Svitalsky, Mykola

Svitalsky, Mykola [Світальський, Микола; Svital's'kyj], b 12 December 1884 in Rohizne, Sumy county, Kharkiv gubernia, d 15 September 1937 in Dnipropetrovsk. Geologist; full member of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR from 1930. He graduated from the Saint Petersburg Mining Institute in 1911. He conducted geological research in eastern Siberia and worked in Saint Petersburg before moving to Ukraine in 1921. There he studied the Kryvyi Rih Iron-ore Basin and other geologically significant areas, and assessed their ore and oil potential. He became an associate director of the Ukrainian Geological Committee (1926), director of the Institute of Geological Sciences of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR (1934), and vice-president of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR (1935). His main scholarly work dealt with the structures and origins of ore deposits as well as the petrography of mountain rocks. Svitalsky was arrested during the Stalinist terror and murdered in prison.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]