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Sapozhnikov Nikolai Arkadyevich

Sapozhnikov Nikolai Arkadyevich

(1901 — 1980)

Place of birth

Nikolaev

Place of death

Leningrad

The main milestones of life

Nikolai Arkadyevich Sapozhnikov was born into the family of a folk school teacher.

In 1927, he graduated from the Faculty of Agriculture of the Leningrad Agricultural Institute (LSHI). He began his independent experimental work at the Drabovskaya agricultural experimental station in the Cherkasy region, studying the effect of fertilizers on the yield of grain crops and sugar beet. In 1928, he joined the Department of Agrochemistry of the LSHI. Since the organization of the Leningrad branch of the All-Union Institute of Fertilizers and Agro-Soil Science (LOVIUAA) in 1931. N.A.Sapozhnikov's scientific life was connected with this institution, in which he worked his way up from an ordinary employee to deputy director for scientific affairs.

The Great Patriotic War interrupted the scientific activity of Nikolai Arkadyevich. In the Air Force units of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet, he defended Leningrad. He returned to LOVIUAA after demobilization in 1946.

In 1955, N.A. Sapozhnikov was appointed Deputy Director for Scientific Work at the Northwestern Research Institute of Agriculture. At the same time, since 1959, he also headed the Nitrogen Transformation Laboratory at the Institute of Agricultural Microbiology, where he worked continuously from 1965 until the last days of his life.

N.A. Sapozhnikov was a prominent scientist in the field of agrochemistry and agriculture. His activity was associated with the most crucial periods of the development of agriculture in the country: its restoration after the Great Patriotic War, the development of cotton growing in the republics of Transcaucasia, the intensification of agriculture in the Non-Chernozem zone of the RSFSR.

The huge factual material collected personally by Nikolai Arkadyevich and his staff served as the basis for his writing of over 100 articles and 4 monographs. A special place in these works is occupied by the development of an agricultural system as an integral part of rational agriculture in the Northwestern zone of the country, these results are summarized in the form of 3 separate publications, which clearly revealed his multifaceted approach to the problems being developed, a complex combination of agrophysical and agrochemical research with the study of biological processes in the soil.

Throughout his life, Nikolai Arkadyevich conducted extensive pedagogical and educational work in parallel with his scientific activities.

His brilliant, in-depth lectures and public introductions, involving the latest data from domestic and foreign science, invariably attracted a large and attentive audience. He was a participant in many international congresses, All-Union congresses and meetings, and was repeatedly a participant and medalist of the VDNH.

For a series of works on nitrogen, Nikolai Arkadyevich was awarded the D.N.Pryanishnikov Prize and a commemorative medal of the VIII International Congress on Mineral Fertilizers (1976; Moscow).

He was awarded two Orders of Lenin, the Order of the Red Star, the Order of the Badge of Honor and many medals.

The bright memory of Nikolai Arkadyevich Sapozhnikov – a great scientist, a patriot of the Motherland, a modest, clear–minded, benevolent man - will remain in the hearts of those who knew him.

Source: Dorosinsky L.M. "In memory of N.A.Sapozhnikov" // Journal of Agrochemistry, 1981, No. 8, pp. 157-158.