Vera Aleksandrovna Balts (1866–1943), sometimes published as V.A. Balts, or Baltz, was a Russian
geologist and
soil scientist. Balts was one of the first female soil scientists in Russia and the later
Soviet Union, the latter of which suppressed her work.
Biography
Balts was born in
Saint Petersburg in 1866.
Education
In 1882 she graduated with a gold medal from the St. Petersburg Alexandrovskaya female gymnasium. She knew German, French and English. In 1894, the family moved to Warsaw, to the place of service of her father, General A.F. Balts (1841–1899), a high-ranking officer in the
Imperial Russian Army
The Imperial Russian Army (russian: Ру́сская импера́торская а́рмия, tr. ) was the armed land force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the early 1850s, the Russian Ar ...
.
Balts was educated at the
Tenishevsky School in Saint Petersburg.
She became interested in biology and the field of soil science, eventually working at the
Soviet Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg and the
V.V. Dokuchaev Central Museum of Soil. In the 1920s, she became the director of the Museum of Soil Science.
Specializing in soil structure, engineering geology and road construction, she attended several international conferences of soil scientists in the late 1920s. She also published a number of scientific works during this time.
Arrest
In December 1930, Balts was arrested as part of a group of people considered to be antigovernmental agitators by the Soviet government. Although some authorities demanded her execution, she was sentenced to five years of forced labor at
Solovki prison camp
The Solovki special camp (later the Solovki special prison), was set up in 1923 on the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea as a remote and inaccessible place of detention, primarily intended for socialist opponents of Soviet Russia's new Bolshev ...
, where she was able to continue her work as a soil scientist.
She even took part in the work of the Northern Base of the USSR Academy of Sciences for the study of tundra and peat bogs near Arkhangelsk.
Balts was released from prison in 1933 on account of her advanced age, though the Soviet government levied additional restrictions on her and suppressed her work. Balts then settled in
Arkhangelsk with her niece, Leontina Arturovna, and her husband.
Balts and her family was eventually forced to move to
Syktyvkar
Syktyvkar (, rus, Сыктывка́р, p=sɨktɨfˈkar; kv, Сыктывкар) is the capital city of the Komi Republic in Russia, as well as its largest city. It is also the capital of the Syktyvkar Urban Okrug. Until 1930, it was known as U ...
.
After the ration card for her niece and family was stolen, Balts gave them hers. She died in 1943 of
decompensated myocarditis brought on by starvation at 76.
References
External source
* Prikhod’ko, V.E. Role of women in Russian soil science. ''Eurasian Soil Sc.'' 39, 342–343 (2006).
https://doi.org/10.1134/S106422930603015X
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baltz, Vera
Russian geologists
Russian earth scientists
1866 births
1943 deaths
Scientists from Saint Petersburg
Woman scientists from the Russian Empire
20th-century Russian women scientists