The Lobachevsky Prize, awarded by the

Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation; and additional scientific and social units such ...

, and the Lobachevsky Medal, awarded by the Kazan State University, are mathematical awards in honor of Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky.

History

The Lobachevsky Prize was established in 1896 by the Kazan Physical and Mathematical Society, in honor of Russian mathematician Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky, who had been a professor at Kazan University, where he spent nearly his entire mathematical career. The prize was first awarded in 1897. Between the

October Revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Historiography in the Soviet Union, Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of Russian Revolution, two r ...

of 1917 and

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

the Lobachevsky Prize was awarded only twice, by the Kazan State University, in 1927 and 1937. In 1947, by a decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the jurisdiction over awarding the Lobachevsky Prize was transferred to 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 ...

.B. N. Shapukov
“On history of Lobachevskii Medal and Lobachevskii Prize”
(in Russian), Tr. Geom. Semin., 24, Kazan Mathematical Society, Kazan, 2003, 11–16 The 1947 decree specified that there be two prizes, awarded every five years: the main, international, Lobachevsky Prize, for which both Soviet and foreign scientists would be eligible, and an honorable mention prize, for Soviet mathematicians only. In a 2003 article, B. N. Shapukov, a professor at the Kazan State University, writes that the 1947 decree also specified that awarding of the prize by the USSR Academy of Sciences should be done in consultation with the Kazan State University, but this condition was not subsequently followed in practice. Another decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, in 1956, specified that there be only one, international, Lobachevsky Prize, to be awarded every three years. With the dissolution of the

Soviet Union 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 ...

at the end of 1991, the

became the legatee of the

. The Russian Academy of Sciences continued awarding the Lobachevsky Prize, awarding it in 1992, 1996 and 2000. As of January 2010, the Lobachevsky Prize is listed among its awards at the Russian Academy of Sciences website.Lobachevsky Prize

. Accessed January 4, 2010 In 1990-1991, while preparing the 1992 celebration of Lobachevsky's 200th anniversary, the Kazan State University organizers of this celebration lobbied the Soviet government to establish a special Kazan State University award in honor of Lobachevsky. A June 1991 decree of the Cabinet of Ministers of the USSR established the Lobachevsky Medal, for outstanding contributions to geometry, to be awarded by the Kazan State University. The Lobachevsky Medal was awarded by the university in 1992, 1997 and 2002. The article of Shapukov mentions that during the 1997 competition for the Lobachevsky Medal, the Mathematics section of the

complained about the fact and the process of awarding the Medal. The Kazan State University website for the Lobachevsky Medal contains a list of recipients of the Lobachesky Prize from 1897 to 1989, which excludes the 1992, 1996 and 2000 Russian Academy of Sciences awards.The Lobachevsky Medal
Kazan State University. Accessed January 3, 2010 The Russian Academy of Sciences website for the Lobachevsky Prize contains a list of recipients of the prize from 1897 to 2000 and does not mention Kazan State University's Lobachevsky Medal.

Lobachevsky Prize winners

Kazan Physical and Mathematical Society/Kazan University

* 1897 -

Sophus Lie Marius Sophus Lie ( ; ; 17 December 1842 – 18 February 1899) was a Norwegian mathematician. He largely created the theory of continuous symmetry and applied it to the study of geometry and differential equations. He also made substantial cont ...

* 1900 -

Wilhelm Killing Wilhelm Karl Joseph Killing (10 May 1847 – 11 February 1923) was a German mathematician who made important contributions to the theories of Lie algebras, Lie groups, and non-Euclidean geometry. Life Killing studied at the University of M ...

* 1903 -

David Hilbert David Hilbert (; ; 23 January 1862 – 14 February 1943) was a German mathematician and philosopher of mathematics and one of the most influential mathematicians of his time. Hilbert discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental idea ...

* 1909 - Ludwig Schlesinger (awarded in 1912) * 1912 - Friedrich Schur * 1927 -

Hermann Weyl Hermann Klaus Hugo Weyl (; ; 9 November 1885 – 8 December 1955) was a German mathematician, theoretical physicist, logician and philosopher. Although much of his working life was spent in Zürich, Switzerland, and then Princeton, New Jersey, ...

* 1937 -

Élie Cartan Élie Joseph Cartan (; 9 April 1869 – 6 May 1951) was an influential French mathematician who did fundamental work in the theory of Lie groups, differential systems (coordinate-free geometric formulation of PDEs), and differential geometry. He ...

(main, international, prize) * 1937 - Viktor V. Wagner (special prize for young Soviet mathematicians) In 1906, Beppo Levi received an honorable mention. The prize itself was not awarded.

Soviet Academy of Sciences

* 1951 - Nikolai Efimov * 1951 - Aleksandr D. Alexandrov * 1959 - Aleksei Pogorelov * 1966 - Lev Pontryagin * 1969 -

Heinz Hopf Heinz Hopf (19 November 1894 – 3 June 1971) was a German mathematician who worked on the fields of dynamical systems, topology and geometry. Early life and education Hopf was born in Gräbschen, German Empire (now , part of Wrocław, Poland) ...

* 1972 -

Pavel Alexandrov Pavel Sergeyevich Alexandrov (), sometimes romanized ''Paul Alexandroff'' (7 May 1896 – 16 November 1982), was a Soviet mathematician. He wrote roughly three hundred papers, making important contributions to set theory and topology. In topol ...

* 1977 - Boris Delaunay * 1980 - Sergei Novikov * 1983 - Herbert Busemann * 1986 -

Andrey Kolmogorov Andrey Nikolaevich Kolmogorov ( rus, Андре́й Никола́евич Колмого́ров, p=ɐnˈdrʲej nʲɪkɐˈlajɪvʲɪtɕ kəlmɐˈɡorəf, a=Ru-Andrey Nikolaevich Kolmogorov.ogg, 25 April 1903 – 20 October 1987) was a Soviet ...

* 1989 - Friedrich Hirzebruch

Russian Academy of Sciences

* 1992 -

Vladimir Arnold Vladimir Igorevich Arnold (or Arnol'd; , ; 12 June 1937 – 3 June 2010) was a Soviet and Russian mathematician. He is best known for the Kolmogorov–Arnold–Moser theorem regarding the stability of integrable systems, and contributed to s ...

* 1996 -

Grigory Margulis Grigory Aleksandrovich Margulis (, first name often given as Gregory, Grigori or Gregori; born February 24, 1946) is a Russian-American mathematician known for his work on lattices in Lie groups, and the introduction of methods from ergodic the ...

* 2000 - Yurii Reshetnyak

Lobachevsky Medal winners

Kazan State University

* 1992 - Aleksandr P. Norden * 1997 - Boris P. Komrakov * 1997 - Mikhail Gromov * 2002 - Shiing-Shen Chern * 2017 - Richard Schoen * 2019 - Daniel Wise * 2021 - Idzhad Sabitov * 2023 - Yury Yershov In 1997, Valery N. Berestovsky (Russia), Idjad Kh. Sabitov (Russia) and Boris Rosenfeld (USA) received an honorable mention.

Notes

References

*V. V. Vishnevsky, (in Russian)
The 200th anniversary of N. I. Lobachevsky, its outcomes and lessons.
Tr. Geom. Semin., 23, Kazan Mathematical Society, Kazan, 1997, 23-32 {{International mathematical activities Mathematics awards Awards established in 1896 Awards of the Russian Academy of Sciences