I. D. Artamonov. Vladimir Nikolaevich Chikolev. State Energy Publishing House. Moscow—Leningrad, 1948, 80 pp. Print run 5000. Price 2 rubles.

Among departmental publishing houses, Gosenergoizdat occupies perhaps the most prominent place in the popularization of science and, in particular, in presenting the achievements of Russian scientists. This highly useful activity began with the publication of a collection of articles in memory of P. N. Yablochkov, the fiftieth anniversary of whose death was commemorated in 1944. In a comparatively short...

In a short time Energoizdat has published a series of brochures and monographs on the life and work of the most outstanding Russian electrical engineers—A. S. Popov, A. N. Lodygin, P. N. Yablochkov, M. O. Dolivo-Dobrovolsky.

The publication under review is the next issue in the intended series of biographies of Russian scientists and inventors who glorified their homeland by their most valuable contributions to world electrical engineering.

In the history of electrical engineering in Russia, V. N. Chikolev occupies one of the most prominent places. His name is associated with an entire epoch, characterized by the flourishing in Russia of an electrotechnical public, the creation of native electrotechnical literature, and the introduction of electrical engineering into military affairs. Living in an era of unusually rapid growth of applied knowledge, V. N. Chikolev, through his profound investigations, gained for himself the fame of the founder of lighting engineering in our country. His exceptionally valuable contribution to this field of science and technology was deservedly appreciated both in our country and abroad, where, while he was still alive, his most important works were translated into German, French, and English.

However, the study of the activity of this remarkable scientist and inventor—as, indeed, of other Russian electrical engineers—began only in our own days, when interest in native science has increased exceptionally. In the general and especially in the specialized electrotechnical press over recent years there has appeared a series of essays, individual studies, and new publications about V. N. Chikolev. In the list of works on Chikolev we also find the name of the author of the booklet under review. It is precisely to him that there belongs a special study) of Chikolev’s works on searchlights, recognized in world literature as classics. This is not the only article by I. D. Artamonov on Chikolev’s work. Being himself a military engineer, the author was the first in Soviet literature to take an interest in the activity of the outstanding Russian electrical engineer in the military field and wrote a special work, “V. N. Chikolev—a Military Electrical Engineer”). He also published a general sketch of the life and work of V. N. Chikolev**).

Thus, the choice of the author by Gosenergoizdat is not accidental. I. D. Artamonov is indeed competent in elucidating various aspects of the activity of this outstanding electrical engineer, especially his work on searchlights.

Among the best sections of the booklet is chapter six—“The Use of Chikolev’s Works,” in which the author, using authentic documents, has shown the influence of the ideas and results obtained by V. N. Chikolev on the works of foreign scientists. I. D. Artamonov also cites a number of facts that irrefutably testify to the unscrupulous borrowing and even outright plagiarism of Chikolev’s achievements by enterprising “inventors” abroad, such as the well-known German capitalist Schuckert. The Soviet reader will read with great interest the documents cited by the author in this chapter. The author emphasizes: “Chikolev had repeatedly to assert his priority for inventions that appeared under the names of various foreign entrepreneurs and technicians: Lanten, Berdeman, Siemens, and Schuckert” (p. 66). Quite appropriately included here is Chikolev’s letter to the editors of the then widely circulated French electrotechnical journal Lumiere Electrique (1881). This is what he wrote:

“Everyone knows that Mr. Schuckert in Nuremberg, having made a trivial change in the form of the coils of Gramme’s direct-current dynamo-electric machine, passes it off as his own independent invention.

) See the journal Electricity*, No. 6, I. D. Artamonov, “Calculation of the Distribution of the Light Intensity of a Searchlight by V. N. Chikolev’s Method and the Development of This Method.”

) Electricity, 1945, No. 8.

*) Science and Life, 1948, No. 4.

At the present time I can state the following action by the same Mr. Shukkert, to which anyone who has read my statement will himself give the proper name. In your highly esteemed journal of May 1, 1880, my differential lamp was described, and on the 19th of the same May, i.e., in a few days after receiving the issue in which this lamp was described, he submitted a request for the granting to him of a privilege in Germany for the lamp he had invented, which is a slight modification of mine. That this is indeed so is confirmed simply by the reply I received from the German Patent Office, by which it refuses to grant me a privilege because my lamp is identical with Shukkert’s, and because the latter’s application was received earlier than mine. Of course, I can still destroy Shukkert’s patent, but I must spend time and money on this; for the time being I do not consider myself entitled to keep silent before electricians about such an incident and not to warn them against such unscrupulous tricks” (pp. 66–67).

I. D. Artamonov also cites other facts which testify, if not to direct unscrupulous appropriation of Chikolev’s achievements, then to the undoubted use of his ideas in America and France. Chikolev had more than once to appear in print in defense of his priority. In one case he was dealing with such an outstanding scholar as A. Blondel, who had no right (this was proved documentarily) to be considered the author of the first theory of searchlights, as the French scientific press asserted.

Through the activity of V. N. Chikolev, as also of his contemporaries and associates in the field of electrical engineering—A. N. Lodygin, P. N. Yablochkov, M. O. Dolivo-Dobrovolsky, and A. S. Popov—the long-standing dream of the pioneer of electrical engineering in Russia, Academician B. S. Jacobi, was realized: “that Russia might, without resorting to foreign technology, itself become the scientific and industrial center to which the other nations and countries would be obliged to turn as to a source of scientific paths and practical applications”*).

A valuable section in I. D. Artamonov’s book is also the fourth chapter, entitled “Chikolev—a Military Electrical Engineer.” Like all the leading Russian scientists and engineers, V. N. Chikolev was an ardent patriot of his homeland. His outstanding talent as an inventor and designer, his recognized authority in international electrical-engineering circles, induced the owners of the largest firms in Europe (including Shukkert’s firm) to invite him to take leading posts with them, offering remuneration tens of times greater than his modest salary as a clerk of the Main Artillery Directorate. But however tempting and enticing these offers were, Chikolev invariably rejected them, believing, as he put it, that he was in the actual service of the Motherland.

As is known, optics in military affairs now plays an exceptionally important role. In fact, modern armies are inconceivable without optics (including here lighting engineering)—without it they are blind in the literal sense of the word. It is all the more gratifying for the Soviet reader to learn that the sources of this most important area of military affairs include the Russian scientist V. N. Chikolev, who to the end of his days devoted all his strength and knowledge to the cause of increasing the combat capability of his country, while paying special attention to the training of domestic cadres of military electrical engineers. In I. D. Artamonov’s work, for the first time in our literature, this aspect of V. N. Chikolev’s activity is elucidated.

The author, however, treats it in isolation, without pointing to Chikolev’s predecessors and without mentioning that many other Russian electrical engineers were in one way or another connected with the War Department and the navy. Yet it is widely known that, here as in many other cases, the army and the fleet were the arena in which the most gifted inventors worked—

) See Advances in the Physical Sciences*, vol. XXXV, issue 4.

radio engineering. And it is no accident that it was precisely in the naval department that the greatest discovery of the end of the nineteenth century—wireless telegraphy—was born, the inventor of which was connected with the fleet from the very beginning of his independent activity to the end of his days.

Less successful is the presentation of V. N. Chikolev’s public activity. In this respect Chikolev stands out especially among his contemporaries, who include so many outstanding names. Although the author mentions that it was Chikolev who initiated the creation of the famous VI (electrotechnical) section of the Russian Technical Society and of its printed organ, the journal Elektrichestvo, which is now entering the second half-century of its existence (founded in 1880), he has by no means made use even of readily accessible materials published in the same journal Elektrichestvo and characterizing V. N. Chikolev as a leader of the Russian electrotechnical community. I. D. Artamonov dwells insufficiently on the letter written by Chikolev for the first issue of Elektrichestvo, which sounded like a battle manifesto of a small, but later powerful, group of Russian pioneer electrical engineers who boldly undertook the development of the most important problems of what was then still a little-known field of knowledge and resolved to implant the young technical branch in their fatherland.

In a brief biographical sketch the author could and should have shown how, under Chikolev’s leadership, the organ he created turned into a “public platform” for Russian electrical engineers, in whose education and formation the journal played so important a role. It should especially have been emphasized that from the very beginning Elektrichestvo invariably fought against the domination of foreign electrotechnical companies in tsarist Russia, and also against the appropriation by foreign entrepreneurs of discoveries and inventions made in Russia.

I. D. Artamonov outlined somewhat better the role and significance in the development of electrical engineering in Russia of the electrical exhibition organized on the initiative of V. N. Chikolev in Petersburg in 1880. This was the first electrical-engineering exhibition in the world. As is known, in the last century such exhibitions were organized in many advanced industrial countries and were regarded as festivals of international electrotechnical life.

The exhibition of 1880 vividly demonstrated the high level of electrical engineering in Russia, where the field of electricity had been the subject of fruitful research beginning as early as the eighteenth century. In eight sections of the exhibition there was shown the most valuable contribution of Russian scientists and inventors to electric lighting, telegraphy, electroplating, electrical measuring technology, military science, and so on. “Explanations,” or, as we would now say, tours (during roughly a month the exhibition was visited by more than six thousand people), were conducted by outstanding scientists, including Chikolev himself, and by senior university students. Among the latter was, incidentally, the future inventor of radio—A. S. Popov. For some reason I. D. Artamonov does not mention this.

Like many outstanding Russian scientists, Chikolev, along with in-depth research, devoted considerable attention to the popularization of science. In this respect, among Russian electrical engineers, perhaps only V. K. Lebedinsky can be placed beside him; through his fascinating writings he acquainted the Soviet reader with the beginnings of the study of electricity and its practical applications. And in this field V. N. Chikolev was a pioneer. Not to mention a number of elementary courses, indispensable manuals for those beginning to study electrical engineering, Chikolev conceived the idea of popularizing not only the achievements but also the immediate prospects of the new branch of technology that was firmly entering industry and everyday life. And here his unsurpassed talent as a writer manifested itself. Written by him, An Electrical Tale—Not Fact, but Not Fiction Either—went through more than one edition and evoked unanimous

approval from the press. This work is remarkable also because in it the author, speaking of the prospects of the electrical engineering of his own day, anticipated a number of its achievements, at which it arrived many years later. I. D. Artamonov notes: “Sober and bold dreams, dreams far in advance of the possibilities of the contemporary level of science and industry, reveal Chikolev’s enormous technical outlook. The profound application of electricity in the technology of industrial production, the electrification of transport and of everyday conditions—all this, which has now become a real actuality, was outlined by Chikolev as a concrete prospect for the development of electrical engineering” (p. 63).

Unfortunately, I. D. Artamonov merely enumerates such facts, but in each individual case gives no analysis of the technical possibilities of that time and does not show, in the light of the path traversed by science, what precisely was lacking for the solution of the tasks that had matured. The author confines himself to a mere statement of facts. Let us cite one such example: “In connection with the military application of electricity, Chikolev predicted the possibility of carrying out telegraphy without wires—the very possibility that was brilliantly realized by the inventor of radio, A. S. Popov” (p. 63). In such general phrases is set forth everything else concerning Chikolev’s anticipations of the future of electrical engineering.

In conclusion, a few words about the style in which the book under review is written. I. D. Artamonov is an inexperienced author. This is evident from the quotations cited, in which, speaking of the past, he uses verbs in the present tense. I. D. Artamonov plainly has difficulty constructing sentences. On a page of comparatively small format there are as many as ten paragraphs, often consisting of a single very simple sentence. If one adds to this such expressions as “the book ... reflects Chikolev’s patriotism,” “reports and papers read by Chikolev in these years,” then it is easy to be convinced that the editor expended very little labor on the manuscript.

M. Radovsky