Yuliy Mikhailovich
Shokalsky
1856-1940
The study of the Russian North has long been one of the most important directions of Russian policy. Therefore, the exploits of domestic researchers, scientists, geographers are priceless. Many Moscow passages are named after them, including Shokalsky Passage, named after Yuliy Mikhailovich Shokalsky.
Yuliy Mikhailovich Shokalsky was a Russian and Soviet scientist-geographer, hydrographer, oceanographer, cartographer, Lieutenant General, Chairman of the Russian Geographical Society, Hero of Labor, Honored Scientist of the RSFSR. He was born in St. Petersburg, in the family of E.E. Kern, daughter of A.P. Kern. He was left without a father early. Grigory Alexandrovich Pushkin (the son of the famous poet) helped Ekaterina Ermolaevna in the upbringing of Yuliy. Another happy circumstance in his life was settling in an apartment in St. Petersburg with the family of the ethnographer, Arctic explorer Ivan Ivanovich Chopin, a full member of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society. Frequent conversations with the scientist aroused in the boy an interest in geography. He graduated from the gymnasium, in 1873-1877 he studied in the Marine Corps, after which he served for two years as a midshipman in the Baltic Sea. In 1880, he became a graduate of the Nikolaev Naval Academy. From 1880 he served in the Main Hydrographic Department, in 1881-1882. – at the Main Physical Observatory. From 1883 to 1908 he taught mathematics, physical geography and navigation at the Naval College. Since April 7, 1882, Yuli Mikhailovich Shokalsky has been a full member of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society, which was at that time the centre of geographical sciences in Russia. The famous geographer P.P. Semenov-Tyan-Shansky stood there as a Vice-Chairman. Four years later, the chairman of the Department of Geography of the Physical IRGO, Ivan Vasilyevich Musketov, invited the 30-year-old scientist to become the secretary of the department, which he would head in 1906. In 1914, after the death of Pyotr Petrovich Semenov-Tyan-Shansky, Shokalsky was elected vice-chairman of the IRGO. In 1917, Yuli Mikhailovich became the first elected chairman of the Society. From 1887 to 1907, Y.M. Shokalsky also worked as a librarian, and from 1891 he was in charge of the Main Marine Library at the Main Hydrographic Department. In 1890, Shokalsky was engaged in hydrographic studies of the Vychegda, Dzhuriga and Southern Keltma rivers, the Northern Catherine Canal, and conducted reconnaissance of the Southern Sosva and Tavda rivers. Since 1897 he was engaged in research on Lake Ladoga to calculate its area, depths, and volume of water mass. In 1907-1912, he was the head of the Hydrometeorological Department of the Main Hydrographic Department. In 1909, he organized the Sevastopol Marine Observatory. In 1912-1930, Professor of the Maritime Academy, where he taught courses in physical geography, meteorology and oceanography, headed the Department of Oceanography and the Hydrographic Faculty, created an oceanographic cabinet. In 1912, on the initiative of Yu.M. Shokalsky and under his leadership, the First International Conference on Maritime Safety was held in St. Petersburg. Since 1914 he became a Vice-president, since 1917 – a President of the Russian Geographical Society, since 1931 its honorary president. In 1918 he participated in the creation of the Geographical Institute. In 1923-1926 he headed an oceanographic expedition to the Black Sea. Since 1923 he was a corresponding member of the Department of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (in the category of physics (geography, geophysics). Since 1939 he was a Honorary Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He led the work on the collection of hypsometric materials and the compilation of a relief map of Russia. Together with A. A. Tillo he developed a methodology for cartometric work and applied it to calculating the surface of the Asian part of Russia and the lengths of the main rivers. The compiler and editor of a number of general geographic maps and atlases. 12 geographical objects and phenomena are named after Shokalsky. Two islands in the Kara Gate Strait and an island at the entrance to the Gulf of Ob, an underwater ridge near Urup Island and a mountain range on the same island of the Kuril Ridge, a strait between two islands in the archipelago of Severnaya Zemlya, a lake on the Kanin Peninsula, a glacier on the Northern Island of Novaya Zemlya, a glacier in Kazakhstan, a glacier on Garmo Peak in Tajikistan, a glacier in the Altai, a peak and glacier in Bogdo-Ola (Eastern Tien Shan) and a warm current in the Barents Sea running around Svalbard.
Address: Moscow, Shokalsky passage
