Anatolyi A. Ligun was born on June 25, 1947 in Pyatikhatki (a small town in Ukraine, in the Dnepropetrovsk region). He graduated from Dnepropetrovsk State University in 1971, was awarded his PhD (aspirantura) in 1974, and obtained his "doctor of science" in 1985. He was a student of N. P. Korneichuk, one of his favorites. Ligun himself had many students, ranging from high school students all the way to doctoral students, "doctor of science" (Alexander Shumeiko). He loved working with people and always had a huge group around him -- it can also be attributed to his absolutely charming personality, great sense of humor, and great story-telling ability. He was an inspiring mathematician and leader to many generations of students and colleagues, including myself. He had a genius intuition and vision, great ideas. He did not like to write them up, though. And he did not travel much, mainly because of health problems. I guess that is why he was not much known outside of the former USSR. He authored 3 books. 1."Approximation with constraints" (with N. P. Korneichuk and V. G. Doronin) 2."Reconstruction of curves and surfaces" (with A. A. Shumeiko) 3."Extremal properties of polynomials and splines" (with V. F. Babenko and N. P. Korneichuk) In addition, he wrote many books for high school students. For many years he taught at a Math Lyceum (special high school for studying sciences and math), and raised many generations of great students who later went on to PhD programs. He was "akademik vysshei shkoly" [distinguished academician of higher education], "zasluzhennyi deyatel' nauki i tehniki Ukrainy" [distinguished scientist of Ukraine], Laureate of State Prize of Ukraine. He worked in various areas of Approximation Theory, starting from very classical areas, and all the way to subdivision, image reconstruction, wavelets, etc. For many years, he worked at the Dneprodzerzhinsk Technical University. His death is a huge loss to many people here -- we all loved him very much. Yuliya Babenko