Kirenskii, Leonid Vasilevich

Born Mar. 25 (Apr. 7), 1909, in the village of Amga, now in the Yakut ASSR; died Nov. 3, 1969, in Moscow. Soviet physicist. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1968; corresponding member, 1964). Hero of Socialist Labor (1969). Member of the CPSU from 1943.

Kirenskii graduated from Moscow University in 1936. In 1939 he became head of the physics subdepartment at the Krasnoiarsk State Pedagogical Institute. In 1957 he became director of the Institute of Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR at Krasnoiarsk, which he helped found. (The institute was later included in the Siberian Division of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR; it was renamed the Kirenskii Institute of Physics in 1970.)

Kirenskii’s principal works were devoted to the physics of magnetic phenomena and to biophysics. He studied the domain structure of ferromagnetic materials, completed a number of studies on the physics of thin and single-crystal magnetic films, and studied multilayer film systems. He worked out the problems associated with the control of biosynthesis by physicotechnical methods. He organized a group of scientists to work on the problem of life support. He also founded a school of Siberian magnetologists. A deputy to the sixth and seventh convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Kirenskii was awarded the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.