Nikolai Andreevich Chinakal: a Personality in Science Resume

• Main Author: Irina A. Krayneva
• Format: Article
• Language: Russian
• Published: Transbaikal State University 2020-12-01
• Series: Гуманитарный вектор
• Subjects: science in siberia; mining; institute of mining siberian branch; russian academy of sciences; nikolai andreevich chinakal
• Online Access: http://zabvektor.com/wp-content/uploads/211220111236-Krajneva.pdf

The unique personality and scientific biography of Nikolai Andreevich Chinakal (1888–1979), a scientist in the field of mining, a Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences make it relevant. He was the oldest among the members of the SB RAS and got his education before the October Revolution. He lived through change of epoch, turmoil of revolutions and wars, forced labour in a “sharaga”, scientific advances, technical failures and creative breakthroughs. This feature of his biography actualizes the ways of transiting a specialist from one social reality to another, where the profession determines the model of behavior. This transition required significant efforts since it was sometimes complicated by the historical context. The aim of the research is to study the mentality of the actor in science whose professional activity dominated over other social life imperatives. Importantly, Chinakal’s work was connected with two geographic regions known for their major coal basins: the Donetsk Coal Basin, or Donbass, and Kuznetsk Coal Basin, or Kuzbass. The author highlights the characteristic features of these regions and shows how they affected the engineering and organizational decisions made by the scientist. The methodology and research methods are based on the theory of biography, activity-oriented aspect of the life of the history actor that depended strongly on his occupation, B. Latour’s actor-network theory, systematic approach to studying the natural character of causality and network connections of the “scientist-science-object” structure examined in this work. N. A. Chinakal was actively involved in starting academic science in Siberia. For 28 years, he was a director of the Institute of Mining in the West-Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, which later became part of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The authority and academic status of the director were of great importance for the institute staff. Equally important was the stability provided by Chinakal’s leadership. In our time, stability is very much in demand, although there is an imbalance of stability and instability, which is felt by the staff of the Institute of Mining.