PROFESSOR V.F. NIKOLAIEV’S ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION ACTIVITIES IN THE EARLY 20th CENTURY: SOME OUTLINES OF HIS INTELLECTUAL BIOGRAPHY

Abstract

The proposed article shows the ways Professor V.F. Nikolaiev’s scientific views in the field of environmental protection were formed in the first decades of the 20th century. Poltava Nature Lovers Society, founded in March 1918 by the initiative of Academician V.I. Vernadskyi,played an important role in his formation as a scientist. There were 119 members in the society –entomologist D.O. Ohloblin, scientist agronomist S.F. Tretiakov, archaeologist V.M. Shcherbakivsky, writer S.V. Korolenko and others. V.F. Nikolaiev served as a secretary of the society, systematically made scientific reports, and actively participated in meetings of scientists of Ukraine. The society prepared materials for the protection of nine natural monuments in Poltava region. V.F. Nikolaiev was the head of Ancient Monuments, Art and Nature Protection Committee in Poltava region. V.F. Nikolayev was the founder of the Ukrainian scientific terminology of Nature Studies. The researcher developed and implemented a questionnaire about names of insects, birds, fish and mammals in various districts of Poltava region compared with the names of previous centuries. In 1920 Terminology Committee of the Department of Natural Sciences of the Ukrainian Scientific Society published the first volume of generalised «Materials to the Ukrainian natural terminology and nomenclature.»