Lypskyi Volodymyr Ipolytovych, President of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (1922—1928) (In Memory of the 100th Anniversary of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine)

Abstract

V.І. Lypskyi was the president of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (AUAS) in 1922—1928. To understand why V.І. Lypskyi could became AUAS president and keep this position quite a long time, it should be clarified what qualities of him, as a personality and a scientist, encouraged the choice of the Academy community in this difficult period of the Academy existence.

An essential factor was his scientific talent. It is demonstrated in the article by an account of Kyiv and Saint-Petersburg periods of his research activities in the field of botany, including extensive data on his botanic expeditions and travels.

V.І. Lypskyi returned from Saint-Petersburg to Ukraine in time of the civil war and started working in a number of Academy organizations. In January 1919, the General Session took the decision on the arrangement of Lypskyi’s election as the director of the Botanic Garden. This was the first phase of Lypskyi’s work in the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, which, in fact, coincided with the period of its formation (1918—1921). It is demonstrated that it was deep scientific expertise combined with intelligence and organizational skills exposed by V.І. Lypskyi at the beginning of his work in AUAS, added by the working experience as a president’s assistant in 1919—1921 that made his candidature acceptable for various groups of scientists emerging in this period in the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences.

The detailed account of the procedure for Lypskyi’s election as AUAS president in 1922 is given. The reasons complicating his activities at the president’s post since 1924 and on are highlighted: (i) the increasing pressure of the Bolshevik power on AUAS, to shrink its rights for the autonomy, change its structural and functional organization and create inside it a stratum of Bolshevik academicians, to strengthen impact of the state power ideology on AUAS affairs; (ii) academician M.S. Hrushevsky’s return to Ukraine in 1924 by the special permit, laying grounds for the rise of groups in the Academy with various visions of its development prospects; (iii) processes going on in the Union Academy. The research work of Lypskyi is highlighted in this difficult period and in the last period of his life, after his moving to Odesa in 1928, which was devoted totally to the research work. V.І. Lypskyi made important contribution in the development of Odesa Botanic Garden and training of professional botanists; before Lypskyi’s coming, the garden had a small area, it did not have a herbarium, a library a museum etc.

A review of the Odesa period of Lypskyi’s life compared with the presidential period gives grounds for the assumption that it was а new period of his work, in which he rediscovered himself as a researcher and a scientist not burdened by political intricacies, which had improved his mental condition and added new positive impulses to the continuation of his research work.