Aleksandr Aleksandrov was a Russian philosopher, educator, mountaineer and writer. He served as a professor and rector at Saint Petersburg State University. Aleksandrov is the author of such books as Intrinsic Geometry of Surfaces and General Theory of Irregular Curves.
Background
Aleksandr Aleksandrov was born on August 4, 1912 in Volyn village, Ryazan, Russian Empire (now Ryazan, Russia). He was a son of Danil Alexandrovich Alexandrov and Elizaveta Iosifovna Bartoshevich. He also had two sisters Vera and Maria.
Both of his parents were of noble origin - Danil Alexandrov came from an old noble family and Elizaveta Bartoshevich came from a Polish noble family.
Education
Aleksandr Aleksandrov graduated from high school in 1928. After that, he studied for a year at art school. In 1929, Aleksandrov entered Leningrad State University (now Saint Petersburg State University) and graduated from in 1933. He completed his Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1935 and later in 1937 he received a Doctor of Science degree.
Aleksandr Aleksandrov started his career as a research scientist at the Vavilov State Optical Institute in 1930 and he held this post until 1932. In 1933, he became an assistant in the Department of Mathematics and Mechanics at Leningrad State University (now Saint Petersburg State University). In 1937, Aleksandrov was appointed acting professor and in 1944 he became a full professor. He held this post until 1952. Besides, Aleksandrov was an Acting Professor at Herzen State Pedagogical University from 1937 to 1938.
In 1952, he took up a post of Rector at Saint Petersburg State University and in 1964 he left the university and went to Novosibirsk. In Novosibirsk, Aleksandrov became head of the Laboratory of Geometry at Sobolev Institute of Mathematics and also a lecturer at Novosibirsk State University. In 1986, he returned to Saint Petersburg and became head of the Laboratory of Geometry in St. Petersburg Department of Steklov Mathematical Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences. He held this post until his death.
Aleksandr Aleksandrov published his first book Intrinsic Geometry of Surfaces in 1948. His next book was General Theory of Irregular Curves. He wrote numerous articles devoted to mathematics and geometry. Aleksandrov wrote non-mathematical papers, memoirs about famous scientists, and philosophical essays dealing with the moral values of science.
Aleksandr Aleksandrov said that religious books are outdated because laws by nature have to change with the advance of societies and technology.
Politics
Aleksandr Aleksandrov was a communist, however, he understood the depravity of the political system of the USSR and did not hide his attitude to it. He was the deputy of the RSFSR Supreme Council from 1959 to 1963. In 1961, Aleksandrov abstained in the voting of the law establishing the death penalty for foreign exchange operations.
Views
Aleksandr Aleksandrov fully accepted dialectical materialism as the correct worldview and a valuable scientific methodology. However, he was a leader in the defense of quantum theory and relativity theory against the attacks of Marxist-Leninist dogmatists.
Alexandrov viewed science as the tool that liberates humans from material burdens and untethers them intellectually. He also said that humanism, responsibility, and scientific stance are the ingredients of the perfect morality. According to Aleksandrov human is responsible for everything.
Membership
Aleksandr Aleksandrov was a member of the National Committee of Soviet Mathematicians and the Accademia dei Quaranta. In 1946, he became a corresponding and in 1964 a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
Personality
Aleksandr Aleksandrov has an indomitable desire to achieve high results and readiness to support and defend the truth to the end.
Aleksandrov was a mountaineer. He became attracted to alpinism under the influence of his advisor Boris Delaunay. He made the first climb to the Chotchi summit. Aleksandrov celebrated his fiftieth birthday in the mountains with his friends. On that day he made a solo first climb of an unnamed peak in Pamir. In 1982, the year of his seventieth birthday, he, together with K. Tolstov, performed in the Tian Shan his last climb, of the Panfilov Peak.
Interests
Mountaineering
Connections
Aleksandr Aleksandrov married Marianna Leonidovna Georg in 1937. The marriage produced two children. Later Aleksandr and Marianna divorced. Aleksandrov married Svetlana Mikhailovna Bogacheva in 1980.
Father:
Danil Alexandrovich Alexandrov
Mother:
Elizaveta Iosifovna Bartoshevich
Sister:
Vera Alexandrova
Sister:
Maria Alexandrova
ex-wife:
Marianna Leonidovna Georg
Wife:
Svetlana Mikhailovna Bogacheva
Daughter:
Daria Alexandrova
Son:
Danil Alexandrova
References
Biographical Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Philosophers
This Biographical Dictionary provides detailed accounts of the lives, works, influence and reception of thinkers from all the major philosophical schools and traditions of the twentieth-century. This unique volume covers the lives and careers of thinkers from all areas of philosophy - from analytic philosophy to Zen and from formal logic to aesthetics.
1996
Science, Philosophy, and Human Behavior in the Soviet Union
For the last two and a half decades Loren R. Graham has been alone among Western observers in examining the relationship of marxist philosophy to the entire spectrum of science in the Soviet Union.