Grave Dmitry Alexandrovich (1863 - 1939)
Prominent mathematician and teacher Dmitry Alexandrovich Grave was born September 8, 1863 in the city of Kirillov Novgorod province. In 1881 he graduated from the gymnasium and entered the mathematical department of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the St. Petersburg University, where he listened to lectures by such outstanding mathematicians as P.L. Chebotaryov, O.M.Korkin, A.A.Markov. In 1985 he received a bachelor's degree has defended dissertation "On the Surfaces of Minima," which was published in the Memoirs of the Physical and Mathematical Society of St. Petersburg Students University ". In his master's thesis (1889) Grave solved the problem of finding all the integrals of the system of differential equations for the task of three bodies that do not depend on the law of the forces of action (this task was set by Korkin). After defending this thesis, Grave was lecturing as a private assistant professor at the Department of Pure Mathematics at the St. Petersburg University, as well as at the Institute of Communications Engineers, Military Topographical School, at Bestuzhiv Courses. In 1896 he defended his dissertation "On the main tasks of the mathematical theory of the construction of geographic maps" for the academic status of doctor of mathematics under the guidance of Korkin, and since 1899 he began working as a professor at the Kharkiv University.
A new stage in Grave’s life began in 1901, when B.J. Bukreev invited him to St. Volodymyr's University of Kyiv. Grave agreed, and on December 14, 1901, he was elected an ordinary professor of pure mathematics. At the University of Kyiv, Grave's activity from the very beginning was revolutionary. His main focus was on the latest sections of mathematics, such as group theory, Galois theory, and the theory of algebraic numbers. He began to read entirely new courses devoted to these sections, and since 1908 the famous Grave workshops began to work, on which a whole galaxy of outstanding mathematicians grew up. Among them, B.N.Delona, ​​the founder of the Leningrad algebraic school, was known for his work on the theory of algebraic numbers, geometry, crystallography, O.Yu.Schmidt, an outstanding scientist and organizer of science, the founder of the Moscow algebraic school, the author of the world's first monograph on the abstract theory the group he wrote in 1916, while still was a student, MG Chebotarev was well known for his works on the theory of algebraic numbers, the theory of Lie algebras, Galois theory, the outstanding Ukrainian mathematician M.P. Kravchuk, and A.M. Ostrovsky, who later headed the Department of Mathematics in Baz Lee founded by Y.Bernulli.
It will not be an exaggeration to say that the whole future Soviet algebraic school was studying from Grave's workshops. At the same time, Grave was writing a number of textbooks on modern mathematics: Theory of finite groups (1908), Elementary course of the theory of numbers (1910), Arithmetic theory of algebraic numbers (1910), Elements of higher algebra (1914). The last book was the basis of the first textbook of higher algebra, written in Ukrainian - "Fundamentals of algebra" (1919). A characteristic feature of these books was that, although they were designed for students, they contained the most advanced (at that time) achievement of mathematics. This greatly differed it from many later textbooks (especially higher algebras), which were often confined to "classical" sections, which, according to their authors, meant mathematics about the middle of the nineteenth century. Such a character had the course developed by him "Fundamentals of New Mathematics" (1914), which included the theory of sets, the theory of groups, Hamilton quaternions, field theory, and others like that.
In 1919, Grave was elected an academician of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. In 1922 in Kiev was organized research department of mathematics, which Gravy headed in July 1923. At this time he mainly dealed with problems of applied mathematics and mechanics. His students were, in particular, such well-known mathematicians as Yu.D. Sokolov, N.I.Ahyeser, mechanics M.O.Kilchevsky, A.L.Naumov. In January 1934, on the basis of this department was founded the Institute of Mathematics of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, the first director of which was Grave. In 1929 he was elected as an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.
During the last years of life, Grave returned to research in the field of modern algebra. He began work on "A Treatise on Algebraic Analysis," which he concerned as an encyclopedia of modern algebra in eight volumes. Unfortunately, these plans were not destined to be realized. Grave managed to publish only the first two volumes and prepared the third edition. On December 19, 1939, he died in Kyiv, where he was buried in Lukyanovskaya cemetery.
D.O.Grave's scientific and pedagogical work had a tremendous influence on the mathematics development not only in Ukraine and the Soviet Union, but also throughout the world. For (incomplete) data from the site "Mathematical Genealogy", he and his students were educated over 2,100 mathematicians who received a degree in candidate of science (Ph.D) or Ph.D. Many of them now work at Ukrainian universities and academic institutions, multiplying the glorious traditions of their predecessors, among whom D.O.Grave remains an unsurpassed model.