Nobel Laureate Born in Rivne Oblast

Often we do not know our history well enough or fellow countrymen who contributed significantly to the development of civilization. This has become a sad axiom. By contrast, our historians never fail to surprise us with their discoveries. One of them concerns Heorhy Kharpak, outstanding twentieth century physicist and Nobel laureate. The discovery was made by Huri Bukhalo, a respected historian from Rivne, candidate of sciences, and docent in the Rivne University of the Humanities, who has studied many outstanding figures associated in one way or another with Rivne oblast. Below is his story.

It all started several years ago when Vasyl Mykhalchuk, director of the Simon Petliura Museum in Paris (is there any such museum in Ukraine? — Ed.), visited Rivne to attend a scholarly conference on the Battle of Berestechko. We met and talked, and he mentioned that one of the French Nobel laureates comes from this part of Ukraine. He had no further information (that was also why it was so hard to get the laureate’s photo). After he left we started to correspond. He gave me the laureate’s name. Heorhy Kharpak (some encyclopedias offer the French spelling, George Charpak — Ed.). His being a physicist and working on a nuclear program, Vasyl Mykhalchuk could not get his address. After Mykhalchuk’s death his female successor at the museum, sorting out the archives, found my letters and decided to help. She succeeded in locating Heorhy Kharpak and sent me an entry from a French encyclopedia. I wrote him a letter, asking to tell about himself. Time passed, no answer, and finally, quite recently, I received a letter with his life story. A tragic one, I must say.

He was born in 1924, in Dubrovytsia, a small town in the north of what is currently Rivne oblast, into a quite prosperous family. His father traded in bricks, ice cream, and soft drinks. The gifted boy’s life could have taken whichever course if the Kharpaks had not emigrated to France in the early 1930s. Emigration from Western Ukraine was widespread at the time.

They settled in Paris and Heorhy went to school. In 1938, he enrolled in St. Louise Lycee, then World War II broke out. He spent another two years at St. Louise and Montpellier. In 1943, Heorhy Kharpak, then 19, joined the Resistance.

In 1944, he was arrested and sent to a Nazi concentration camp. For a year the future Nobel laureate’s life hung by a thread, but he survived.

The war was over and he had to decide what to do next. In 1945 Heorhy enrolled in the Ecole des Mines, graduated in 1947, and entered the College de France, attending lectures by the world- famous physicist Frederic Joliot- Curie, later working in his laboratory. Experimental physics fascinated the young scientist. In 1958, he accepted a research position at the European Organization of Nuclear Research. During his long life Heorhy Kharpak made a major contribution in world physics. In 1992, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for inventing devices for detecting atomic particles. Evidence of this contribution is also the fact that Heorhy Kharpak is a member of the French Academy of Sciences and honorary professor at the world’s four most prestigious universities. So far, he has no plans to visit the land of his forefathers — and no one seems eager to invite him. He celebrated his 75th anniversary recently and is still active in the field, because a true scientist never retires.

Listening to Heorhy Bukhalo’s story, I thought with what a cavalier attitude we treat our national talent. Heorhy Kharpak is one of few Nobel laureates born in Ukraine, and there isn’t even a memorial plaque at his former home in Dubrovytsia. In fact, the structure fell into decay and was recently listed for demolition. We build so many monuments, but do we really appreciate our compatriots who have given world science fresh impetus, albeit at foreign research centers? Let us hope that those on high will finally decide to extend an invitation to this world-famous physicist, so he can visit that small town in Ukraine, and that a monument to him will someday be unveiled.