Владимир Д. Ласкарев (1868‒1954) – живот и дело

Abstract

Владимир Д. Ласкарев (1868–1954), био је академик, универзитетски професор, истакнути руски, српски и европски научник. Рођен је, школовао се, стажирањем у Петрограду стекао званично звање геолога, магистрирао и докторирао у тадашњој Русији. Октобарска револуција затекла га је на месту професора геологије и палеонтологије на универзитетима у Одеси и Харкову. У Београд је избегао 1920. године и од тада до краја живота био је професор Универзитета у Београду. Ту је објавио више радова из геологије и палеонтологије. Нарочито се истичу: откриће и дефинисање „Паратетиса“, унутрашњег, епиконтиненталног морског басена јужне Европе, израда детаљне Геолошке карте Београда са околином 1 : 25.000 и обрада и систематизација терцијарне фосилне сисарске фауне Србије и Југославије. За дописног члана САН изабран је 1932. а за редовног члана САНУ 1947. Једно време био је и управник новооснованог Геолошког института САНУ. Сахрањен је на руском делу Новог гробља у Београду.

Vladimir D. Laskarev was a Full Member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences, Full Professor at the University of Belgrade, a regional geologist and a prominent paleontologist on a European scale. Laskarev was born on 9 July 1868 in the town of Biryuch in the former Voronezh Governorate (now in Ukraine). He received his education in Biryuch and Chernigov and studied natural sciences at the Imperial Novorossiyan University located in Odessa. He graduated in 1891 and decided to become a geologist. Aft er having completed his studies, he spent a year at the renowned Mining Institute in St. Petersburg where he served an apprenticeship for a year and earned a certifi cate in geology. Laskarev gained a position as a geology assistant at the Odessa University where he previously completed his studies. He showed great interest in the Neogene and Quaternary of the then Southern Russia, and consequently his earliest papers focused on the geology of Podolia, Bessarabia and Galicia. He was soon appointed as an offi cial associate of the Russian Geological Committee and was tasked to draw the seventeenth sheet of the General Geological Map of European Russia. It took him fi ft een years of arduous and intensive work to complete the task. From 1898 to 1900 Laskarev worked in a number of geological institutions and performed fi eld work in Vienna, Budapest, Zagreb, Belgrade, Munich, Zurich, Geneva, Nervi, Roma and Naples and thus gained invaluable knowledge and experience. Upon his return to Russia in 1900, he became docent of geology and paleontology at the Odessa University. He defended his magister thesis titled “Th e Fauna of the Buglovian Beds in Volhynia” at the University of Yuryev (1903) and was eventually appointed as a professor in Odessa in 1904. While working on the seventeenth sheet of the General Geological Map of European Russia he focused in particular on Neogene, Pikermian fossil mammal fauna and Quaternary sediments. It was Laskarev’s doctoral thesis that actually proved to be of indispensable importance for the interpretation of that map. Th e doctoral thesis was published under the title “Geological Survey of South-Western Russia“ in 1916 and was a sort of Laskarev’s lifework. Laskarev’s successful career was cut short by the October Revolution. Together with his sister and her children he left Russia in January 1920. As early as on 5 May in the same year, of his own will, and at the invitation of the Serbian geologists, he found himself in Belgrade. He was warmly welcomed and held in the highest regard. He was appointed as a contracted Full Professor at the Institute of Geology and Paleontology of the University of Belgrade. Laskarev was entrusted with delivering lectures in the following subjects: History of Cenozoic Geology, Paleontology (from 1926) and Introduction to Independent Geological Work and Field Work in the Vicinity of Belgrade. Aft er he was granted Serbian citizenship in 1950, he was elected to the position of Invited Full Professor at the Belgrade Faculty of Science and Mathematics. At the time he taught only Paleontology. Owing to lecturing demands he never retired during his lifetime. He mentored dozens of graduates and several PhD students. In 1932 Laskarev was elected a corresponding member of the Serbian Royal Academy, and in 1947 he became its full member. In the Academy he headed the newly-founded Geological Institute and was the editor of its fi rst volume of “Th e Proceedings”. Laskarev did not publish much during his lifetime. He published around seventy papers of which 25 in Russia and the rest in our country. In our country Laskarev focused on matters he already excelled at. Namely, on the following four main groups of problems: (1) he continued his studies and the synthesis of the Neogene of Southeast Europe, (2) carried out research of the fossil mammals of Serbia and Yugoslavia, (3) investigated the tectonics of the Neogene and some older fi elds and (4) studied the loess and other younger sediments in the vicinity of Belgrade and Vojvodina. He made signifi cant and notable contributions to all aforementioned areas. Nevertheless, his most important contribution is his paleographic idea concerning a large inland Neogene period South European sea that he named Paratethys. Th is fundamental discovery has entered European and world literature and nowadays is an indispensable part of geological scientifi c legacy. During his long and prolifi c life Laskarev was honored with a number of awards for his work in Russia and our country alike. V. D. Laskarev passed away on 10 April 1954 in Belgrade, aft er suff ering from illness for several months, and was buried in the Russian part of Belgrade’s New Cemetery. Even though V. D. Laskarev was a quiet, self-restraint and modest gentleman, at the same time he was a great regional geologist and paleontologist. Th rough his remarkable pedagogical and scientifi c eff orts he made outstanding contributions to Serbian and European geology, owing to which his name will remain permanently recorded in the history of Serbian and European science. Because of his profound knowledge and genuine human warmth that he radiated towards his contemporaries, associates and students, he was a much beloved and deeply respected teacher.