View source for Otto Schmidt

{{short description|Soviet scientist and statesman (1891–1956)}}
{{refimprove|date=October 2019}}
{{Other people}}
{{Family name hatnote|Yulyevich|Shmidt|lang=Eastern Slavic}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name              = Otto Schmidt
| image             = Schmidt OYu.jpg
| image_size        = 
| caption           = Schmidt in 1938
| birth_date        = {{OldStyleDate|30 September|1891|18 September}}
| birth_place       = [[Mogilev]], Russian Empire
| death_date        = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1956|9|7|1891|9|30}}
| death_place       = Moscow, [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russian SFSR]], Soviet Union
| spouse            = {{marriage|[[Vera Schmidt (psychoanalyst)|Vera Yanitskaia]]|1913}}
| residence         = 
| citizenship       = 
| nationality       = <!--Deprecated per MOS:INFONAT-->
| ethnicity         = 
| field             = [[Mathematics]]<br />[[Astronomy]]<br />[[Geophysics]]
| work_institutions = 
| alma_mater        = [[Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv|Saint Vladimir Imperial University of Kiev]]
| doctoral_advisor  = [[Dmitry Grave]]
| doctoral_students = [[Vladimir Andrunakievich]]
| known_for         = [[Krull–Schmidt theorem]]<br/>[[Accretion (astrophysics)|Accretion model]]<br/>[[Arctic exploration]]
| author_abbrev_bot = 
| author_abbrev_zoo = 
| influences        = 
| influenced        = 
| prizes            = [[Hero of the Soviet Union]]
| religion          = 
| footnotes         = 
| awards            = 
| signature         = 
}}
'''Otto Yulyevich Shmidt'''{{efn|{{langx|ru|Отто Юльевич Шмидт}}; {{langx|be|Ота Юльевіч Шміт|Ota Juljevič Šmit}}}} (born '''Otto Friedrich Julius Schmidt'''; {{OldStyleDate|30 September|1891|18 September}} – 7 September 1956), better known as '''Otto Schmidt''', was a Soviet [[scientist]], [[mathematician]], [[astronomer]], [[geophysicist]], [[politician|statesman]], and [[academician]].

==Biography==
[[File:Otto Schmidt 1912.jpg|left|thumb|A young Schmidt in 1912]]
He was born in the town of [[Mogilev]] in the [[Russian Empire]], in what is now [[Belarus]]. His father was a descendant of [[Baltic Germans|Baltic German]] settlers in [[Courland]], while his mother was a [[Latvian people|Latvian]].<ref>{{cite web | title= Otto Yulievich Shmidt | work=Website of Shmidt Institute for the Earth Physics | url=http://www.ifz.ru/schmidt.html | access-date=2006-03-24 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20060918044350/http://www.ifz.ru/schmidt.html <!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archive-date = 2006-09-18|language=ru}}</ref> In 1912 and 1913, while in university, he published a number of mathematical works on [[group theory]] which laid foundation for [[Krull–Schmidt theorem]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Schmidt_Otto.html|title=Schmidt_Otto biography|website=www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk|access-date=2017-02-26}}</ref>

In 1913, Schmidt married [[Vera Schmidt (psychoanalyst)|Vera Yanitskaia]] and graduated from the [[Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv|Saint Vladimir Imperial University of Kiev]], where he worked as a [[privat-docent]] starting from 1916. In 1918 he became a member of the [[Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (of Internationalists)|Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Internationallists)]] which was later dissolved in to the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Russian Communist Party]]. After the [[October Revolution of 1917]], he was a board member at several [[People's Commissar]]iats ([[narkomat]]s){{spaced ndash}}such as [[Narkomprod]] from 1918 to 1920 (''Narodnyi Komissariat Prodovolstviya'', or People's Commissariat for Supplies), [[Ministry of Finance (Soviet Union)|People's Commissariat for Finance]] from 1921 to 1922 (''Narodnyi Komissariat Finansov'', or People's Commissariat for Finances). Schmidt was one of the chief proponents of developing the higher education system, publishing, and science in [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Soviet Russia]].

He worked at ''[[Narkompros]]'' (People's Commissariat for Education), the State Scientific Board at the [[Council of People's Commissars]] of the [[USSR]], and the [[Communist Academy]]. He was Chair of the [[Foreign Literature Committee]] from October 1921.<ref>[http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/sep/30d.htm Lenin: 414. TO THE FOREIGN LITERATURE COMMITTEE<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> Following the [[Evgraf Litkens|Litkens Commission]] Schmidt was also employed as the director of the State Publishing House ([[Gosizdat]]) from 1921 to 1924, and chief editor of the ''[[Great Soviet Encyclopedia]]'' from 1924 to 1941. From 1923 he was a professor at the [[Second Moscow State University]] and later at the [[Moscow State University]], and from 1930 to 1932, Schmidt was the head of the Arctic Institute. During this time he coined the term for the [[Schmidt double bond rule|double bond rule]] that relates to allylic and similar systems.<ref>{{Cite journal|doi = 10.1021/ed075p596|title = A History of the Double-Bond Rule|year = 1998|last1 = Hoogenboom|first1 = Bernard E.|journal = Journal of Chemical Education|volume = 75|issue = 5|page = 596|bibcode = 1998JChEd..75..596H}}</ref>
[[File:Otto Schmidt 1936.jpg|thumb|Schmidt in 1936]]
From 1932 to 1939, he was appointed head of [[Chief Directorate of the Northern Sea Route|Glavsevmorput']] (''Glavnoe upravlenie Severnogo Morskogo Puti'') – an establishment that oversaw all commercial operations on the [[Northern Sea Route]]. From 1939 to 1942, Schmidt became a [[vice-president]] of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, where he organized the Institute of Theoretical Geophysics (he was its director until 1949). Otto Schmidt was a founder of the Moscow Algebra School, which he directed for many years.

In the mid-1940s, Schmidt suggested a new [[cosmogonical]] [[hypothesis]] on the formation of the [[Earth]] and other [[planet]]s of the [[Solar System]], which he continued to develop together with a group of Soviet scientists until his death.

===Arctic===
Schmidt was an explorer of the Arctic. In 1929 and 1930, he led expeditions on the [[steam]] [[icebreaker]] ''[[Georgy Sedov (icebreaker)|Georgy Sedov]]'', establishing the first scientific research station on the [[Franz Josef Land]], exploring the northwestern parts of the [[Kara Sea]] and western coasts of [[Severnaya Zemlya]], and discovering a few islands.

In 1932, Schmidt's expedition on the steam icebreaker ''[[Sibiryakov (1909 icebreaker)|Sibiryakov]]'' with [[Captain Vladimir Voronin]] made a non-stop voyage from [[Arkhangelsk]] to the [[Pacific Ocean]] without wintering for the [[Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld|first time]] in history.
[[File:Встреча Папaнинцев.jpg|thumb|Otto Schmidt (centre) with Captain [[Ivan Papanin]] (left) and [[Mikhail Vodopyanov]] (right) in 1938]]
From 1933 to 1934, Schmidt led the voyage of the [[steamship]] ''[[Cheliuskin (ship)|Cheliuskin]]'', also with [[Captain Vladimir Voronin]], along the Northern Sea Route. In 1937, he supervised an [[wikt:airborne|airborne]] expedition that established a [[drift-ice station]] "[[North Pole-1]]". In 1938, he was in charge of evacuating its personnel from the ice.

Otto Schmidt was a member of the [[Central Executive Committee of the USSR]] and a [[Chamber of Deputies|deputy]] of the [[Supreme Soviet of the USSR]] of the first [[convocation]] (1938–1946).

==Legacy==
[[File:1966 CPA 3346.jpg|left|thumb|140px|A soviet stamp dedicated to Otto Schmidt]]
The authorities awarded Otto Schmidt three [[Orders of Lenin]], three other orders and many medals. [[Schmidt Island]] in the [[Kara Sea]], [[Cape Schmidt]] on the coastline of the [[Chukchi Sea]] in [[Chukotka Autonomous Okrug]], as well as the Institute of Earth Physics at the [[Russian Academy of Sciences|Soviet Academy of Sciences]], among other places, bear Schmidt's name.

A [[minor planet]], [[2108 Otto Schmidt]]{{spaced ndash}}discovered in 1948 by [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] astronomer [[Pelageya Shajn]]{{spaced ndash}}commemorates him.<ref>
{{cite book 
| last = Schmadel | first = Lutz D. 
| title = Dictionary of Minor Planet Names 
| pages = 171 | edition = 5th 
| date = 2003 | publisher = [[Springer Verlag]] 
| location = New York 
| isbn = 3-540-00238-3
}}
</ref>

The Soviet research vessel [[Otto Schmidt (ship)|''Otto Schmidt'']] was named after him in 1979.

===Honours and awards===
[[File:Shmidt Otto Bust 14Aug10.JPG|thumb|Bust of Otto Schmidt in Arkhangelsk]]
* [[Hero of the Soviet Union]]
* [[Order of Lenin]], three times
* [[Order of the Red Banner of Labour]], twice
* [[Order of the Red Star]]

==See also==
*[[Chief Directorate of the Northern Sea Route]]
*[[Frobenius group]]

==Notes==
{{noteslist}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Sources==
{{commons category}}
{{refbegin}}
*Aleksey E. Levin, Stephen G. Brush ''The Origin of the Solar System: Soviet Research 1925–1991''. AIP Press, 1995. {{ISBN|1-56396-281-0}}
*Brontman, L.K. ''On top of the world: the Soviet expedition to the North pole, 1937–1938'', New York, 1938.
* McCannon, John. ''Red Arctic: Polar Exploration and the Myth of the North in the Soviet Union, 1932–1939''. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
* ''Otto Iul'evich Shmidt: Zhizn' i deiatel'nost'''. Moscow: Nauka, 1959.
{{refend}}

==External links==
* {{PM20|FID=pe/015677}}

{{Drifting stations NP|state=uncollapsed}}
{{Polar exploration|state=collapsed}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schmidt, Otto}}
[[Category:1891 births]]
[[Category:1956 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Mogilev]]
[[Category:People from Mogilyovsky Uyezd (Mogilev Governorate)]]
[[Category:People of Baltic German descent]]
[[Category:Belarusian people of German descent]]
[[Category:Belarusian people of Latvian descent]]
[[Category:Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (of Internationalists) members]]
[[Category:Communist Party of the Soviet Union members]]
[[Category:First convocation members of the Soviet of Nationalities]]
[[Category:Belarusian encyclopedists]]
[[Category:Soviet polar explorers]]
[[Category:Belarusian explorers]]
[[Category:Severnaya Zemlya]]
[[Category:Soviet astronomers]]
[[Category:Soviet mathematicians]]
[[Category:Russian people of German descent]]
[[Category:Belarusian astronomers]]
[[Category:20th-century Belarusian mathematicians]]
[[Category:Soviet geophysicists]]
[[Category:Franz Josef Land]]
[[Category:Kara Sea]]
[[Category:Laptev Sea]]
[[Category:Chukchi Sea]]
[[Category:East Siberian Sea]]
[[Category:Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv alumni]]
[[Category:Academic staff of Moscow State University]]
[[Category:Academic staff of Moscow State Pedagogical University]]
[[Category:Full Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences]]
[[Category:Heroes of the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Order of Lenin]]