A scientific tribute to Prof. Nikolai Tarkhanov
(23.03.1956 - 31.07.2020)
University of Potsdam, September 18th, 2020
Nikolai Tarkhanov, who passed away on July 31
st, was an enthusiastic teacher, a generous and learned man, behind whose modesty there was an outstanding mathematician. This online meeting is a small tribute to our dear colleague and an occasion for his friends, colleagues and students to honour him with a scientific talk or simply a few words to pay their respect.
Erinnerungen an unseren Vater
von Anna Tarkhanova, Natalia Tarkhanova und Evgueni Tarkhanov
Unser Vater wurde 1955 in Potapovsk in Sibirien geboren. Seine frühe Kindheit erlebte er in
bescheidenen Verhältnissen in Sibirien, umgeben von der Liebe seiner Mama und Schwestern
zwischen Birken und Tannen. Seine Mutter gab all ihr Erspartes für Bücher aus, um ihrem Sohn die
unerschöpfliche Vielfalt dieser Welt aufzuzeigen, seine Wissensgier zu stillen und seine Fantasie zu
beleben. Entsprechend früh konnte er einen gut formulierten, gar philosophischen Gedankengang
wertschätzen und Freude an einem schön geschriebenen Wort empfinden.
Er hatte einen ausgeprägten Gerechtigkeitssinn, liebte die Gabe des Denkens, des gemeinsamen
Gedankenaustauschs und wusste um den Wert des Lebens. Niemals neidisch oder hinterlistig sein,
anderen Menschen immer mit Respekt begegnen, ehrlich und ausdauernd seiner Arbeit nachgehen,
bescheiden und vor allem gerecht bleiben. Das waren Werte, die er uns Zeit seines Lebens vorlebte.
Unsere Eltern ermöglichten uns eine unbeschwerte und glückliche Kindheit voller Träume und
Geborgenheit, indem sie eine lebenswerte und harmonische Gegenwart vorlebten, die auch in uns ein
Grundvertrauen zum Leben erweckte und eine positive Denkensweise förderte.Wie eine Lerche
begann er nahezu jeden Tag mit dem Sonnenaufgang und versuchte diesen mit Sinnhaftigkeit und
Harmonie zu füllen.
In sehnsüchtiger Erwartung ein Pilot zu werden, wie einst sein Vater und Großvater, fieberte er nach
und nach dem Erwachsensein entgegen. Doch wie so oft im Leben, kam es anders als man denkt. Die
Eindeutigkeit und Eleganz der mathematischen Formulierung von Gesetzmäßigkeiten erweckte bei
unserem Vater große Begeisterung, die sich nachfolgend zu seiner Leidenschaft und Berufung
entwickeln sollte.
Anfang der Neunziger Jahre nahmen unsere Eltern die Möglichkeit wahr, im Rahmen eines Humboldt-
Stipendiums nach Potsdam zu reisen. Zu dem Zeitpunkt konnte keiner von uns ahnen, dass dies unsere
neue Heimat werden würde. Glücklicherweise begegneten uns hier zahlreiche aufgeschlossene
Mitmenschen, die unserer Familie in vielen Situationen zur Seite standen und mit ihrer
Gastfreundlichkeit und Herzlichkeit dazu beitrugen, dass wir uns in Deutschland auf Anhieb wohl
gefühlt haben. Sein Wirken an der Uni Potsdam war ihm eine große Herzensangelegenheit. Er war
nicht nur ein leidenschaftlicher Mathematiker, sondern auch ein sehr verantwortungsbewusster und
hingebungsvoller Professor. Die Anliegen seiner Studenten hatten für ihn immer einen immens hohen
Stellenwert. Er wusste es sehr zu schätzen, wenn sich Menschen die Mühe machten die Welt der
Mathematik entdecken und verstehen zu wollen und unterstützte sie dabei soweit es ihm möglich war.
Die Mathematik ist seine Leidenschaft und sein größtes Hobby geworden. Er hat uns oft erzählt was
für ein Glück es für ihn darstellt, beruflich seiner Leidenschaft nachgehen zu dürfen und wünschte sich
für unser Leben das selbige. Wobei er auch stets der Meinung war, dass nahezu jeder Beruf sehr
erfüllend sein kann, wenn man ihm gewissenhaft und würdevoll nachgeht.
Albert Schweitzer hat gesagt "Was ein Mensch an Gutem in die Welt hinausgibt, geht niemals
verloren". Er hat recht. Die Gegenwart unseres Vaters wird Zeit unseres Lebens in unseren Herzen und
Gedanken verbleiben, wir werden uns voller Glück und Wertschätzung an ihn zurückerinnern. In
unseren Herzen lebt er weiterhin als ein weiser, lebensbejahender, würdevoller, herzlicher,
bescheidener und großzügiger Mensch, der stets an das Gute glaubte und immer bereit war in allen
Lebenslagen allen helfend beizustehen.Wir danken dem Schicksal aus tiefstem Herzen und voller
Stolz und Dankbarkeit, dass wir das Leben mit dir gemeinsam beschreiten durften.
Anna Tarkhanova, Natalia Tarkhanova und Evgueni Tarkhanov
From Novosibirsk to Montreal with a stopover in Potsdam
by Sylvie Paycha
Nikolai Tarkhanov was my colleague, a member of the Analysis group and my office neighbor. He liked working from home and
would only come to the institute for his lessons or appointments with his students, so that I would rarely get a chance to see him.
He was a secretive person and difficult to approach yet he seemed to enjoy and so did I, our brief encounters in the corridor or
on the way to the lectures, when we would do some small talk and sometimes discuss maths. The little I got to know him this way
with some perserverance, gave me a chance to appreciate the learned mathematician he was. His generous smile you see on the
announcement reflected his genuine generosity, which you could feel whenever he talked about maths with you. He would then
open up and become very talkative. I sometimes regretted having to interrupt the conversation to get to the lecture on time. Behind
Nikolai's reserve hid much generosity, knowledge and wisdom.
While searching to prepare this short biographical note, I realised how little I knew about Nikolai. Let me tell you what I learned
about him and please feel free to correct me. Nikolai Tarkhanov was born in 1956 in Krasnoyarsk, the third largest city of Siberia,
with a population of around 1 million inhabitants, which lies in West-Siberia, 636 km North-East of Novosibirsk. There he went
to school and then (1972-1977) studied mathematics at the University of Krasnoyarsk, where he wrote his Master thesis under the
supervision of Lev Aizenberg, who later became professor at Bar-Ilan University Ramat-Gan in Israel. Together, they recently
(2015) published an article "An integral formula for the number of lattice points in a domain" in the J. Sib. Fed. Univ. Math.
Phys. After that, Nikolai who was then 21, spent two years (1977-1979) at the military school in Potsdam as a soviet soldier.
That was his first experience in the city of Potsdam. From 1980 to 1983 he taught at Krasnoyarsk University and defended his
PhD thesis in mathematics and physics in 1983 at the University of Ekaterinburg in front of Victor Khavin, Michal Shubin (who
died last May) and B.I. Odvirko-Budko. After that, from 1984 to 1991 he worked as Associate Professor for the Chair of Function
Theory at Krasnoyarsk State University. In 1991 he defended his D. Sc. in Mathematics and Physics at the University of
Novosibirsk, in front of PDE experts, Olga Oleinik, Leonid Volevich , Sergei Samborskii and V.I. Kuz'mino. He became full
professor in 1992 and remained at Krasnoyarsk State University until 2000. During that period, 1993-- 1994, Nikolai spent a
year in Potsdam with a Research Fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. From June 1995 to August 1999 he was
invited scientist (Gast-Wissenschaftler) of Prof. Schulze's Max-Planck research group "PDE and complex analysis", after which
he was appointed in 2000 at the University of Potsdam as apl. Professor. Throughout his career, Nikolai Tarkhanov maintained
personal and professional ties with his colleagues in Siberia, some of whom are here today, and was editor of the Journal of
Siberian Federal University. Nikolai Tarkhanov was a very prolific researcher in the areas of PDEs, Boundary Value problems,
cohomology and related concepts. He coauthored some 200 papers with the first one he mentions in his CV dating back to 1993.
Russian Math. Surveys (1993), Proc. London Math. Soc. (1995), Math. Z. and Annales de l'Institut Fourier (2004) are among
the journals he mentions there. Nikolai Tarkhanov wrote 6 research monographs, and supervised 8 PhD students some of whom
(Ivan Shestakov (2009), Ibrahim Ly (2010), Ammar Alsaedy (2015), Daniel Wallenta (2016), Azal Mera (2017)) are here today
and was co-supervising Ihsane Malass as he passed away. Nikolai Tarkhanov was also a very dedicated teacher who often taught
mathematics for physics, biology or geology students and he wrote two text books: Mathematik für Physiker, Universität
Potsdam, Deutschland, 2002, 750 pp. and Mathematische Ökologie, Universität Potsdam, Deutschland, 2004, 94 pp.
With Nikolai's sudden death, we have lost a remarkable colleague, an outstanding mathematician, whose universal outlook on
mathematics and beyond we will surely miss. The ubiquity of mathematics and the love Nikolai Tarkhanov had for the subject,
will take us today along the winding paths of the world of analysis from Novosibirsk to Montreal. Let this meeting be an enjoyable
and memorable one, that Nikolai Tarkhanov would have liked to take part in.
Sylvie Paycha
A tribute by Sylvie Roelly
I am very touched to remember our dear colleague Nicolai Nicolaitch Tarkhanov on this sad
occasion.
If I may, let me extend a little this meeting in Memoriam of Prof. Tarkhanov by including a
"hommage" to his full personality.
When I was head of the Institute of Mathematics in Potsdam, I had many occasions to discuss
personally with him about various topics. It was also my pleasure, on one occasion, to help him feel
once again a part of the IfM. We also shared an enjoyable experience as Alumni of the Humboldt
foundation: he was a fellow in Bonn in 93-94 at the same time I was in Bielefeld. This helped him
construct life-lasting bridges between the German and Russian scientific communities.
Prof. Tarkhanov was a gentleman; he lived at home and at the university, following his high moral
and pure ideals.
He was modest and discrete, always paying his full attention to the others. These qualities were
reflected in the relations he had with his mathematics colleagues, and even visible in the
mathematical papers he wrote.
His academic trajectory and his career as a mathemacian are exemplary in many respects. Let me
underline some of them:
- He was a great Analyst but he also considered seriously other research areas, in particular
Probability theory (recall his collaboration with my friends and colleagues Alexandra
Antoniuk and Andrey Pilipenko). He was the leader of several research projects (DFG,
DAAD and others) covering an extremely wide spectrum of topics, from PDE to differential
geometry, index theory, quantum dynamics, Zeta function, and many others.
- He very much enjoyed teaching as way to transmit his passion for mathematics to the next
generations. To increase the quality of the teaching he also wrote several Textbooks, which
were highly appreciated by the students. He also supervised with engagement around 30
students in Potsdam in Bachelor and Master. Some of them are participating in this meeting.
His enthusiastic supervision encouraged the majority of them to continue the studies in
mathematics, and for some of them, to embrace an academic career.
- He was a hard worker writing many scientific papers. Before publishing them in famous
journals he participated actively to the Institute Preprint Collection in order to publish his
results online quickly with open access to everyone.
- He did not take geographical boundaries into consideration. He had friends and colleagues
all over the world, and of all nationalities, he travelled through continents but also knew
how hard the experience of immigration is.
Thank you Nicolai Nicolaitch for the model of life you offered us. We already miss your open mind,
your generosity, your elegant and fine presence between us. We will always recall you with
emotion, gratefully.
Merci und auf Wiedersehen!
Sylvie Roelly
A tribute by Vanik E. Mkrtchian
I am a collaborator Carsten Henkel's (Physics and Astrophysics) and I've visited Potsdam University
three times and stayed at the Tarkhanov's on those occasions. I was in a close relationship with Nikolay
and Valya and I'd like to share some details about Nikolay's origins and childhood which he told me
personally during an "after-party" discussion.
Nikolay's father had Armenian origins and he was one of the millions of victims of Stalin terror. He was
exiled from Siberia (Krasnoyarsk) leaving family (wife and kids) in Yerevan. There he met with Nikolay's
mother (lonely Russian woman with kids) and they lived together till the mid-50's when was amnestied
by the Soviet government (Khruschov's time) and was given the right to return to Armenia to his family.
That's when he asked Nikolay's mother to take the newborn Nikolay with her and follow him to Yerevan
where they would live together. As Valya once told me, Nikolay's mother was a very wise person and
rejected her husband's offer arguying that she didn't want to be a fifth wheel and preferred to stay in
Krasnoyarsk with the boy.
Finally, Nikolay's father returned to Yerevan to his family never forgetting his Russian family and
supported them with money with presents, and parcels containing Armenian dry fruits, which Nikolay
loved very much. When visiting Potsdam, I used to bring with me, dried fruit and Armenian sweets for
him. And I remember him repeating many-many times that I was bringing him back to childhood....
Nikolay and Valya were only once in Armenia during their honeymoon when they decided to pay a visit
to his father. Once during an "after-party" discussion, Nikolay asked me to sing an Armenian song and
I sang one of the very popular Armenian folk songs named "Oh beauty-beauty". He suddenly interrupted
me claiming that I didn't know the correct lyrics of the song. He said this song was his lullaby, sung by
his Russian mother and that he recalled "the correct words" perfectly. Can you imagine this woman
who didn't know any word of Armenian, singing for her son an Armenian song which probably was her
and her husband's love song since all the words had been distorted...
Anyway I'm sending you Nikolay's lullaby and I hope you'll load it up to the web page dedicated to his
memory ...
With thanks and kindest wishes.
Vanik
Dr. Vanik E. Mkrtchian
Institute for Physical Research,
Armenian Academy of Sciences.
Ashtarak 0203, Republic of Armenia.
Nachruf Professor Nikolai Tarkhanov
Wir trauern um den von uns sehr wertgeschätzten Prof. Dr. Nikolai Tarkhanov, der am 31.Juli 2020 verstorben ist. Viele Studierende der Mathematik und Physik verdanken ihm ihre mathematische Ausbildung. Prof. Tarkhanov war ein verständnisvoller Lehrer, der mit seinem Charme und seiner Hilfsbereitschaft bei vielen Studierenden in Erinnerung bleiben wird.
Er wertschätzte uns unabhängig von der Leistung oder Studienrichtung. So kannte er nach wenigen Wochen schon Vor- und Nachname jedes einzelnen und vergaß sie auch Jahre später nicht. Diese Anerkennung merkte man auch in seinen Sprechstunden und in den Vorlesungen, in denen er sich immer Zeit für uns nahm. Fragen jeglicher Natur beantwortete er immer nett und souverän, auch wenn die Sprechstunden- oder Tutorienzeiten schon längst überschritten waren. Mit seiner ruhigen Art konnte er auch in angespannten Situationen gut umgehen, sodass am Ende des Tages alle gut auseinandergingen. Prof. Tarkhanovs Philosophie war es, dass jeder Studiernde den Anschluss nicht verlieren sollte und auch jede Art von Fleiß belohnt wird. Seine sprachliche Begabung nutzte er, um auch Studierende, die gerade noch die deutsche Sprache lernten, aktiv in seine Veranstaltungen einzubinden. Weiterhin äußerte sich seine Philosophie in seiner Großzügigkeit und Bescheidenheit - er sah stets das Gute in seiner Lerngruppe.
Um die Vorlesung zu halten, brauchte Prof. Tarkhanov auch keineswegs Mitschriften oder Folien. Er lebte die Mathematik, die er unterrichtete, so sehr, dass er die Veranstaltungen nicht nur mit Theorie, sondern auch mit kleinen Anekdoten über die thematisierten MathematikerInnen bzw. PhysikerInnen und seinen Erfahrungen ausschmückte.
Unsere Gedanken sind bei seiner Familie und seinen Freunden!
Die Studenten und Studentinnen der Naturwissenschaftlichen-Mathematischen Fakultät
Schedule
- 10:00-10:30 Opening and tributes to Nikolai Tarkhanov
by Ammar Alsaedy (Berlin), Alexandra Antoniouk (Kiev) and Mauro Nacinovich (Rome)
- 10:30-11:00 Alexander Shlapunov (Siberian Federal University)
Existence theorems for regular spatially periodic solutions to the Navier-Stokes equations
- 11:00-11:30 Oleg Kiselev (Russian Academy of Sciences, Ufa)
Captured particles in resonance at a potential well with a dissipation
- 11:30-12:00 Bert-Wolfgang Schulze (University of Potsdam)
Analysis on Manifolds with Sigularities
12:00-12:30 Lunch break
- 12:30-13:00 Sergey Vodopyanov (Novosibirsk State University)
Mappings with bounded (q,p)-distortion and non-linear elasticity theory
- 13:00-13:30 Ihsane Malass (University of Potsdam)
A perturbation of the De Rham complex
- 13:30-14:00 Essmaail Alsbikhan (University of Potsdam)
The Rouché theorem for operator functions
- 14:00-14:30 Ivan Shestakov (University of Oldenburg)
Asymptotics of solutions to the Laplace-Beltrami equation on a rotation surface with a cusp
- 14:30-15:00 Closing and tributes to Nikolai Tarkhanov
with a tribute by Paul Gauthier (Montreal) and Sylvie Roelly (Potsdam)
Abstracts.pdf
Contact:
Sylke Pfeiffer (University Potsdam)
Impressum
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