Protopopov Viktor Pavlovich – psychiatrist, teacher, founder of the Ukrainian school of psychiatry, academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, Honored Worker of Ukraine.
Place of Birth, Education
He was born on October 22, 1880 in the village of Yurky, Poltava province in a Cossack family.
He received his primary education in Khorishki. Later, he studied at the Military Medical Academy in St. Petersburg, from which he graduated in 1906.
After graduation, he remained to work at the Department of Psychiatry under the leadership of Vladimir Bekhterev.
In 1909, Protopopov defended his doctoral dissertation on the motor response to sound stimuli.
Career
From 1911 to 1921, Protopopov served as a private assistant professor in the clinical laboratory of Vladimir Bekhterev. After that, he became a professor at the Department of Psychiatry at Perm University. In particular, in 1921, he formulated a position on the role of language in higher nervous activity.
In 1923, he returned to Ukraine and headed the Department of Psychiatry of the Kharkiv Medical Institute, which he headed for 20 years.
In 1931, Protopopov organized the first educational Psychoneurological Institute in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), where he created the Department of Higher Nervous Activity.
In 1932, he joined the creation of the Ukrainian Psychoneurological Academy in Kharkiv and its subsequent reorganization into the Research Psychoneurological Institute.
In 1934, Protopopov received the title of Honored Scientist of the Ukrainian SSR, and in 1935 he became a member of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (UAS).
Since 1944, he worked as a professor at the Kyiv Institute for Advanced Training of Doctors. In the same year, he organized the Department of Psychiatry and Pathology of Higher Nervous Activity at the Institute of Physiology of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR), which he headed until 1957.
In 1945 he became an academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR.
For many years, he served as the chief psychiatrist and headed the Academic Council of the Ministry of Health of the Ukrainian SSR on psychiatry and pathology of higher nervous activity. He was also the editor of the journal “Soviet Psychoneurology”.
Scientific and pedagogical work
Protopopov was a pupil of Vladimir Bekhterev’s school and later created his own pathophysiological school in psychiatry.
He focused on psychosomatic processes, higher nervous activity, schizophrenia and manic-depressive psychosis. He described a complex of autonomic disorders known as Protopopov’s triad.
He also developed a method for the formation of motor conditioned reflexes, investigated motor skills and mechanisms of abstract thinking. In treatment, he used therapy for prolonged sleep, detoxification methods and diet therapy.
After the war, he joined the restoration of psychiatric institutions in Ukraine.
Protopopov is the author of 160 scientific papers, including 5 monographs. Under his leadership, 5 doctoral and 5 candidate dissertations were defended.
Death/Fatalities
He passed away on November 29, 1957. He was buried in Kyiv at the Baykovo cemetery.
