Nikolai Andreev Stojanov (; 21 November 1883 – 9 October 1968) was an academic and botanist who was among the founders of botany in Bulgaria. He was for many years professor at Sofia University, the founder and first director of the Institute of Botany of the

Bulgarian Academy of Sciences The Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (abbreviated BAS; , ''Bŭlgarska akademiya na naukite'', abbreviated БАН) is the National Academy of Bulgaria, established in 1869. The Academy, with headquarters in Sofia, is autonomous and consists of a S ...

(BAS) (succeeded in July 2010 by the Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research).

Biography

Nikolai Stojanov was born in

Grodno Grodno, or Hrodna, is a city in western Belarus. It is one of the oldest cities in Belarus. The city is located on the Neman, Neman River, from Minsk, about from the Belarus–Poland border, border with Poland, and from the Belarus–Lithua ...

, Russia (now in Belarus) on 1883. In 1903 he was admitted to study at the Agronomy Department of the Kiev Polytechnic University, but in 1906 was interned for revolutionary activities. He fled to Bulgaria in 1909, where he graduated in 1911 in the Biological sciences at

Sofia University Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski" () is a public university, public research university in Sofia, Bulgaria. It is the oldest institution of higher education in Bulgaria. Founded on 1 October 1888, the edifice of the university was constr ...

.Голяма енциклопедия „България“, volume 11, pages 4265-4266 He then studied botany in Germany (1911–1912, 1924–1925), Austria and the UK (1924–1925). Between 1913 and 1951 he was a member of the faculty at Sofia University. From 1926 to 1930 was an extraordinary professor, and from 1930 full Professor. He was head of the department of Agricultural Botany within the Agronomy and Forestry Faculty between 1930 and 1936 and held the post of Dean 1931–1932. From 1936 to 1951 he was Professor and Head of Department of Plant Systematics and Plant Geography in the Physics and Mathematics Department of Sofia University. In 1923 Nikolai Stojanov became a founder member of the Bulgarian Botanical Society. In 1947, he became the founder and first director (until 1962) of the Institute of Botany of the Botanical Garden of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. At the same time from 1951 to 1956 he was the Secretary of the Biology and Medical Science Department of the BAS. Between 1956 and 1959 he served as chief scientific secretary of the BAS.Биографична информация за акад. Николай Стоянов
dic.academic.ru He was a member of the

Bulgarian Communist Party The Bulgarian Communist Party ( Bulgarian: Българска комунистическа партия (БΚП), Romanised: ''Bŭlgarska komunisticheska partiya''; BKP) was the founding and ruling party of the People's Republic of Bulgaria f ...

from 1946. He died in Sofia 9 October 1968.

Contributions to science

Stojanov's research and teaching interests were associated with the classification of higher plants and

plant geography Phytogeography (from Greek φυτόν, ''phytón'' = "plant" and γεωγραφία, ''geographía'' = "geography" meaning also distribution) or botanical geography is the branch of biogeography that is concerned with the geographic distribution o ...

, particularly in the Balkans and Bulgaria. He was author of 190 scientific papers published in Bulgaria and abroad, as well as numerous books, such as ''земеделска ботаника'' (Agricultural Botany) (1932) and ''растителна география'' (Plant Geography) (1951). Together with

Boris Stefanoff Boris may refer to: People * Boris (given name), a male given name * *List of people with given name Boris * Boris (surname) Arts and media * Boris (band), a Japanese experimental rock trio * ''Boris'' (EP), by Yezda Urfa, 1975 * "Boris" (son ...

he produced the "Flora of Bulgaria" (first issued in 1925 and repeatedly amended and republished), which lists 2,936 species of

fern The ferns (Polypodiopsida or Polypodiophyta) are a group of vascular plants (plants with xylem and phloem) that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers. They differ from mosses by being vascular, i.e., having specialized tissue ...

gymnosperms The gymnosperms ( ; ) are a group of woody, perennial Seed plant, seed-producing plants, typically lacking the protective outer covering which surrounds the seeds in flowering plants, that include Pinophyta, conifers, cycads, Ginkgo, and gnetoph ...

and

angiosperms Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (). The term angiosperm is derived from the Greek words (; 'container, vessel') and (; 'seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed within a fruit. T ...

. He found more than 400 plant taxa new to science, and established the beginning of research in

geobotany Phytogeography (from Greek φυτόν, ''phytón'' = "plant" and γεωγραφία, ''geographía'' = "geography" meaning also distribution) or botanical geography is the branch of biogeography that is concerned with the geographic distribution o ...

and

paleobotany Paleobotany or palaeobotany, also known as paleophytology, is the branch of botany dealing with the recovery and identification of plant fossils from geological contexts, and their use for the biological reconstruction of past environments ( pal ...

in Bulgaria . He investigated contemporary and historical plant geography of the Balkans and wrote papers on the vegetation of

Pirin The Pirin Mountains ( ) are a mountain range in southwestern Bulgaria, with the highest peak, Vihren, at an altitude of . The range extends about from the north-west to the south-east and is about wide, spanning a territory of . To the north ...

, Slavyanka, the Sofia Plain and the Danube islands. He wrote on the original phytoclimatic zoning of Bulgaria and the

acclimatization Acclimatization or acclimatisation ( also called acclimation or acclimatation) is the process in which an individual organism adjusts to a change in its environment (such as a change in altitude, temperature, humidity, photoperiod, or pH), ...

of plants. He also worked on

floristics Floristics is the study of plants of geographical regions. It is a branch of phytogeography, which technically makes it a branch of botany, geography, and a subbranch of biogeography. Harvard University has a history of research with early contr ...

, the

morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines *Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts *Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies, ...

of plants and plant ecology. He was author of numerous scientific and popular articles and was Bulgarian regional adviser for

Flora Europaea The ''Flora Europaea'' is a 5-volume encyclopedia of plants, published between 1964 and 1993 by Cambridge University Press. The aim was to describe all the national Floras of Europe in a single, authoritative publication to help readers identify ...

. With Boris Pavlov Kitanov he started the well-known

exsiccata Exsiccata (Latin, ''gen.'' -ae, ''plur.'' -ae) is a work with "published, uniform, numbered set of preserved specimens distributed with printed labels". Typically, exsiccatae are numbered collections of dried herbarium Biological specimen, spe ...

''Plantae Bulgaricae exsiccatae'' in 1955. For his scientific achievements he was awarded the "Georgi Dimitrov" medal in 1950

Major works

*Stojanov, N. Stefanoff, B. ''Флора на България'' (''Flora of Bulgaria'') (in two volumes, four editions: 1924–1926, 1933, 1948 and 1965–1966, the latest edition along with B. Kitanov) *Stoyanov, N. ''Опит за характеристика на главните фитоценози в България'' (''An attempt to characterise the main plant communities in Bulgaria''), Год. на СУ, ФМФ, vol. 3, 1941 *Stoyanov, N. Kitanov B. ''Диви полезни растения в България'' (''Useful wild plants in Bulgaria''), Sofia, 1960.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stojanov, Nikolai Bulgarian botanists Academic staff of Sofia University Members of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences 1883 births 1968 deaths

Biography

Contributions to science

Major works

Further reading

References