Lev Nikolayevich Korolyov (also Korolev, ; 6 September 1926 – 5 January 2016) was a Russian /

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

, a

corresponding member The corresponding member is one of the possible membership types in some organizations, especially in the learned societies and scientific academies. This title existed or exist in the Soviet Union, GDR, Polish People's Republic, Czechoslovak S ...

of the

USSR Academy of Sciences The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991. It united the country's leading scientists and was subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (u ...

. He was involved in the development of the first

Soviet computers The history of computing in the Soviet Union began in the late 1940s, when the country began to develop its MESM, Small Electronic Calculating Machine (MESM) at the Kiev Institute of Electrotechnology in Feofaniya. Initial ideological opposition ...

Biography

Korolev was born in

Podolsk Podolsk ( rus, Подольск, p=pɐˈdolʲsk) is an industrial city, center of Podolsk Urban Okrug, Moscow Oblast, Russia, located on the Pakhra River (a tributary of the Moskva River). Population: History The first mentions of the vill ...

, Russia. After Army service, he graduated from Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics,

Moscow State University Moscow State University (MSU), officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,. is a public university, public research university in Moscow, Russia. The university includes 15 research institutes, 43 faculties, more than 300 departments, a ...

in 1952. In 1953-1975 Korolev worked at the Institute of Precise Mechanics and Computer Engineering of academician S.A. Lebedev, and became his deputy. He died in Moscow in 2016 at the age of 89.

Professional career

He worked on the development of software for the

BESM BESM (БЭСМ) is the series of Soviet mainframe computers built in 1950–60s. The name is an acronym for "Bolshaya (or Bystrodeystvuyushchaya) Elektronno-schotnaya Mashina" ("Большая электронно-счётная машина" o ...

built in 1953, the first large Russian computer, and its subsequent models In 1956 Korolev created one of the first programs for the BESM for

machine translation Machine translation is use of computational techniques to translate text or speech from one language to another, including the contextual, idiomatic and pragmatic nuances of both languages. Early approaches were mostly rule-based or statisti ...

of written text from English into Russian. In 1960 he was awarded the degree

Candidate of Sciences A Candidate of Sciences is a Doctor of Philosophy, PhD-equivalent academic research degree in all the post-Soviet countries with the exception of Ukraine, and until the 1990s it was also awarded in Central and Eastern European countries. It is ...

in Physics and Mathematics for a thesis on the theory of machine translation. He headed the team which wrote control software for

ballistic missile defense Missile defense is a system, weapon, or technology involved in the detection, tracking, interception, and also the destruction of attacking missiles. Conceived as a defense against nuclear weapon, nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic mi ...

, using the computers M-40 and M-50. For this research, Korolev was awarded doctorate in 1967. His team produced the first

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

for BESM-6, a batch processing system later named "Dispatcher-68". In 1981 Korolev was elected a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences at the Department of Mathematics. Korolev has held a chair at the Moscow State University Department of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics since its founding in 1970. Korolev wrote over 80 scientific publications, including 10 monographs and textbooks. Two of them, ''Structures of Electronic Computers and their mathematical basis'', Moscow, ‘Nauka', 1974 (2nd ed., 1978) and ''Microprocessors, micro- and mini-computer'', Moscow, ‘Nauka', 1984 are the most significant. Among his students are two academicians of the Russian Academy of Sciences and over 40 scientists with

Doctor of Sciences A Doctor of Sciences, abbreviated д-р наук or д. н.; ; ; ; is a higher doctoral degree in the Russian Empire, Soviet Union and many Commonwealth of Independent States countries. One of the prerequisites of receiving a Doctor of Sciences ...

and

degrees. In 1997 L .N. Korolev was awarded "Honorable professorship of the MSU". Korolev received the

USSR State Prize The USSR State Prize () was one of the Soviet Union’s highest civilian honours, awarded from its establishment in September 1966 until the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. It recognised outstanding contributions in the fields of science, mathem ...

(1969), the Prize of the USSR Council of Ministers (1982), the Lomonosov Prize of the MSU (1995). and the

Order of Lenin The Order of Lenin (, ) was an award named after Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the October Revolution. It was established by the Central Executive Committee on 6 April 1930. The order was the highest civilian decoration bestowed by the Soviet ...

Order of the October Revolution The Order of the October Revolution (, ''Orden Oktyabr'skoy Revolyutsii'') was instituted on 31 October 1967, in time for the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution. It was conferred upon individuals or groups for services furthering communis ...

, and

Order of the Patriotic War The Order of the Patriotic War () is a Soviet Union, Soviet military Order (decoration), decoration that was awarded to all soldiers in the Soviet armed forces, security troops, and to Partisan (military), partisans for heroic deeds in the Easte ...

References

External links

Biography of L. N. Korolev
at Virtual Museum Computer.
Lev Korolyov — scientific works on the website Math-Net.Ru
{{DEFAULTSORT:Korolyov, Lev 1926 births 2016 deaths Russian computer scientists Russian inventors Soviet computer scientists Recipients of the USSR State Prize Corresponding Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences Recipients of the Order of Lenin People from Podolsk