I. I. Shafranovskii (1907-1994)

I. I. Shafronovskii

The year 1994 was sadly distinguished by the deaths of a whole pleiad of classical crystallographers, including an outstanding romantic of crystallography, Professor Illarion Illarionivich Shafranovskii, of St Petersburg Mining Institute, who died on July 1, 1994 at age 87.

I. I. Shafranovskii graduated from Leningrad (now St Petersburg) State University where he also began his academic career. He defended his doctoral thesis in 1943, upon withdrawing from the people's guard after severe shell-shock. Inspired by Ye. S. Fedorov's ideas and academic heritage, Shafranovskii took the  crystallographic chair in the Leningrad Mining Institute.

The most outstanding of Shafranovskii's achievements was that he founded mineralogical crystallography, the science of studying natural crystals in their geologic environment, their genesis and role as indicators of events of the geologic past and in mineral prospecting. He developed the general theory of real crystals, the study of facial, edge and vertex forms, and pseudo- and distorted crystal shapes. His work on the interaction of a growing crystal and the crystal-forming environment, based on the principles of symmetry, won general recognition. His last years were devoted to further development of the theory of symmetry, symmetry statistics and a search for quantitative ratios in the symmetry of natural systems, revealing harmony in the mineral kingdom.

Shafranovskii published over 500 works, among which the most popular became a two-volume monograph on real crystals "Crystals of Minerals" (1957, 1961), "Lectures in Crystallography" (1960, 1968), "Essays on Mineralogic Crystallography" (1974), "Symmetry in Nature" (1968, 1985) and a textbook in crystallography with five editions published in Russia and translated into many languages.

His two-volume History of Crystallography (1978, 1980) and History of Crystallography in Russia (1962) have no equals in the scope and depth of historic analysis. He wrote dozens of biographies about outstanding crystallographers. Due to his painstaking research, the life and work of Ye. S. Fedorov became known to the crystallographic community in every detail.

I. I. Shafranovskii, distinguished by a great erudition, was an expert in art and poetry, and wrote poems himself. He was an honorable member of the Russian Academy of natural sciences and many academic societies, and a corresponding member of the International Association of History and Geology. He received many governmental and academic awards, including a prestigious crystallographic award, the Fedorov prize.