Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bonch-Bruevich

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bonch-Bruevich (Russian: Михаил Александрович Бонч-Бруевич; IPA: [mʲɪxɐˈil ɐlʲɪkˈsandrəvʲɪtɕ ˈbontɕ brʊˈjevʲɪtɕ], 22 February 1888 – 7 March 1940), sometimes spelled Bonch-Bruyevich, was a Russian engineer, scientist, and professor. Generally considered the leading authority on radio in Russia in the first decades of the 20th century, he greatly influenced the pre-radar development of radio-location in that nation.

M. A. Bonch-Bruevich was born in Oryol, a town in Oryol Oblast in Central Russia. The family, which was of royal Polish origin, the original surname being Boncz-Brujewicz, moved to Kiev in 1896. Bonch-Bruevich attended the Nikolaevsky Engineering School in St. Petersburg, completing undergraduate studies in 1909. He then entered the Imperial Russian Army and did graduate study and performed research at the Imperial Institute of Electrical Engineering (IIEE, also called the Military Electrotechnical School) in Petrograd (St. Petersburg). He completed a dissertation in 1914, and was awarded the Kandidat Nauk (Candidate of Science, C.Sc. – approximately the same as a Ph.D. degree).

Still in the military, Bonch-Bruevich was assigned to the Central Laboratory of the War Department. There he continued research in radio, with an emphasis on vacuum tube (valve) development. As a part of this, he set up one of the first radio tube manufacturing facilities in Russia, becoming the operations director in 1917.

In this period, Bonch-Bruevich also continued teaching and studying at the Leningrad Electro-Technical Institute (LETI – formerly IIEE). (During the turbulent times of World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution, names of many schools and institutions continually changed.) He completed his second dissertation and was awarded the higher Doctor Nauk (Doctor of Science, D.Sc.) degree by the LETI. With the receipt of the D.Sc. degree, he also earned the rank of Professor.

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