A letter to G. P. Chebotarev from G. Chubarov .

A letter to G. P. Chebotarev from G. Chubarov .
21/5/1975. Size 21.5 x 27.8 cm. 

Gregory Porfirievich Chebotarev (Eng. Gregory Tschebotarioff; February 15 (27), 1899, Pavlovsk, St. Petersburg province, Russian Empire — April 22, 1985, Holland, Pennsylvania, USA) was a Russian-American engineer, a specialist in soil mechanics.

The son of an artillery officer, Don Cossack Porfiry Grigoryevich Chebotarev and Valentina Ivanovna Dubyagskaya. In 1910-1912 he studied at the Tsarskoye Selo Gymnasium. In the middle of 1911-1912, he was admitted to the Imperial School of Jurisprudence.

In 1916, after graduating from the general classes of the Law School, he entered the Mikhailovsky Artillery School. After completing the accelerated course of study, he was promoted to ensign and was assigned to the Life Guards of the Don Cossack Battery (his father P. G. Chebotarev served in this battery). He arrived at the front in February 1917. In October 1917, he received a vacation and came home to Tsarskoye Selo.

P. N. Krasnov's wife, Lidia Fedorovna Krasnova, was a friend of Chebotarev's mother. During Krasnov's campaign against Petrograd, after Krasnov's units occupied Tsarskoye Selo, Chebotarev appeared at Krasnov's headquarters and was appointed his personal adjutant and performed these duties for the next few days. He was present at the negotiations between Krasnov and Dybenko with Trotsky. After the unsuccessful end of the Krasnovsky offensive, Chebotarev returned to his battery on the Southwestern Front.

After the Don ataman Kaledin withdrew all Cossack units to the Don in December 1917, the Don Life Guards battery loaded onto trains in the Shepetovka area and arrived at the Don in Novocherkassk about two weeks later. Then the battery was sent to the area of the Glubokaya station, where it was unloaded from the trains and located in the Berezov farm.

During the pro-Bolshevik uprising of Podtelkov, Chebotarev was arrested by the Cossacks. Later, he managed to escape and join Chernetsov's white detachment.

After a short vacation, Chebotarev joined the volunteer artillery platoon of Captain I. G. Konkov. As a gunner of one of the 3-inch guns mounted on the railway platform, he participated in battles with the Red Guards on the Zverevo-Gukovo— Provalye—Dolzhansk railway line, and then, during the retreat of the Whites to Novocherkassk, on the Zverevo—Shakhty —Novocherkassk line (January — February 1918). During the abandonment of Novocherkassk by the Whites, Chebotarev's volunteer detachment was disbanded. He managed to hide in Novocherkassk, and then left for Moscow and Petrograd. At that time, he entered the St. Petersburg Institute of Railways, but he did not have to study there.

Thanks to the efforts of his father, who was on the Don, through the Ukrainian authorities of Hetman Skoropadsky, the Chebotarev family got a place in one of the "hetman trains" leaving Petrograd for Kiev, and then came to the Don, where at that time the power of Ataman Krasnov, who knew the Chebotaryovs well, was established.

Chebotarev, who knew English well, was an interpreter at Krasnov's meetings with representatives of the Entente who arrived in Southern Russia at the end of 1918. Then he served in the 2nd Don Cossack Battery. He was recalled from the front and appointed adjutant to the Chief of Artillery of the Don Army, Baron I. N. Maydel. He had typhus. He was appointed translator of the Don Cadet Corps.

He was evacuated from Novorossiysk with the Don Cadet Corps on the steamship Saratov to Egypt. The cadet corps was stationed by the British in a camp near Ismailia.

After receiving a small scholarship from Thomas Wittemore, he entered the Higher Technical School in Berlin and in 1925 received an engineering degree.

He worked as an engineer in Germany. In 1929-1936 he worked as an engineer in Egypt. Poor soil conditions for construction in this country drew his attention to the mechanics of soils and the design of building foundations. Gradually, he became a major specialist in this field.

In 1936, Chebotarev took part in the first international congress on soil mechanics held in the USA and was invited to work at Princeton University. In 1937, he moved to the United States, where he taught civil engineering at Princeton University. He was an assistant, junior, and then a full professor.

In 1938, he married Florence Dorothy Bill, daughter of the American historian and writer Alfred Bill.

In 1955-1970 he worked as a consulting engineer at King and Gavaris.

In 1979 he was awarded the Karl Terzaghi Prize.

He died on April 22, 1985 in the town of Holland (Pennsylvania).