Helped by Labour and Knowledge: University during the Great Patriotic War

10:20, May 5, 2023

A special issue of the university newspaper is dedicated to the Victory Day of May 9

It's been 78 years since the Red Army and the Soviet people won in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945. We commemorate the history of these hardest years and honor the memory of our heroes. But what happened at the Ural State University and the Ural Industrial Institute during the war? Did they continue their work? You can find out more about this in the latest issue of the Ural Federal Newspaper (No. 8, 5 May), which is entirely devoted to the Victory Day.

In October 1941, the main building of the Ural State University (62, 8th March St.), dormitories and the faculty building were transferred to one of the evacuated facilities in Sverdlovsk. The university was housed in a small building of the former Institute of Journalism (13b Lenin St.). This institute became a faculty of the university.

Despite the difficult conditions, the work of the university did not stop for a single day. In 1941-1943, 12 evacuated professors and two academicians from Moscow universities of the USSR worked here. Already in 1943 Sverdlovsk University ranked first in the RSFSR in student enrolment and academic achievements.

In 1944 and 1945, the Faculties of Biology and Geography were opened. During the war, the faculty and students of the university carried out more than 35 major scientific researches. Under the leadership of Professor R.Y. Levina, who had been evacuated from Moscow, the staff and students of the Department of Organic Chemistry developed a method of using Ishimbayev gasoline as a fuel for aircraft engines. A team from the Department of Colloidal Chemistry, led by Professors S.V. Karpachev and S.G. Mokrushin, proposed a method of enlarging aluminium hydroxide and a new method of analysing aluminate alkalis. Professor A.A. Yakovkin, head of the Department of Astronomy and Astronomical Observatory, developed a number of devices for aeronautical navigation and aircraft guidance at night. Researchers of the Ural Branch of the Academy of Sciences, Professors S.V. Vonsovsky and Ya. S. Shur, and university students, developed and implemented a magnetic method of controlling artillery shells. 

At the same time, the students of the Ural Industrial Institute have made a number of successful technological advances. For example, a team of students has been working at the Pyshma copper electrolysis plant. Every day they have been able to meet the 250% standard, which has allowed the plant to increase its production standards by one and a half times. And I. Ushakov, a student at the Faculty of Civil Engineering, developed a project to increase the productivity of the water pumping station by almost double. His thesis was approved by the Sverdlovsk Water Supply and Sewage Company, and the Water Supply and Sewage Department took control of the station's reconstruction. The Department of Mechanical Engineering Technology instructed the graduates to develop technological regulations for the production of a new type of product for one of the plants evacuated to the Ural Industrial Institute. The new technology was approved and later used in many plants in the Urals. At the same time, the technology for processing technical porcelain for the needs of the defense industry was developed.

The university staff helped the front line in every way they could. Scientific laboratories and departments were constantly working to optimize production and develop new, cost-effective technologies and materials.

"We had the task of setting up production of sulfamide preparations - streptocide, sulfidine, norsulfazol - literally within days. The laboratory methods had already been developed, but the transition to factory-scale production was complicated by a lack of equipment. All we had were enamel buckets, basins and so on. So we started working with them. From the very first month of the war, the Sverdlovsk hospitals received trains of wounded people, and we knew how much our sulphamides were needed. And if in the first months of the war the hospitals received only kilograms and tens of kilograms of medicines produced by our incredible efforts, in 1942 we began to organise the production of sulphide preparations". - Professor N.P. Bednyagina remembers her work at the university Professor N.P. Bednyagina. 

The Urals made a significant contribution to the Victory. Together with the whole country, our university endured the ordeal and actively helped with its labour, knowledge and faith.

Reference

The next issue of the Ural Federal Newspaper will be published on 22 May.

• Ural Federal Newspaper

The news article was translated by UrFU International Marketing Office. 
info.international@urfu.ru, +7 (343) 375-45-19