Yuly Shokalsky

A grandson of Anna Kern, Pushkin's celebrated mistress, Shokalsky graduated from the Naval Academy in 1880 and made a career in the Imperial Russian Navy, helping establish the Sevastopol Marine Observatory and rising to the rank of Lieutenant-General in 1912.

At the same time, he developed interest in limnology and meteorology and became the most prolific Russian author on the subjects.

Shokalsky's most important monograph was Oceanography (1917), a collection of his lectures which examined connection between meteorology and hydrology and emphasized the importance of monitoring marine phenomena in order to understand global changes of climate.

Shokalsky insisted on differentiating oceanography and hydrography and coined the term "World Ocean".

Ten years later, he was put in charge of the Russian Geographical Society and retained the post until 1931.