This book describes the life, times and science of the Soviet physicist
Lev Vasilevich Shubnikov (1901-1937). From 1926 to 1930 Shubnikov worked
in Leiden where he was the co-discoverer of the Shubnikov-De Haas
effect. After his return to the Soviet Union he founded in Kharkov in
Ukraine the first low-temperature laboratory in the Soviet Union, which
in a very short time became the foremost physics institute in the
country and among other things led to the discovery of type-II
superconductivity. In August 1937 Shubnikov, together with many of his
colleagues, was arrested and shot early in November 1937. This gripping
story gives deep insights into the pioneering work of Soviet physicists
before the Second World War, as well as providing much previously
unpublished information about their brutal treatment at the hands of the
Stalinist regime.