Gleb Krzhizhanovsky

Soviet Stamp commemorating Gleb Krzhizhanovsky on the 100th anniversary of his birth, 1972

Gleb Maximilianovich Krzhizhanovsky (Russian: Глеб Максимилиа́нович Кржижано́вский) (24 January 1872 – 31 March 1959) was a Soviet Scientist and a state figure as well as a geographer and writer.

Born to a family of Polish descent (Polish surname: Krzyżanowski) he became an Academician of USSR Academy of Sciences (1929) and a Hero of Socialist Labour (1957).

Life and career

Krzhizhanovsky was born in Samara in 1872. In 1889 he moved to St Petersburg, where he attended the Saint Petersburg State Institute of Technology, becoming involved in Marxist circles in 1891. He was a close friend and colleague of Lenin and, in 1895, was one of the co-founders, with Lenin, of the St. Petersburg League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class. His activities with this group led to his imprisonment in Butyrka prison, where he wrote the Russian text of the Polish revolutionary song Warszawianka and the Ukrainian song Rage, Tyrants.

In 1904-5 he was involved in organising the 3rd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party.

In 1910 he oversaw the construction of a power station near Moscow and proposed the idea of a hydroelectric plant in Saratov.

In 1920 appointed as a Chief of Russia Electrification Commission, was in the lead of some parts of GOELRO plan, gave a report of this plan on the 8th Congress of Soviets (22 December 1920).

13 August 1921 - 11 December 1923 - Chief of Gosplan for his first term, succeeded by Alexander Tsuryupa.

18 November 1925 - 10 November 1930 - Chief of Gosplan for his second term.

Krzhizhanovsky was appointed to the editorial board of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, contributing several articles concerning electricity and planning. He died in Moscow in 1959.