Academician Vsevolod Moskalenko was a world-known researcher, an expert in theoretical physics, working in the areas of solid state physics, of nonlinear optics, and of quantum optics.

Vsevolod Moskalenko was born on 26 September 1928 in the village Bravicea, Calarași district. In 1946, after finishing a secondary school in Orhei, he entered the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Kishinev State University (now Moldova State University).

Being a University graduate, future academician  V. Moskalenko made the first steps in his successful professional career as assistant at the Chair of General Physics of the same University. The staff of that Chair was the basis for the newly formed (in 1953) Chair of Theoretical physics.

In 1957-1959, a young promising specialist took the postgraduate courses at Moscow State University joining the team of the outstanding academician N.N. Bogoliubov, whose investigations of 1949-1951(together with Tyablikov) opened a window to a more systematic analysis of the strong-coupling polarons based on canonical transformations of the Hamiltonian. In 1955, Vsevolod Moskalenko began his own, long path in theoretical physics generalizing of the well-known Bogoliubov adiabatic theory of polarons.

Later, acad. V. Moskalenko could not resist the temptation to be also involved in other areas of theoretical physics, successfully developed by his colleagues from the Bogoliubov team at the Department of Statistical Mechanics of Steklov Mathematical Institute. He was an active participant in the development of the theory of superconductivity in real metal. It was in 1959 that he published his work, later becoming a classical one, in which, for the first time, a two-band model for superconductivity. In the same year, Vsevolod Moskalenko defended his PhD dissertation at Steklov Mathematical Institute. After that, he came back to Moldova, working at Moldova State University and from 1961 - at the Institute of Physics and Mathematics of the Academy of Sciences, as the Head of the Section of Theoretical Physics (that in 1969 became a component part of the Institute of Applied Physics under the name Section of Statistical Physics).

That Section, headed by V. Moskalenko, attracted many young talented researchers, who, together with senior ones, studied and further developed theoretical bases for a lot of phenomena considered to be on the cutting edge of physics in those times: they proposed various theoretical methods and models for the physics of elementary particles and atomic nuclei. Within that same period, thanks to the personal involvement of Vsevolod Moskalenko and his vision of the future, the collaborative activities of Moldovan physicists and those from the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna, Russia.

Via his support, over 20 young researchers from the Institute of Applied Physics had a chance for further scientific development at the JINR. Later, some of them, when coming back to Moldova, became the core group of the Laboratory of the Theory of Atomic Nuclei and Elementary Particles, set up in 1975 at the initiative and under the head of Vsevolod Moskalenko. They managed to convince the authorities of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova to support the promising investigations in the mentioned field. 

Dealing with the physics of elementary particles and atomic nuclei, future Academician Moskalenko was no less interested in the theory of phenomena in solid media. It led him to postdoc studies (1964-1966) at Lomonosov Moscow State University and a defense cum laude of his doctor habilitate dissertation in 1967 at Steklov Mathematical Institute.

Directing his own and his team efforts into the studies of optical properties of semiconductors, of polarons, into the theories of ferromagnetism and anti-ferromagnetism, of phase transitions, of spin glass, of superconductivity, he was successful in all of these areas. For example, nowadays it is a universally accepted fact that models and descriptions of physical phenomena that are the bases of major contemporary theories of multi-band models for superconductivity, are all to the merits of Academician V. Moskalenko (who made the first step in this direction even in 1959) and his colleagues.

It is worth mentioning that the developed theories of thermo-dynamic, magnetic, and kinetic properties of materials with different features in the structure of energy bands of electrons, including the bands overlapping the Fermi levels - all those laid the base for the prognostication, among others, of a special category of electron-phonon superconductors with the transition temperature of 40 K at the superconducting phase, which has been just recently confirmed experimentally. Also in this line are the theories developed by Academician V. Moskalenko and his colleague for the description of electronic systems correlated on the base of the tree-band Hubbard model, for an original diagram technique; in addition, a new concept of the correlation functions as carriers of quantum spin fluctuations and electric charge was proposed.

This original approach turned to be both original and promising, which led to the determination of features of different phase transition phenomena: for instance, metal-dielectric transition, waves of the spin density, superconductivity, as well as various phenomena related to polarons in strongly correlated systems.

All of the contributions of Academician Moskalenko mentioned above are pioneering, so it is hard to list, even briefly, all these and other results that make up the glory of the physical sciences of the Republic of Moldova, to which v/Moskalenko made a major contribution. 

Being a prolific scientific researcher, academician V. Moskalenko was also a good scientific manager. He not only headed the research teams mentioned above but also played a significant role in shaping the researching staff of different research teams working now at the Institute of Applied Physics.

Academician V. Moskalenko made an impressive contribution in shaping, maintaining, and promoting the prestige of the Moldovan science in the world via intensification of joint activities of Moldovan physicists with those from the JINR (Dubna). The Republic of Moldova joined the JINR since its foundation according to the Agreement signed on 26 March 1956. As a sovereign republic, Moldova has been a JINR Member State since 1992. In 1992, Academician Vsevolod Moskalenko was the first representative from Moldova in the Committee of Plenipotentiaries of the Governments of the JINR Member States. Later, Academician V. Moskalenko was awarded the title of the Doctor Honoris Causa of the JINR.

Due to his prolific, creative, and resultative scientific and managerial activities, Academician V. Moskalenko was elected Corresponding Member (in 1970) and later Full Member (in 1976) of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova.

He was also awarded with the most prestigious distinctions of the Republic of Moldova: he was the Laureate of the State Prize, he had the title ”Merited Person”, he was the holder of the Order of the Republic (the highest in Moldova), of the medal „Dimitrie Cantemir” (one of the distinctions of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova), etc.