Georgy Pigulevsky

Georgy Vasilyevich Pigulevsky (; – 19 September 1964) was a soviet organic chemist, specializing in natural product chemistry. He studied essential oils and resins of plants, as well as terpene compounds extracted from them.

Life G.V. Pigulevsky was born on December 10, 1888 (November 28, old style) in Kovno (nowadays Kaunas, Lithuania) in the family of a lawyer Vasily Ivanovich Pigulevsky. There were two other sons in the family - Boris and Vladimir. In 1906, after graduating from the Vilna Gymnasium, he entered the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the Saint Petersburg Imperial University. After graduation in 1911, he stayed at the Department of Chemistry at the suggestion of Professor L.A. Chugaev. Since 1912 he simultaneously became a laboratory assistant in the Agricultural Scientific Committee of the Ministry of Agriculture, in 1914-23 he worked as a scientific specialist of the same committee. At the same time, he lectured at the Psychoneurological Institute (1914–1918). In 1919, he taught analytical chemistry at the Women's Medical Institute. In 1935, he obtained Doctor of Science in chemistry degree without thesis defense. In 1942-1943, he served as a senior researcher at the I.P. Pavlov Physiological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. In 1943, Pigulevsky accepted an invitation to head the biochemical laboratory of the V.L. Komarov Botanical Institute and led it until the end of his life. In 1944, Pigulevsky returned to Leningrad. A number of articles were devoted to direct studies of plant materials from which essential oils and resins were extracted. His research of essential oils were of great practical importance, some of the substances discovered by Pigulevsky were applied in the perfume industry. Some of his works were devoted to the chemical properties of unsaturated acids.

In 1937, Pigulevsky was one of the first organic chemists in the USSR who began using the phenomenon of Raman scattering of light (the Raman effect) to study the physical properties of organic substances. By 1961, large number of Raman spectra had been collected for compounds found in essential oils of coniferous plants.

While working as the head of the laboratory of the labor protection department of the People's Commissariat of Labour, Pigulevsky published a number of works on the use of various devices in industry, as well as on the identification of harmful substances in the air.

Other activities Pedagogical work was an important part of the life of Pigulevsky. From 1911 to 1964, with a break for the duration of the war, he taught at Leningrad State University and lectured at other universities and institutes. During this time, he read many lecture courses: “Fats and oils”, “About derivatives of aliphatic terpenes”, “Resins”, “Terpenes”, “Essential oils”, etc.

Works During his life, Pigulevsky became the author of more than 200 publications. He was the author of several monographs, including:

"Essential oils"

1953 - Order of Lenin

1954 - Prize of the D.I. Mendeleev All-Union Chemical Society

Family Pigulevsky was married to Nina Viktorovna Pigulevskaya (1894-1970), a soviet historian, corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, specialist in the history of Byzantium, the Near and Middle East in the early Middle Ages.