Samsonov Memorial International Lecture Series
Professor G.V. Samsonov (1918-1975)
Professor Grigorii Valentinovich Samsonov was born on 15th
February 1918 in a town near Leningrad (now St.
Petersburg). After earning his first degree at the Nonferrous
Metals Institute in Moscow, he joined Soviet Navy. At the
end of the Second World War, he was stationed in the Soviet
occupied zone of Austria. It was here he became intimately
connected with the extensive refractory metal and their
compounds. After the cessation of the war, Samsonov returned to Moscow and
resumed his higher studies and research under the guidance of Professor M. A.
Merson (Institute of Steel and Alloys), a noted powder metallurgist of the then
USSR. After completion of his Ph.D. degree, Samsonov joined the Institute of
Metalkeramika (powder metallurgy) in the Ukrainian Academy of Science at Kiev
as a senior scientist. The Institute was later renamed "Institute of Materials
Problem". Within few years, he was elevated to the post of Deputy Director.
Simultaneously, he was invited to head the Powder Metallurgy Department of
Kiev Institute of Technology. Samsonov's scientific activity began with the
synthesis of inorganic compounds. Soon he extended his area in the study of
structure-properties-processing-performance relations of inorganic materials. By
structure he included all types: electronic, atomic, micro- and macro, although the
electronic structure fascinated him the most. To achieve this goal he insisted on
the crucial bond between chemistry and physics. Samsonov authored nearly 1500
papers and authored/edited 50 books and monographs. One of the seminal books
authored by Samsonov is "Configurational Model of Matter". Probably, there is no
paper on refractory compounds, where he is not referred. The inorganic
compounds in which Professor Samsonov contributed were carbides, nitrides,
borides, silicides, germanides, selenides, phosphides, etc. He has also investigated
in detail the hard cermets based on refractory compounds. His numerable past
students are spread throughout the world.