Shostakovskii, Mikhail Fedorovich

Born May 24 (June 6), 1905, in Novoselitsy, in what is now Kirovograd Oblast. Soviet organic chemist. Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1960). Member of the CPSU since 1946.

Shostakovskii graduated from the University of Irkutsk in 1929. From 1932 to 1962 he worked at the Institute of Organic Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. From 1957 to 1971 he was director of the Irkutsk Institute of Organic Chemistry of the Siberian Division of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, and from 1971 to 1973, director of the Institute of Petrochemistry of the Siberian Division of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. In 1973 he became head of a subdepartment of the All-Union Polytechnical Correspondence Institute.

Shostakovskii’s main works deal with the chemistry of vinyl ethers, organosilicon and organostannum compounds, and acetylene and its derivatives. Shostakovskii developed an antiphlogistic coating agent based on polyvinyl butyl ether (vinylene) known as Shostakovskii balsam, a blood substitute based on polyvinylpyrrolidone, and an agent to combat ringworm in animals.

A recipient of the State Prize of the USSR (1949), Shostakovskii has been awarded two orders and several medals.