Oppokiv, Yevhen

Oppokiv, Yevhen or Oppokov, Evgenii [Оппоків, Євген], b 1 February 1869 in Ruda, Vasylkiv county, Kyiv gubernia, d 11 November 1938 in Kyiv. Hydrologist and hydrogeologist; full member of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences from 1929. He studied in Kyiv and completed a course at the technology institute in Saint Petersburg. He went on hydrological expeditions through Belarus and Left-Bank Ukraine from 1894. In 1913 he began to research the wetlands of Polisia, and in 1915 he became a professor at Kyiv Polytechnical Institute. He organized the department of hydrology there (1926), which became the first scientific research institute in Ukraine dedicated specifically to hydrology. Oppokiv headed the new institute as well as the hydrometeorological branch of the Ukrainian Meteorological Service. His main research interests included watersheds and methods for the drainage of wetlands (see Drainage of land). He was arrested during the Stalinist terror and later executed.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]