On 7 June, in the conference hall of the main building of VSU, an inter-faculty meeting “The Afro-Eurasian Odyssey of Russian physicist Nikolay Nifontov” was held. The meeting was dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the scientist’s birth. It was the fourth in a series of annual meetings to restore the legacy of Nikolai Nifontov. The seminar was moderated by Dmitry Zhukalin, Head of the Department of Innovations, Associate Professor of the Department of Semiconductor Physics and Microelectronics, and Nina Cherepkova, Associate Professor of the Department of French Philology.
The meeting was organised by the Department of French Philology of the Faculty of Romance and Germanic Philology of VSU. For three years, under the supervision of Elena Kashkina and Nina Cherepkova, associate professors, students of the Faculty of Romance and Germanic Philology and all “non-specialised” faculties (about one hundred people) translated Nifontov’s lectures, diaries, and archival materials from French into Russian.
Nikolay Nifontov was born in Tunisia, received higher education in Algeria, then moved to the Soviet Union, worked at Dagestan State University, and then at Voronezh State University. His story was told by: 4th year students of the Faculty of Romance and Germanic Philology Alina Bessmertnaya, Anastasia Erofeeva, Viktoria Myzgina, Aleksey Safonov, Elizaveta Suslova, Alina Chuprunova, and Ekaterina Shustova, 4th year students of the Faculty of International Relations Anastasia Karpova, Vladlena Kudryashova, and Valeria Chertkova, 2nd year students of the Faculty of Applied Mathematics, Informatics, and Mechanics Gleb Bulavin, Georgy Kuznetsov, Ilya Shulenin, 1st year student of the Faculty of Applied Mathematics, Informatics, and Mechanics Yadviga Orlovskaya, 1st year students of the Faculty of Journalism Sofia Evdokimova, Sofia Nesterova, Dunya Nassikh, and 1st year Master’s degree student of the Faculty of Chemistry Polina Vasilyeva.
The students’ presentations were accompanied by the demonstration of authentic documents about Nikolay Nifontov’s primary, secondary, and higher education, his diary, which he kept during his scouting activities, his books and lecture notes, a paper card catalogue of scientific literature, notes for the flute, and the flute itself. Archival materials were provided by relatives of Nikolay Nifontov, the Rare Books Department of the VSU Regional Scientific Library, lecturers of the Department of Semiconductor Physics and Microelectronics, founded by Nikolay Nifontov.
The event was attended by the professor’s colleagues, relatives, and students, and staff of VSU. Witnesses of his work at Voronezh State University told about Nifontov’s scientific merits.
Larisa Bityutskaya, Associate Professor, an engineer of the Department of Semiconductor Physics and Microelectronics, told about the formation of the department and the laboratory, one of the leading laboratories in the USSR, which developed hybrid circuits for launching space satellites. Nikolay Nifontov laid the foundations for the development of neural networks.
According to Evelina Pavlovna Domashevskaya, Consulting Professor of the Department of Solid State and Nanostructure Physics, Nikolay Nifontov made a unique contribution to the development of Soviet physics at the time of its rapid growth.
“I am sure that intellectual, spiritual energy is immortal. It is transmitted from generation to generation. A good example of this is that Nikolay Nifontov returned to the homeland with a high-level of education, and he taught us his knowledge and attitude. I personally learnt a lot from the professor. He influenced my education, my choice of future scientific area. This generation relay we observe today: we pass the great, immortal science from “hand to hand” to the youth,” said Evelina Pavlovna.
His contemporaries remembered Nikolai Nifontov as a unique, versatile person. He was fond of poetry, played the flute, collected herbariums. The poems from the professor’s diary were read in French by Aleksandra Khaustova, a 1st year student of the Faculty of Chemistry, to a violin accompaniment by Serafima Kastryuleva, a 2nd year student of the Faculty of Pharmaceutics. Professor Vladimir Agafonov, Head of the Department of Botany and Mycology of VSU, showed the participants fragments of the herbarium of North African plants collected by Nikolai Nifontov in Algeria. He also asked the representatives of the Department of French Philology to translate from French into Russian the descriptions of plants preserved in archival documents.
Anna Gladysheva, chief bibliographer of the Rare Books Section of the VSU Regional Scientific Library, and Larisa Akinshina, leading bibliographer, presented a brief overview of books from Nikolai Nifontov’s personal library. These books tell us about his broad outlook and deep intellect. He brought these books from Algeria in 1959. Veronika Andreeva, a flute teacher of Children’s Music School No. 1, and Julia Efremova, a guitar teacher of Children’s Music School No. 7, played some pieces of music on Nikolai Nifontov’s flute, which has not lost its sound even after 70 years.
Elena Topilskaya, a relative of the professor, shared her memories of his family, unique personality, and legacy. According to her, among Nikolay Nifontov’s large family there are about 30 graduates and employees of VSU. Elena Topilskaya noted the importance of generational succession in science and honouring the distinguished personalities of the university, who influenced its development. The family and close friends of the physicist were identified based on archival documents by Alexander Akinshin, historian and Chair of the Voronezh Historical and Cultural Society.
The curator of the presented projects, Professor Elena Alekseeva, Head of the Department of French Philology, spoke about the process and importance of studying the biographies of scientists through the prism of language. She noted that the presented large-scale research on the heritage of Nikolay Nifontov originated with a routine training assignment for students of non-linguistic faculties in the discipline of “Foreign Language (French)”.
“We, the current generation of the Faculty of Physics staff, remember that Nikolai Nifontov was an absolutely unique person, we met him personally. I think that such events show that the university remembers the professors who laid the foundation for the future development of the university,” emphasised Oleg Ovchinnikov, Dean of the Faculty of Physics at VSU.
