Mitkevich, Vladimir Fedorovich

Mitkevich, Vladimir Fedorovich 

Born July 22 (Aug. 3), 1872, in Minsk; died June 1, 1951. Soviet scientist in electrical engineering; academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1929; corresponding member, 1927). Honored Worker in Science and Technology of the RSFSR since 1938.

Mitkevich graduated from the University of St. Petersburg in 1895. From 1896 to 1905 he taught at the St. Petersburg Mining Institute, and from 1902 to 1938, at the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute (he became a professor in 1909). He took part in the development of the GOELRO (State Commission for the Electrification of Russia) plan. From 1921 to 1937 he was chairman of the Special Technical Bureau for Military Inventions of the People’s Commissariat of Defense of the USSR; in 1938 he began working at the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Mitkevich’s main works dealt with the study of electromagnetic phenomena, problems of wire and wireless communications, and electric power transmission. He was the first to propose phase splitting for high-voltage power lines (1910). Mitkevich was the author of several textbooks on the theoretical foundations of electrical engineering. He received the State Prize of the USSR in 1943 and was awarded the Order of Lenin, two other orders, and medals.

WORKS

O vol’tovoi duge. St. Petersburg, 1905.
Fizicheskie osnovy elektrotekhniki, 3rd ed. Leningrad, 1933.
Magnitnyi potok i ego preobrazovaniia. Moscow-Leningrad, 1946.

REFERENCES

Vladimir Fedorovich Mitkevich. Moscow-Leningrad, 1948. (AN SSSR: Materialy k bibliografii uchenykh SSSR. Seriia tekhnicheskikh nauk. Elektrotekhnika, issue 2.)
Neiman, L. R. “Akademik Vladimir Fedorovich Mitkevich, ego trudy i progressivnye idei: K 100-letiiu so dnia rozhdeniia.” Elektrichestvo, 1972, no. 8.

L. G. DAVYDOVA