Nikolai Valerianovich Schipczinsky (russian: Никола́й Валериа́нович Шипчи́нский; 1886 – 1955) was a Russian and

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

botanist Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

and taxonomist, who was director of the Saint Petersburg Botanical Garden in 1934-1938 and 1942-1948 respectively.

Biography

Schipczinsky was born in 1886 in

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

, the son of an accountant quartermaster and a housewife. In 1909 he graduated from the Russian school in Helsinki, and started studying biology at the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of the

Saint Petersburg State University Saint Petersburg State University (SPBU; russian: Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет) is a public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter the G ...

. As of 1910, he studied the flora of the Far East in the

Herbarium A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sheet of paper (called ...

of the Saint Petersburg Botanical Garden under Vladimir Leontyevich Komarov. He participated in field expeditions to the Trans-Baikal Barguzin district (1912), the South-Ussuri region in the

Primorskaya Oblast Primorskaya Oblast (russian: Примо́рская о́бласть) was an administrative division of the Russian Empire and the early Russian SFSR, created on October 31, 1856 by the Governing Senate.''History of Soviet Primorye'', pg. 31 The na ...

(1913), the Semipalatinsk Oblast (1914), and Iran (1916). In 1915, he joined the staff of the St. Petersburg Botanical Garden, where he continued to work until his death at first as lecturer (1915), then conservator in the Herbarium (1915-1931), senior botanist for living plants (1931-1933) and director of the Museum (1933-1934). From 1934 on, he was director of the Botanical Garden. In 1939-1941 he was sent to assist in the construction of Balkhash town, where he led the landscaping around the

Balkhashtsvetmet Balhashcvetmet ("Ferrous Metallurgy of Balkhash"), formerly known as BGMC (russian: БГМК), for Balkhash Mining and Metallurgical Combine (russian: Балхашский горно-металлургический Комбинат, links=no, ), ...

copper plant and the city of Balkhash. During World War II, Schipczinsky assisted in the defense of Saint Petersburg by designing a camouflage landscape for the city. Schipczinsky was involved in the project organization and construction of the Botanical Garden of Moscow (1936-1937), the Botanical Garden of the Belarusian Academy of Sciences in Minsk (1939), and the Botanical Garden of the Kyrgyz SSR. Herbarium specimens collected by Schipczinsky during his expeditions are preserved in the Herbarium of the Komarov Botanical Institute, and the photo’s he took during these expeditions are kept in the Botanical Museum.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schipczinsky, Nikolai Soviet botanists Taxonomists 1886 births 1955 deaths 20th-century Finnish botanists Scientists from Helsinki Scientists from Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg State University alumni