Ilya Piatetski-Shapiro - Moscow Years: 1960s

Moscow Years: 1960s

Ilya's career was on the rise, and in 1958 he was made a professor of mathematics at the Moscow Institute of Applied Mathematics, where he introduced Siegel domains. By the 1960s, he was recognized as a star mathematician. In 1965 he was appointed to an additional professorship at the prestigious Moscow State University. He conducted seminars for advanced students, among them Grigory Margulis (now at Yale) and David Kazhdan (now at Hebrew University). Ilya's reputation spread internationally. He was invited to attend 1962 International Congress of Mathematicians in Stockholm, but was not allowed to go by Soviet authorities (Shafarevich, also invited, presented his talk). In 1966, Ilya was again invited to ICM in Moscow where he presented a 1-hour lecture on Automorphic Functions and arithmetic groups (Автоморфные функции и арифметические группы).

But despite his fame, Ilya was not allowed to travel abroad to attend meetings or visit colleagues except for one short trip to Hungary. The Soviet authorities insisted on one a condition: become a party member, and then you can travel anywhere you want. Ilya gave his famous answer: “The membership in the Communist Party will distract me from my work.”

During the span of his career Piatetski-Shapiro was influenced greatly by Israel Gelfand. The aim of their collaboration was to introduce novel representation theory into classical modular forms and number theory. Together with Graev, they wrote the classic “Automorphic Forms and Representations” book.

These efforts stand among Ilya’s most important works. His research then and later was marked by brilliance, originality, and deep insight.