Mikhail Godlevsky's scientific career was on the rise by the early 1940s. He discovered new minerals and deposits, published textbooks and atlases for specialized universities, and his articles on industrially important nickel silicates and borates were highly valued by Vernadsky, Fersman, and Betekhtin. All these achievements were overshadowed by war, captivity, the Gulag, and the Norilsk prisoners' uprising in 1953. Few managed to survive such a sequence of tragic events. Even fewer were able to fully recover, restore their names, and regain their former prominence.
As Lev Savva, chief engineer of the mining management of Gorlag during the war years, recalled, one day a prisoner came to him wearing tattered footwraps, torn trousers over a bare body, and no headgear. The man reported that he had studied the fracture system at the Kayerkan coal deposit, where he worked as a miner's assistant. This allowed him to determine the geological development history of the deposit and propose ways to increase coal production. His assumptions were confirmed, and the results exceeded expectations. Savva became interested in the prisoner.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“I’m a scientist from Leningrad.”
Godlevsky’s secret was that, despite the horrors of the Gulag, he never allowed a break in his professional work. His scientific research helped him maintain his identity and endure even the most difficult circumstances.
«I have plenty of work here, but it’s not the kind of work I dreamed of. Access to science is still closed. But bold plans are already forming in my mind. I don’t know what will come of it. If I can’t get into a laboratory, why not create one here?» - the geologist wrote to his wife.
He was born in Warsaw in 1902, into an old Polish noble family bearing the Gozdawa coat of arms. His father, Colonel Nikolai Kazimirovich Godlevsky, a veteran of World War I, held the Orders of St. Stanislaus and St. Anna of the 2nd and 3rd degrees. During the Russian Civil War, he remained with the military units opposing the Red Army and emigrated to Yugoslavia after 1919. His family stayed in Soviet Russia, leaving 15-year-old Mikhail responsible for his mother and younger sister.
The young man balanced studying at a technical school with working as a dock loader, draftsman, and leveling technician in geological and hydrographic expeditions of the Yakutian Commission of the Academy of Sciences, which explored the rivers of Eastern Siberia (Lena, Aldan, and Angara). Talented and well-educated, Mikhail excelled in mathematics and natural sciences and spoke five languages (German, English, French, Polish, and Czech). In 1922, he enrolled in the astronomy department at Leningrad University but was expelled a year later due to his "social origin."
Godlevsky resumed working—first as a technician on railway projects in the Leningrad Fortified Area, then as a tutor in an orphanage, a mathematics teacher, and an educational program developer at a school. After two years, he was admitted to the Leningrad Mining Institute.
There, he found the environment he had long dreamed of during his time in the port, school, and expeditions. Among his professors were the country’s leading crystallographer Anatoly Boldyrev, the prominent petrographer Alexander Zavaritsky, the creator of physicochemical analysis academician Nikolai Kurnakov, and academician Sergei Smirnov.
After graduating in 1930, he began working as a junior researcher at the Geological Map Institute, which became part of the Central Scientific Research Geological Exploration Institute (CNIGRI, later VSEGEI) in 1931. Simultaneously, he taught at the Mining Institute, serving as an associate professor in the Department of Mineralogy.
The next 10 years of the scientist's professional career are commonly referred to as the "mineralogical period."
During this time, he focused on reserve estimation and studying the mineralogy and genesis of the Khoper brown iron ore deposit in the Volga-Don region, the silicate nickel deposit in the Urals, and the Inder borate deposit in Kazakhstan. His research led to the discovery of new minerals such as aidyrlite, metahydroboracite, and kaliborite, as well as a pyrophyllite deposit in the Urals. His scientific works on silicates and borates, shedding light on the nature and classification of these industrially important minerals, were published in leading scientific journals.
In June 1940, Vladimir Vernadsky submitted Godlevsky's article about a newly discovered borate mineral, named kurnakovite in honor of Academician Nikolai Kurnakov, to the journal Proceedings of the USSR Academy of Sciences. At the same time, Mikhail Nikolaevich, who was then leading the petrographic-mineralogical group at VSEGEI, presented his dissertation to Sergei Smirnov, head of the Department of Mineralogy at the Mining Institute and a revered figure among Soviet ore geologists. Everything was ready for the defense. However, he did not become a doctor of science this time.
Just days later, the war began.
Godlevsky was mobilized into the Red Army and, by September, participated in the brutal battles near the Duderhof Heights. After being surrounded, he was shell-shocked, captured, and sent to a German concentration camp. Until the war's end, his family believed he was missing in action. It wasn’t until September 11, 1945, that Godlevsky managed to send a postcard to Leningrad, informing them that Soviet troops had liberated him in 1944. He even served briefly in the 5th Guards Division until the president of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Sergey Vavilov, recommended appointing him as commandant of the Zeiss factory in Jena.
Thanks to the efforts of Academician Sergei Smirnov, the geologist was brought back to Leningrad “to participate in the search for strategically important mineral resources.” He dreamed of seeing his family, colleagues, and the city on the Neva River, but fate allowed him only seven days to enjoy those hopes. On November 15, Mikhail Nikolaevich returned, but on the 22nd, he was arrested in the office of the VSEGEI director. After four months of investigation, he was sentenced to 10 years in a labor camp for “voluntary surrender.” He was assigned as a geologist to Norillag, a camp housing long-term prisoners, including the so-called “heavy” political detainees.
According to Godlevsky’s wife, during his transfer, he was placed in a prison boxcar with criminals. Since he was well-dressed, they gambled for his belongings, beat him, and stripped him completely. The scientist barely managed to reach the place of exile, where he was assigned as a coal mine helper.
Over time, the camp administration realized that they had received not just a capable specialist but a scientist with immense potential. Mikhail Nikolaevich was "promoted" to a position at the petrographic-mineralogical laboratory of the Norilsk Mining and Metallurgical Complex, where he was escorted daily from the prison zone under guard. He was then appointed mine geologist at the Norilsk-1 deposit (underground mine 3/6) and finally became the head of the thematic research team of the Norilsk Complex. In this last position, he gained the opportunity to conduct regional studies of the tuff-lava formations and search for new deposits both within the Norilsk region and beyond.
Godlevsky endured violent clashes between inmates, guard brutality, the lack of medical care, 10-12 hour workdays, and the Norilsk prisoner uprising of 1953, which lasted more than two months.
Paradoxically, it was during his time in Norillag that Mikhail Nikolaevich discovered a fascinating problem related to Norilsk ore formation and gained unique opportunities to analyze extensive data on the structure of ore bodies and host rocks of local deposits. Although he had no access to scientific literature for 13.5 years while in the camp, he accumulated a wealth of factual material on the region's geology and sulfide deposits, analyzing it solely based on his own knowledge and intuition. Despite his works being published anonymously or under someone else's name, this did not prevent Godlevsky from becoming the founder of the theory of Norilsk ore formation.
How important was this at the time? It is enough to say that during World War II, the Norilsk deposits became the main suppliers of nickel due to the German capture of the Kola Peninsula’s ore mines in 1942.
Mikhail Nikolaevich studied the petrography of traps and ore-bearing intrusions, the geology, tectonics, mineral and elemental composition of Norilsk copper-nickel sulfide deposits, the distribution of base and precious metals within them, and issues related to ore beneficiation. In his research, he demonstrated the close association of Norilsk deposits with gabbro-dolerite intrusions and identified their correlation with specific tectonic structures.
There’s a saying: “Every cloud has a silver lining.” The challenging years turned out to be among the most productive for him. Godlevsky transformed from a mineralogist into a mining geologist.
In 1956, all charges against him were fully dismissed by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, and the geologist was rehabilitated. He remained briefly in the Norilsk Complex Geological Exploration Expedition and, in 1958, returned to the All-Russian Geological Research Institute (VSEGEI), where he defended his doctoral dissertation “Traps and Ore-Bearing Intrusions of the Norilsk Region.” This work introduced the first comprehensive theory of copper-nickel ore formation in the country.
After transitioning to the Central Research Institute of Geological Prospecting for Base and Precious Metals (TsNIGRI) as the head of the mineralogy department, Mikhail Nikolaevich's research scope expanded. The institute was designated the leading organization of the USSR Ministry of Geology for nickel exploration, and Godlevsky officially became the chief supervisor of nickel, cobalt, and platinum deposits for the Ministry.
The scientist entered the history of science as the author of the ore formation theory based on data from the Norilsk ore region, the Karelian-Kola ore province, the Voronezh crystalline massif, Northern Baikal, Kamchatka, and a vast compilation of data on endogenous deposits worldwide (South Africa, Canada).
His most significant contributions include:
- Developing a genetic model of the Norilsk deposits, essential for predicting and discovering new intrusions with rich sulfide ores in Siberia and other trap provinces worldwide.
- Designing a state program for comprehensive research on copper-nickel deposits in the USSR and actively participating in its implementation.
- Establishing a scientific school for the study of nickel, cobalt, and platinum-group metal deposits.
- Creating the first global geological classification of copper-nickel deposits.
The professor was awarded the Orders of Lenin and the Red Banner of Labor. A mineral discovered in Norilsk, and later in Canada, Morocco, and Australia, was named godlevskite in his honor.
Godlevsky liked to repeat the famous phrase of 20th-century psychologist Kurt Lewin: “There is nothing more practical than a good theory,” which perfectly characterizes his contribution to the development of ore formation theory.
The scientist who laid the scientific foundation for the development of the national mineral resource base of nickel, copper, platinum, and cobalt passed away on June 4, 1984.
