National University of Pharmacy

Organic Chemistry department

1921 – 1962

1921 – by the initiative of professors N.А. Valyashko, N.P. Krasovsky, А.D. Rosenfeld the Kharkov Pharmaceutical institute was founded as an independent higher school.

	Professor Nikolay Avksentievich Valyashko was the first rector. For the first time in the USSR the research department of pharmaceutical chemistry was formed for training research scientists; The course of research of pharmaceuticals and chemical pharmaceuticals was created where students studied organic chemistry; The research work of the teachers of organic chemistry was connected with the science topics of the Organic Chemistry department of the Kharkov University and research of the laboratory of the Pharmaceutical Chemistry department under supervision of professor N.А. Valyashko.
	1921 – 1922 – the course of organic chemistry was headed by professor Abram Davidovich Rosenfeld. The founder and the first director of the Institute of Experimental Pharmacy and Pharmacology in 1920. (today it is the State Drug Research Centre – SDRC). К.А. Krasusky and Yu.О. Gabel’ taught organic chemistry.
	1922 – 1924 – the course of organic chemistry was headed by professor Konstantin Adamovich Krasusky. The research work was devoted to the study of α-halogen hydrides. He formulated the rule: when adding halogen hydride to α-oxide the hydroxy group is formed, it remains fixed mainly with the less hydrogenated carbon atom (the rule of Krasusky). 1925 – the Organic Chemistry department of the Kharkov Pharmaceutical institute was created.
	1925–1941 – the department was headed by professor Yevgeny Semyonovich Khotinsky who worked simultaneously at the Kharkov University.

He wrote the following textbooks:

“The ABC course of chemistry”, which was awarded by the first prize of Narkompros (People’s commissariat for education) of the UkrSSR in 1929, published 5 times in Russian and Ukrainian from 1926 to 1931.

“The short course in chemistry” for secondary school (4 editions from 1930 to 1934).

“The course of organic chemistry” (1933) for higher schools – the main textbook in the Kharkov State University and Kharkov Pharmaceutical institute; published 14 times in Russian, Ukrainian and Chinese.

The classes on organic chemistry were given by К.А. Krasusky, Yu.О. Gabel’, А.I. Kiprianov.

1938 – the teaching assistant of the department L.S. Kazarnovsky wrote “The guide to the practical classes in organic chemistry” – the first methodological recommendations.

1941–1944 – During the Great Patriotic war in evacuated combined Kharkov and Dnepropetrovsk Pharmaceutical institutes (in Senipalatinsk, Kazakhstan) the department was headed by Ravinsky.

1944 – after the Pharmaceutical institute returned to Kharkov the department was headed by Grigory Timofeevich Pilyugin.

Heads of the department in 1945 – 1962:

1946 – 1962 – the scientific approach of the department “The study of UV-absorption spectra of different organic compounds revealing the biological activity” (mainly alkyl-substituted phenols).