Vorobiov, Volodymyr

Vorobiov, Volodymyr or Vorobev, Vladimir [Воробйов, Володимир; Vorobjov], b 27 July 1876 in Odesa, d 31 October 1937 in Kharkiv. Anatomist; full member of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences from 1934. A graduate of Kharkiv University (1903), he served as a department chairman at the Kharkiv Women’s Medical Institute (1910–17), Sofia University (1919–21), and the Kharkiv Medical Institute (1921–37) and as scientific director of the Ukrainian Institute of Experimental Medicine (1927–37). One of the pioneers of the functional approach to anatomy, he founded a large school of Soviet anatomists, investigated the innervation of organs, developed the macro-microscopic method of determining the anatomic structure of an organ, and embalmed Vladimir Lenin. He wrote Anatomiia liudyny (Human Anatomy, vol 1, 1934) in Ukrainian and compiled the first Soviet Atlas anatomii cheloveka (Atlas of Human Anatomy, 5 vols, 1946–8). In 1936 his work was attacked by the Communist Party, but later the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences created an anatomy award in his name. Monographs about him to mark the centenary of his birth appeared in 1976, by K. Kulchytsky et al (in Ukrainian) and A. Novominsky (in Russian).

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