Isaac Bogopolsky 

Isaac became a medical doctor, specializing in pediatrics. He also completed an engineering degree. He was a significant figure in the development of X-rays as a diagnostic and therapeutic tool in Russian medicine. As a result, he was allowed on at least one occasion to travel to Europe professionally.

Isaac and his family were trapped in Leningrad during the two-year siege by German forces, and Isaac was one of the few doctors providing medical care throughout the siege.

According to some information, during at least one period of his life Isaac felt the need to obscure his family ties by adopting a pseudonym, whether to protect himself or his immediate family is not clear. It seems that at one point he may have been under suspicion because his brother Yacov had left Russia and was living in Switzerland. However, it might also have been connected to the arrest and subsequent execution of his brother Alexander, of which more can be found on Alexander’s page.

We have few documents relating to Isaac’s life, but we hope to add to our library soon.

With the help of Isaac’s descendants, we are in the process of assembling information about his life. It appears that Isaac had degrees in both engineering and medicine, that he practiced medicine and may have had more than one specialty, and that he was one of the few doctors to provide medical services to the population of Leningrad (St. Petersburg) during the two-year Nazi siege of the city, and the mass starvation, disease and death that accompanied it. We believe that Isaac was also deeply involved in the development of X-ray technology in the USSR, after the end of World War II.