Professor Belgard Alexander is a prominent figure among the scientists of postwar era in Dniepropetrovsk. His life and fate were attractive to me in 2014 not only because it was the memories of the classic figure of a university professor whom I remember from the student’s time graduating from the biological faculty the specialty biophysics in 1972. Although Alexander Lyutsianovych was not reading lectures for students of our department but his personality was perceived as a titan among giants of Science University (Professors Reinhard L., MassakovskiyVS, G. Melnikov, Dontsova ZM, P. Motsnyi E. and others).
Suddenly, in July 2014, I received information from Honoured Journalist of Ukraine, the indefatigable local historian M.P.Chaban ( familiar over 10 years),that it appeared a book by Chehorky named « He was a poet of the forest", 2012 edition to 110 anniversary of the birth of Professor. For me, as Head of the Lithuanian Society "Gintaras" it was a pleasant discovery that Alexander was born in Lithuania in October 4, 1902 in the village around the town Lyentvaris near Vilnius. In a large family, he was the ninth child. At the beginning of the First World War front line was held near Vilnius and because the father Lucian Stefanovic worked at a defense plant the workers and the whole family were evacuated into Ekaterinoslav. Alexander Lyutsianovych continued studing in the second school named Dobrovolsky then in Ekaterinoslav Mining Institute.
His father was eager his sons to get the engineering specialty. Alexander worked as forest keeper to earn some money during vacation.
According to the words of Professor just his true love to forests and lakes in Lithuania became decisive in the choice of his education and his future profession. He chose a lifetime to learn and increase forest area of Dniepropetrovsk. After two courses of study in 1922 he joined the first course of biological faculty of Ekaterinoslav University. In the years 1933-1972 he headed the Department of geobotany and higher plants of University.
During the Second World War his family was in evacuation in the Krasnodar region. Alexander Lyutsianovych and his wife Angelina Pavlovna worked as teachers at the school. After returning to Dniepropetrovsk in 1944 20 graduates of this school entered the biological faculty of State University.
In the family of Professor Belgard were born a son Alexander and a daughter Galina, the grandson and great-grandson . Daughter of Professor Galina is a candidate of biological sciences who has been working in the Agricultural University in Dniepropetrovsk. My meeting with her took place in the apartment where the family of Professor lived. We agreed with Galina that we would describe together the Lithuanian page life of her father.
slider=54
Daughter of Professor Galina – Ph.D., works in the Agricultural University in Dniepropetrovsk.
Text and photos prepared by
Head of the Lithuanian cultural center "Gintaras" Galina Khmil-Dunai.
He was the poet of wood | Ukrainian arborist
