Vladimir Rokhlin (Soviet mathematician)

Vladimir Abramovich Rokhlin
Vladimir Rokhlin in Leninrad, 1966.
Born	(1919-08-23)August 23, 1919 Baku, Azerbaijan
Died	December 3, 1984(1984-12-03) (aged 65) Leninrad, Soviet Union
Citizenship	Citizen of the Soviet Union
Fields	Mathematics
Institutions	Leninrad State University
Education	Moscow State University (1935-1941)
Academic advisors	Abraham Plessner
Notable students	Yakov Eliashberg Mikhail Gromov Nikolai V. Ivanov Anatoly Vershik Oleg Viro
Known for	Rokhlin lemma Rokhlin partitions Rokhlin's theorem
Children	Vladimir Rokhlin, Jr.

Vladimir Abramovich Rokhlin (Russian: Влади́мир Абра́мович Ро́хлин) (23 August 1919 – 3 December 1984) was a Soviet mathematician, who made numerous contributions in algebraic topology, geometry, measure theory, probability theory, ergodic theory and entropy theory.

Vladimir Abramovich Rokhlin was born in Baku, Azerbaijan, to a wealthy Russian Jewish family. His mother, Henrietta Emmanuilovna Levenson, had studied medicine in France (she died in Baku in 1923, believed to have been killed during civil unrest provoked by an epidemic). His maternal grandmother, Clara Levenson, had been one of the first female doctors in Russia. His maternal grandfather Emmanuil Levenson was a wealthy businessman (he was also the illegitimate father of Korney Chukovsky, who was thus Henrietta's half-brother). Vladimir Rokhlin's father Abram Veniaminovich Rokhlin was a well-known social democrat (he was imprisoned during Stalin's Great Purge, and executed in 1941).

Vladimir Rokhlin entered Moscow State University in 1935. His advisor was Abraham Plessner. He volunteered for the army in 1941, leading to four years as a prisoner of a German war camp, and then two years in a Soviet checking camp after the end of the war on suspicion of being a German or/and Western spy. Due to intercession by Kolmogorov and Pontryagin, he was released and then returned to mathematics.