Jaan Kalviste

Jaan Kalviste (3 April 1898 – 15 June 1936)[1] was an Estonian chemist, mineralogist, educator, and translator.

Jaan Kalviste
Born
Jaan Kranig

(1898-04-03)3 April 1898
Läste, Governorate of Estonia, Russian Empire
Died15 June 1936(1936-06-15) (aged 38)
Männiku, Estonia
Alma mater
Scientific career
Fields
Institutions
ThesisContribution to the Development of Complexes of Oxalics and Carbonics in Trivalent Cobalt (1929)

Early life

Jaan Kalviste was born Jaan Kranig on Mikko farm in the small village of Läste in present-day Lääne-Viru County to railway worker Ado Kranig and his wife Kadri (née Kuulmata). He was the second eldest of five siblings.[2] He attended primary school in rural Lehtse Parish before studying at secondary school in Tallinn.[2]

During World War I he was conscripted and served a year in the Imperial Russian Army, then enlisted in the Estonian Land Forces at age twenty and fought in the Estonian War of Independence.[3][1]

Education

Following the end of the war, he enrolled at the University of Tartu in 1920; graduating with a master's degree in chemistry in 1925 with the thesis Investigation of Alkyl Carbonate Constants. Kalviste was a founding member of Students' Society Raimla (Üliõpilaste Selts Raimla, or ÜS Raimla).[2][4]

In 1926, he relocated to France as a scholarship holder and received his Doctor of Science degree from the University of Paris in 1929 following the publication of his thesis Contribution to the Development of Complexes of Oxalics and Carbonics in Trivalent Cobalt by Masson publishing house.[5][6]

Work

Kalviste returned to Estonia in 1929 and taught chemistry and mineralogy at the University of Tartu as a docent until 1933. From 1933, he worked as a senior chemist at the Kohtla-Järve Oil Manufactory where he experimented with the study of oil shale products (phenols, gasoline, etc.) using spectrometric methods and in photochemistry.[2] In 1935, he changed his surname from Kranig to Kalviste.[7] In 1936, he worked as a chemist of the State Oil Shale Industry Laboratory and concurrently as a teacher at the Virumaa Mining School in Jõhvi.[1]

Fluent in several languages, Jaan Kalviste translated mathematician Henri Poincaré's 1902 book Science and Hypothesis from French into Estonian (Teadus ja hüpotees) in 1936.[8]

Death

On 15 June 1936, Jaan Kalviste was part of a group of approximately ten chemists at a seminar organized at the laboratory of the Männiku military ammunition stores in the Tallinn district of Nõmme when a massive explosion occurred, destroying the entire site and starting a blaze in the nearby heath and pine forest. Kalviste was among the 63 individuals killed in the explosion; the cause of which has, to date, never been fully determined. He was 38-years-old.[9][10]

Kalviste was buried at the Rahumäe cemetery in Tallinn.[9]

Personal life

Jaan Kalviste was married to Alma Ennok on 21 February 1931[11] and had two sons, Aavo and Jüri, who were both under the age of five when he was killed. Following Kalviste's death, his widow Alma emigrated to the United States in 1949 and later remarried.[12]

References
  1. virumaa.ee VE: Kalviste, Jaan – keemik (in Estonian) 15 January 2003. Retrieved 3 October 2018.
  2. Üliõpilasleht 1936. Dr. és. sc. Jaan Kalviste: In memorium 1936. Retrieved 3 October 2018.
  3. Tapa Muuseum Endise Lehtse valla külad (in Estonian). 9 June 2017. Retrieved 2 October 2018.
  4. Yellow Place. Üliõpilaste Selts Raimla (in Estonian). Retrieved 4 October 2018.
  5. E-Kataloog Ester Kalviste, Jaan. Contribution à l'étude des complexes oxaliques et carboniques du cobalt trivalent / Jaan Kranig (in Estonian). Retrieved 3 October 2018.
  6. Vaba Maa. Eestlane Prantsuse doktoriks. No. 33, p. 7 (in Estonian). 8 February 1929. Retrieved 3 October 2018.
  7. Album Academicum Universitatis Tartuensis 1918-1944 Kalviste, Jaan (in Estonian). Retrieved 3 October 2018.
  8. Eesti rahvusbibliograafia Kalviste, Jaan, 1898-1936, tõlkija (in Estonian). Retrieved 3 October 2018.
  9. Kultuur ja Elu Õnnetused või erioperatsioonid? Plahvatused Valdeku laskeväljal, Männikul ja Helsingis (in Estonian). 2002. Retrieved 3 October 2018.
  10. Eesti Ekspress Põrgu Männikul (in Estonian). 21 June 2007. Retrieved 3 October 2018.
  11. United States Department of Justice, Immigration and Naturalization Service. Petition for Naturalization, No. 47750. 24 December 1952.
  12. Vaba Eesti Sõna = Free Estonian Word: Estonian weekly. Perekonnaseisu teated 27. veebruaril. (in Estonian). 15 April 1965. Retrieved 3 October 2018.
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