Sidorenko, Aleksandr Vasilevich

Born Oct. 6 (19), 1917, in the village of Novonikolaevka, now in Voroshilovgrad Oblast. Soviet geologist; state and party figure. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1966; corresponding member, 1953). Vice-president of the academy since 1975. Member of theCPSU since 1942.

Of peasant origin, Sidorenko graduated from the University of Voronezh in 1940. He served in the Soviet Army from 1941 to 1943. Between 1943 and 1950 he was a member of the research staff of the Turkmen branch of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Sidorenko was deputy chairman from 1950 to 1952 and chairman from 1952 to 1961 of the presidium of the S. M. Kirov Kola Branch of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. In 1961 and 1962 he was first deputy chairman of the State Committee of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR on the Coordination of Scientific Research. In 1962 and 1963, Sidorenko was minister of geology and protection of mineral resources of the USSR. Between 1963 and 1965 he was chairman of the State Geological Committee of the USSR and a minister of the USSR. He was minister of geology of the USSR from September 1965 to January 1976.

Sidorenko’s principal works deal with the geology and geo-morphology of deserts, with mineral-forming processes in the weathering mantle and the resulting useful minerals, with the comprehensive evaluation of minerals and with protection of the environment. He developed a new line of investigation—the lithology of metamorphosed sedimentary Precambrian strata.

Sidorenko was elected a candidate member of the Central Committee of the CPSU at the Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth Congresses. He was a deputy to the seventh through ninth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Sidorenko received the Lenin Prize in 1966. He has been awarded two orders of Lenin and several medals.