Feshchenko-Chopivsky, Ivan

Feshchenko-Chopivsky, Ivan [Feščenko-Čopivs’kyj], b 19 January 1884 in Chudniv, Volhynia gubernia, d 2 September 1952. Noted metallurgist, civic and political leader. In 1908 Feshchenko-Chopivsky graduated from the Kyiv Polytechnical Institute, where he was soon appointed assistant professor of metallurgy. He was active in the Ukrainian Party of Socialists-Federalists and a member of the Central Rada and the Little Rada in 1917. At the end of February 1918 he was appointed minister of trade and industry in Vsevolod Holubovych's government and in 1919 vice-premier and minister of the economy in Serhii Ostapenko's government. In February–August 1921 he served as chairman of the Council of the Republic in Tarnów, Poland. In 1922 he was appointed professor of metallurgy and metallography at the Academy of Mining and Metallurgy in Cracow. In 1928 he became scientific consultant to the Baildon firm in Katowice and director of the laboratory of the Friedenshütte foundry. In March 1945 he was arrested by Soviet authorities in Katowice and sent to a concentration camp in the Karelo-Finnish ASSR, where he died.

Feshchenko-Chopivsky conducted research on carbonizing iron, on the diffusion of nitrogen, boron, tin, sulfur, and titanium in iron and other metals, on welding metals, and so on. He wrote about 140 works, including Cementacja żelaza, niklu i kobaltu borem i berylem (The Cementing of Iron, Nickle, and Cobalt by Means of Boron and Beryllium, 1927), Blachy kotłów parowych (Plates of Steam Boilers, 1927), the monograph Metaloznawstwo (The Science of Metals, 3 vols, 1930–6), and a secondary-school textbook, Ekonomichna heohrafiia Ukraïny (The Economic Geography of Ukraine, 2 vols, 1921). He was a full member of the Ukrainian Scientific Society in Kyiv, the Shevchenko Scientific Society from 1926, the Polish Academy of Technical Sciences, the Iron and Steel Institute in London, and the American Society for Metals.

A. Zhukovsky