Fedorov, Evgenii

Born Mar. 28 (Apr. 10), 1910, in Bendery, in what is now the Moldavian SSR. Soviet geophysicist; state and public figure. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1960; corresponding member, 1939) and chief learned secretary of the academy’s Presidium from 1959 to 1962. Hero of the Soviet Union (1938). Member of the CPSU since 1938.

Fedorov graduated from Leningrad State University in 1932. From 1932 to 1938 he was a research worker at polar stations, including the first Severnyi Polius drifting station (1937–38). He was director of the Arctic Scientific Research Institute in 1938 and 1937 and head of the Hydrometeorological Service of the USSR from 1939 to 1947 and from 1962 to 1974. Fedorov was on the staff of the Geophysical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR from 1947 to 1955. He founded the Institute of Applied Geophysics of the Hydrometeorological Service of the USSR, of which he was director from 1956 to 1969 and again from 1974.

Fedorov’s main works deal with the investigation of geophysical fields in the Arctic, the water balance of clouds, and weather modification, as well as with satellite studies of the upper layers of the atmosphere and the study of environmental pollution.

Fedorov received the State Prize of the USSR in 1946 and 1969. He was chairman of the Antifascist Committee of Soviet Youth and a member of the Pugwash Committee. He also was a vice-president of the World Meteorological Organization from 1963 to 1971. Fedorov, who was the vice-president of the Soviet Peace Committee from 1965, was a member of the Presidium of the World Peace Council from 1970 to 1976. He was a deputy to the first and ninth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Fedorov was awarded five Orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, six other orders, and various medals.