How an enemy of the Bolsheviks became a renowned Soviet oceanographer
At first, Nikolai Zubov fought against the Soviet regime and then brought glory to Soviet science.
Being a military man of hereditary descent, Nikolai Zubov was obsessed with the sea since childhood. He graduated from the prestigious Naval Cadet Corps, fought in the war against Japan and survived the ‘Battle of Tsushima’, which devastated the Russian fleet. During World War I, meanwhile, he became one of the youngest ship commanders.
The turbulent whirlwind of the Civil War sent the captain of the second rank to Siberia, where he fought on the side of the White Guards. The naval officer commanded an armored railway division in Admiral Kolchak's army.
In November 1919, after the defeat of the Whites, Zubov voluntarily surrendered to the Reds. And, as an experienced sailor, he was recruited to teach at the Floating Marine Research Institute.
However, the past remained with him for a long time: In 1924, he was exiled to the Urals for four years and, in 1930, he was imprisoned for a year on charges of sabotage.
His interest in science had begun before World War I and, after his release, he devoted himself entirely to it. The author of numerous scientific papers, Zubov became not only a brilliant theorist in the field of oceanography, but also a practitioner.
In 1932, on a small motorboat, he rounded the Franz Josef Land archipelago from the north for the first time in the history of Arctic navigation. Three years later, he led a scientific expedition on the ‘Sadko’ icebreaker, discovered several islands and, in the process, collected unique collections of marine organisms and water samples.
Five years later, he became a Doctor of Geographical Sciences and, immediately after the victory over Nazi Germany, was awarded the rank of engineer-rear admiral. Until his death in 1960, he worked as a professor in the Department of Oceanology at the Faculty of Geography at Moscow University.
