Background
Andrey Beketov was born on November 26 (December 8) in 1825 in the family of a naval officer. The noble family of the Beketovs originates from the Horde Turks.
The First Saint Petersburg Gymnasium
Saint Petersburg Imperial University
Kazan Imperial University
Elizaveta Grigorevna Karelina
Andrey Beketov was born on November 26 (December 8) in 1825 in the family of a naval officer. The noble family of the Beketovs originates from the Horde Turks.
After graduating from the First Saint Petersburg Gymnasium, Andrei Nikolaevich entered the Imperial Saint Petersburg University at the Faculty of Oriental Languages. In 1842, after the second year, he left as a junker in the Life Guards Regiment, but soon left his military service and enrolled (1845) as an auditor at the natural faculty of Kazan Imperial University, from which he graduated in 1849.
At the end of winter and early spring of 1846, Andrey Nikolayevich, together with his brothers Alexei and Nikolai, organized a literary and philosophical circle visited by the poet A.N. Maikov, the critic V.N. Maikov, F.M. Dostoevsky, A.N. Pleshcheev, doctor S.D. Yanovskii, D.V. Grigorovich, and others. From the autumn of 1846 to February 1847, some members of this circle lived in one apartment in jointly, forming an "association" that disintegrated after Andrey Nikolayevich left for Kazan.
After completing university studies, for three years Andrei Nikolaevich taught natural science in the Tiflis Grammar School while studying and describing the flora of Transcaucasia, for which he received a master's degree in botany in Saint Petersburg in 1853. The successful defense of his doctoral dissertation "On the morphological relationships of sheet parts between themselves and the stem" in Moscow in 1858 allowed Andrey Nikolayevich to take up the chair of botany in Kharkov University next year. He was preparing to become a professor at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, where he made friends with I.M. Sechenov, D.I. Mendeleev, and A.P. Borodin.
From 1861 to 1897 Andrei Nikolaevich worked at the University of Saint Petersburg (an extraordinary professor in the department of botany, head of the department of botany), in 1867-1876 - Dean of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics, from 1876 to 1883 - Rector of the University. In 1861-1863 he edited the "Bulletin of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society".
The end of Andrey Nikolayevich Beketov’s life was difficult. After the apoplectic attack in 1897, he was paralyzed and for five years was in a helpless state, being confined to a chair and lose powers of speech.
Andrey Nikolayevich died in July 1 (14), 1902. He was buried in the Smolensk Orthodox cemetery. In 1944, his ashes were buried at the same time as his wife's ashes on the Literary bridges of the Volkovsky cemetery in Saint Petersburg.
(Russian edition)
1861Andrei Nikolayevich also took a very active part in the work of congresses of Russian natural scientists and doctors, where he was repeatedly elected chairman. He is one of the founders of the Saint Petersburg Society of Naturalists and the editor (1870-1880) of his "Trudy", in 1881-1900 its president.
In 1854, Andrey Nikolayevich married Elizaveta Grigorevna Karelina, the daughter of a researcher of Central Asia, S. Karelina. In marriage, three daughters were born: Catherine (husbands’ surname Krasnov, 1855-1892), Alexandra (first husbands’ surname Blok, the second Kublitskaya-Piotukh, 1860-1923) and Maria (1862-1938).