Lytvynenko, Leonid M.

Lytvynenko, Leonid M. [Литвиненко, Леонід], b 12 January 1921 in Tahanrih, d 26 October 1983 in Donetsk. Chemist; full member of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR from 1965. A graduate of Kharkiv University, he taught there (1950–65), was rector of Donetsk University (1965–8), directed the Donetsk branch of the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR (1968–75) and the Institute of Physical-Organic Chemistry and Coal Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, and chaired the Ukrainian Section of the Scientific Council of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1982–3). His research covered the structure-reactivity relationship in organic compounds and the kinetics of organic reactions. He studied the mechanism of nucleophilic substitution in unsaturated carbon, sulfur, and phosphorus systems; elucidated the mechanism of organic catalysis in acyl transfer reactions, particularly nucleophilic catalysis in nonaqueous solvents; formulated the rules of bifunctional catalysis; and discovered a number of important organic catalysts.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]