Pavlo Tutkovsky

Pavlo Tutkovsky (; 1 March 1858 – 3 June 1930) was a Ukrainian geologist, geographer, and professor. He is best known as a founding member of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences and for establishing the Institute of Geological Sciences of the academy in 1926.

Born in Lipovets into an Imperial Russian noble father and the Western European aristocratic family of Lippomano, he first entered in 1877 Kyiv University in their natural sciences department. After graduating in 1882, he worked at the university and was also elected a member of the Kyiv Society of Naturalists, for whom he would conduct geographical research for until 1902. Moving to Lutsk in 1900, he became an inspector of public schools for Lutsky Uyezd until moving to Zhytomyr to become director of public schools in the Volyn Province in 1909. In 1911 he defended his doctoral dissertation at Moscow University and was awarded the title of "Doctor of Geography". Afterward, he came back to Kyiv University to become a professor in the Department of Geography.

In 1917 he created the Geographical Institute at Kyiv University, and in 1919, became a founding member of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. He was immediately elected chairman and also head of the Physics and Mathematics Department. From 1924 to 1926, he then headed the research Department of Goology, which in 1926 was reorganized into the Institute of Geological Sciences, and of which he became the director. In 1930 he died in Kyiv. Early life Tutkovsky was born on 1 March 1858 in Lipovets, which was then part of the Kiev Governorate in the Russian Empire at the time of his birth. He was born into a family of family of employees; his father was named Apollon Lukich Tutkovsky and his mother was Yulia Lippomano. A grandfather of his served as a clerk for the Zaporozhian Cossacks and had the last name Korczak-Tutko, but when the Liquidation of the Zaporozhian Sich occurred Catherine II granted nobility to the family and so the family's paternal surname was changed to Tutkovsky.

After graduating from the First Zhytomyr Gymnasium with a silver medal in 1877 he started attending the natural sciences department of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Kyiv University. In 1879 he was temporarily expelled from the faculty for participating in a student protest. After eventually being reinstated, he graduated from the faculty in 1882.

Career Konstantin Matviyovych Feofilaktov, who taught courses in geology at the school, recommended Tutkovsky upon his completion of studies to the Department of Geology and Mineralogy to prepare for a professorship at the university. In 1883 he was appointed conservator of the mineralogical and geological office of the university, which he did until 1895. On behalf of the society, from 1884 to 1902, he conducted geopolitical research in nearly every oblast in Ukraine, studying fossil microfauna and the groundwater. Specifically, he worked on studying the underground groundwater of Kyiv and the city's general water supply, which he published in 1895. In 1899 he published one of the first detailed studies of Lake Svitiaz on its scientific properties along with the legends surrounding the lake.

In 1900 he moved to Lutsk to do field work as a freelance employee of the geological committee of the city. In 1904 he became curator of the Kyiv Educational District alongside becoming inspector of public schools in the Lutsky Uyezd. As inspector, he raised the issue of the Lutsk two-class city school, where most of the poor school children went, was drastically overcrowded and wrote numerous times to the Lutsk City Council in order to allocate funding. He published geographical work during this time on the Volyn Province and the city of Zhytomyr, and also notably studied the Slovechansko-Ovruch ridge.

In 1911 he defended his doctoral dissertation at Moscow University entitled "Fossil deserts of the Northern Hemisphere", which dealt primarily with the nature of Volyn. In November 1917 he also became a professor at the newly-formed Ukrainian Pedagogical Academy and Ukrainian People's University.

From 1924 to 1926 he was then head of the research Department of Geology at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, which was reorganized in 1926 as the "Institute of Geological Sciences of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine". He was elected the director of this newly formed institute.

Personal life A bust at the National Museum of Natural History of Tutkovsky in Kyiv. In 1877, while a first-year student, he married 17-year-old Olena Dmytrivna Bahaliya, the adopted daughter of D.I. Bahaliya and who also became an academician in the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. They had a daughter in 1881 named Olga Pavlivna Sno. He was buried in Lukyanivske cemetery.

Full member of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (1919) Full member of the Academy of Sciences of the Byelorussian SSR (1928)