democratic Party (russian: Конституцио́нно-демократи́ческая па́ртия, translit=Konstitutsionno-demokraticheskaya partiya, K-D), also called Constitutional Democrats and formally the Party of P ...

. After finishing his studies in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

and in

Freiburg Freiburg im Breisgau (; abbreviated as Freiburg i. Br. or Freiburg i. B.; Low Alemannic: ''Friburg im Brisgau''), commonly referred to as Freiburg, is an independent city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With a population of about 230,000 (as o ...

under

August Weismann August Friedrich Leopold Weismann FRS (For), HonFRSE, LLD (17 January 18345 November 1914) was a German evolutionary biologist. Fellow German Ernst Mayr ranked him as the second most notable evolutionary theorist of the 19th century, after Cha ...

, Alexander settled in

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

in 1910, becoming a full professor in 1917. Apart from describing present-day species, he was a major figure in the study of fossil arachnids, including those in

amber Amber is fossilized tree resin that has been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since Neolithic times. Much valued from antiquity to the present as a gemstone, amber is made into a variety of decorative objects."Amber" (2004). In ...

and from the Coal Measures. He also experimented with live specimens and worked on

insects Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs of j ...

. Professor Petrunkevitch's formulation of the principle of plural effects (= every cause is potentially capable of producing several effects) and the principle of the limits of possible oscillations (= the number and the nature of the effects which actually take place may vary within definite limitations only) is well known, both in biology and psychology. Petrunkevitch was elected to the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

in 1954 and was also a member of the

Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences The Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences is a learned society founded in 1799 in New Haven, Connecticut "to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest and happiness of a free and virtuous people." Its purpose is the ...

. Throughout his career he remained politically active, trying to increase awareness of problems in Russia. He was also a skilled machinist and wrote two volumes of poetry (under the pseudonym Alexandr Jan-Ruban), and translated

Pushkin Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (; rus, links=no, Александр Сергеевич ПушкинIn pre-Revolutionary script, his name was written ., r=Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn, ...

into the English language, and

Byron George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and has been regarded as among the ...

into Russian. He died in 1964. A 1917 portrait miniature of Petrunkevitch by

Margaret Foote Hawley Margaret Spencer Foote Hawley (1880–1963) was an American painter of portrait miniatures. Hawley and her sister, Mary Foote – also later to become a painter – were born in Guilford, Connecticut, the daughters of Charles Spencer Foote (18 ...

is currently owned by the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

Selected texts authored by Petrunkevitch

* The role of the intellectuals in the liberating movement in Russia ("Russian Revolution," Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1918, pp. 8-21); * The Russian Revolution (The Yale Alumni Weekly, 1917); * Russian Revolution (Yale Review, July, 1917); * The Political Crisis in Russia (Yale Alumni Weekly, Nov. 16, 1917).

References

External links

Short Bio

* * * 1875 births 1964 deaths 20th-century American zoologists Arachnologists 20th-century Ukrainian zoologists Russian nobility Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Yale University faculty American entomologists {{US-entomologist-stub