Heorhii Brief

Heorhii Brief was born on February 2, 1885 in Kyiv.

His father, Karl Louis Robert Brief, was German by birth, had French citizenship, but in the late 1870s he renounced it and took Russian citizenship. He held the position of staff supervisor of the Kyiv City Police. 

His mother, Anna Viktorivna Mozheiko, was the daughter of an official. Heorhii had a sister and a brother. The Brief family lived at 23 Zlatoustivska Street, apartment 5.

From 1893 to 1903, Heorhii studied at the Kyiv 4th Gymnasium, where he learned Russian, Latin, German and Greek. After graduation he entered the engineering faculty of the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, studied there until 1905 and was expelled for failure to pay the tuition fees. A year later, he resumed his studies at the Institute, studied until 1914, but never received his diploma. 

Between 1909 and 1913, he held the positions of senior technician and assistant chief engineer at the Sewerage Construction Commission in Kyiv. In Revel (presently Tallinn) he took part in the construction of a shipyard. On the island of Dagö (Baltic Sea) he worked on the construction and installation of one of the first artificial silk factories.

In December 1921, Heorhii Brief began his teaching career. Until 1929, he taught mathematics and physics at the Kyiv Mechanical College. He was also in charge of the educational department and production and training workshops.

All of Brief’s professional life was connected to the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, which underwent several reorganisations in the 1920s and 1930s.

In 1929, Brief was a full-time assistant professor at the Polytechnic Institute, and in 1930-1933 he was an associate professor of mathematics at the Machine-Building Institute, one of the branch institutes established during the reorganisation of the KPI. At that time, Heorhii Brief also served as an inspector for educational affairs, head of the production and methodological sector, and later as acting deputy director for education.

In 1934, several branch institutes (including the Mechanical Engineering Institute) were merged again. The university was now called the Kyiv Industrial Institute.

Heorhii Brief continued his teaching activities at this new institution. In 1935, the Institute submitted a request to award Heorhii Brief the title of associate professor of mathematics without defending a dissertation.

Brief was married to a Jewish woman named Rosalia Brief. She worked as a librarian at the Polytechnic Institute. On September 29, 1941, Heorhii Brief accompanied his wife to the so-called assembly point for Jews in Babyn Yar. A German by birth, he stayed by his wife’s side to the end and was killed with her.