Alexander Naumovich Frumkin (1895-1976) started his research in Odessa essentially alone, without co-authors. His school was continuously developing later and extending during several decades in Moscow. The earliest generation appeared in mid 1920s in Karpov Institute and included people with diverse educational backgrounds. In 1930s and later, newly involved young people appeared mostly (but not exclusively) from the Dept of Electrochemistry in Moscow University. The first available description of this school belongs to Natalya A. Bach (Zhurnal Fizicheskoi Khimii. 1941. V. 15. p. 813-829, see in this e-book). Frumkin’s review article written in Dec 1942 presents the contribution of his school to the most hot topic of electrochemical kinetics of that period. Lists of Refs in these articles contain not only Frumkin’s publications, but also numerous publications without Frumkin’s co-authorship, which is an important feature of the school. We tried to collect a separate list of publications inspired but not authored by Frumkin. Some parts of the series (sets of articles with subsequent numbers in the title) include the parts from this list.
Starting from 1940s, the distinct ‘university’ and ‘academy’ branches can be clearly recognized, the latter being essentially more abundant and located first in the Institute of Physical Chemistry, and later in the Institute of Electrochemistry. This larger ‘academic’ branch unavoidably accumulated people from various universities, including technological.
All biographic data in our project are documented. Before 2022, we were lucky to collect some data from the archives of Karpov Inst and Moscow Univ. For early generations, we also use a brief information from highly reliable handbooks “Science and researchers of USSR” (“Nauka i nauchnye rabotniki SSSR”) published in 1925-1934. A collection of archive documents “Chemists about themselves” compiled by Yu.I. Soloviev (Moscow: Graf-Press Publ., 2001) provides direct information about some academicians. The dates of some organizational events are based on the brief article in Russ. J. Phys. Chem. 2020. V. 94. P. 485-489 (looks like it is based on archive information). Secondary sources (Personalia, memoirs) published in respectful journals and monographs are also attracted, although they can be less accurate. Some dates of life are determined from the available photos of the graves. Many photos were available in the album stored in Frumkin Institute (it is not dated, but we believe that it starts from mid 1940s). Early photos related to Moscow University are taken from the booklet “History of inorganic chemistry in Moscow Univ” edited by Yu.D. Tret’yakov in 2009. We also used catalogues of the Russian State Library to find titles and dates of theses and books, and a web collection Mathnet supported by Steklov Institute of Math, and electronic collections of Sukhoi State Technical University of Gomel and Belarussian State Technological University (Minsk).
In contrast to the usual “soviet style” of scientific biographies, we avoid mentioning any regalia, like academic titles, state prizes, orders and medals, etc. Interested reader can easily find the lists of these formal signs of success in other sources. We also try to minimize information about military/defence activities, such as ‘atomic project’, in which unfortunately many scientists of the former generations were forced to take part. Our goal is to collect and to structure the advancements of open research presented in academic publications. Simultaneously, we fully appreciate the fact that some fruitful scientific ideas/directions were stimulated by the military research, and these two branches cannot be separated completely. This is the reason why sometimes we also used information from this very rich ‘atomic project’ collection (in Russian).
The only aspect beyond science, which unfortunately cannot be overlooked, is the crucial effect of some ideological political campaigns on professional biographies.