Vladimir Kovalevsky (paleontologist)

Vladimir Onufrijewitsch Kowalewski, Russian Владимир Онуфриевич Ковалевский (. * 2 Augustjul / August 14 1842greg in Schustjanka, Daugavpils district, today Vārkava, Latvia, .. . † 16 Apriljul / April 28 1883greg in Moscow) was a Russian paleontologist Polish descent, known for work on the lineage of the horses.

Life

Kowalewski was born into a noble Polish family, he was the son of Onufri Ossipowitsch and Paulina Petrovna Kowalewski and brother of zoologist ( embryology ) Onufrijewitsch Alexander Kovalevsky ( 1840-1901 ), a pupil of Ernst Haeckel, who introduced the Darwinian theory of evolution in Russia. Kowalewski first studied law in London and St. Petersburg in 1861 and earned his degree at the University of Saint Petersburg. Following this study, he worked as a lawyer ( titular ). From 1863 he turned increasingly under the influence of his brother, geology, anatomy and paleontology to, but finally only after the death of his father in 1867. Kowalewski was married to the mathematician Sofia Kovalevskaya since 1868, the marriage was originally closed only pro forma to his wife to allow study abroad. They both traveled but after marriage often shared by Europe, where Kowalewski studied in Paris fossils in the paleontological collections of the universities of Heidelberg, Jena, Munich and 1870 /71. In 1872 he was at the University of Jena with a dissertation on the evolution of the horse ( About the Anchitherium aurelianese Cuv. , And the paleontological history of the horse ) doctorate. Even after the promotion, the development of the family tree of hoofed animals remained his main area. He found in the fossil evidence for the theory of evolution. He corresponded with Charles Darwin, whom he knew from London. In 1873 he returned with his wife from abroad to Saint Petersburg, where he was curator of the Zoological Cabinet. From 1876 he was editor of a newspaper ( Nowoje Vremya ), wrote for his wife. A year later she left the newspaper for political reasons and became involved in 1878 in the higher education for women. In the same year the daughter Fufa was born. In addition, the couple speculated in real estate, but it went bankrupt and moved then to Moscow. Kowalewski taught from 1881 at the Lomonosov University in Moscow, while his wife and daughter went to Berlin to study with Karl Weierstrass and marriage aufkündigte. In 1882 he traveled to the study of fossils in the United States.

Kowalewski translated works of Darwin, Louis Agassiz, Charles Lyell (Principles of Geology ) and other scientific classics such as Brehm's Animal Life and German classical literature into Russian.

Kowalewski died by suicide after an oil company, with the shares of which he had speculated was gone bankrupt.

Writings

• Monograph of the genus Anthracotherium Cuv. and attempt a natural classification of fossil ungulates, 1876