Dmitrii Mushketov
Encyclopedia
Dmitrii Ivanovich Mushketov ( – 18 February 1938) was a Russian
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....

 geologist
Geologist
A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth as well as the processes and history that has shaped it. Geologists usually engage in studying geology. Geologists, studying more of an applied science than a theoretical one, must approach Geology using...

 and paleontologist who was born in St Petersburg, the son of Ivan Vasil'yevich Mushketov
Ivan Mushketov
Ivan Vasilʹevich Mushketov was a famous Russian geologist, tectonist, explorer, and geographer who was born in the Don region and entered Saint Petersburg University in 1867, but soon transferred to the Mining Institute where he was a student of A. P. Karpinsky, and graduated from there in 1872...

, a famous explorer and professor at the Mining Institute
Saint Petersburg Mining Institute
The G. V. Plekhanov Saint Petersburg State Mining Institute and Technical University is Russia's oldest higher education institute devoted to engineering...

. This brilliant geologist was one of the victims of the Great Terror
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...

.

His early education by his mother, Ekaterina Pavlovna Mushketova, gave him a fluency in German, French, and English, which allowed him later in life to travel to Western Europe, to correspond with foreign specialists, and to represent Soviet geology abroad. He entered the Mining Institute in 1899 and graduated with honours in 1907.

D. I. Mushketov's geological interests were very wide including the worldwide study of tectonics
Tectonics
Tectonics is a field of study within geology concerned generally with the structures within the lithosphere of the Earth and particularly with the forces and movements that have operated in a region to create these structures.Tectonics is concerned with the orogenies and tectonic development of...

 and seismology
Seismology
Seismology is the scientific study of earthquakes and the propagation of elastic waves through the Earth or through other planet-like bodies. The field also includes studies of earthquake effects, such as tsunamis as well as diverse seismic sources such as volcanic, tectonic, oceanic,...

, but he concentrated his work in Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...

, covering also the fields of stratigraphy
Stratigraphy
Stratigraphy, a branch of geology, studies rock layers and layering . It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks....

, geomorphology
Geomorphology
Geomorphology is the scientific study of landforms and the processes that shape them...

, glacier
Glacier
A glacier is a large persistent body of ice that forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. At least 0.1 km² in area and 50 m thick, but often much larger, a glacier slowly deforms and flows due to stresses induced by its weight...

s, and mineral resources. His scholarly output was prodigious, with "more than 50 scientific works, several textbooks and manuals included, before 1926". Between 1909 and 1916 he carried out the geological survey of eastern Fergana
Fergana
Fergana is a city , the capital of Fergana Province in eastern Uzbekistan, at the southern edge of the Fergana Valley in southern Central Asia, cutting across the borders of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan...

 which contributed to the geological map of Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...

. His name is particularly well known for the high-quality revisions and additions that he made to each edition of the textbook on physical geology that was originally written by his father (published in 1888-91).

Time line

Attained Master of Science degree, 1915

Appointed director of the Mining Institute, 1918

Participated at the International Geological Congress (XIII, Belgium), 1922

Director of the Geological Committee, 1926–1929

Participated at the International Geological Congress (XIV, Spain), 1926

Entrusted with making a bid for the International Geological Congress (XVI) to take place in the USSR in 1933, 15 Feb 1927

Chairman of the Organizing Committee for the Third All-Russia Geological Congress in Tashkent, 1928

Participated at the International Geological Congress (XV, South Africa), 1929

Forbidden to attend the International Geological Congress (XVI, USA), 1933; The Soviet delegation to the congress was lead instead by Ivan Gubkin
Ivan Gubkin
Ivan Mikhaylovich Gubkin was a Russian geologist and president of the 1937 International Geological Congress in Moscow. He was a petroleum geologist particularly interested the region between the Volga and the Urals....



Awarded honorary Doctorate in Geology and Mineralogy from the Mining Institute, 1936

Arrested, June 29 1937

International Geological Congress began (XVII, Moscow), July 21 1937, under the leadership of Ivan Gubkin
Ivan Gubkin
Ivan Mikhaylovich Gubkin was a Russian geologist and president of the 1937 International Geological Congress in Moscow. He was a petroleum geologist particularly interested the region between the Volga and the Urals....


Postscript

In response to an official request for information filed by the Commission on Geological Study of the USSR March 29 1962, the following information was provided by the Military Board of the USSR Supreme Court, May 31 1962:

D. I. Mushketov was sentenced to death and executed February 18 1938.
He was fully exonerated (rehabilitated
Rehabilitation (Soviet)
Rehabilitation in the context of the former Soviet Union, and the Post-Soviet states, was the restoration of a person who was criminally prosecuted without due basis, to the state of acquittal...

), posthumously, December 8 1956.

Several colleagues were executed on the same day; among them was G. N. Frederiks.

Further reading

Yu. Ya. Solov'ev (2001) " 'Only the Ministry of Internal Affairs Knows the Date of His Death ...'. Dmitrii Ivanovich Mushketov (1882–1938)," Voprosy istorii Estestvoznaniya i Tekhniki (Problems of the History of Natural Sciences and Technology), 2:75–92.
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