He was born in Mogilev, Russian Empire (now Belarus). His father was a descendant of German settlers in Courland, while his mother was a Latvian. In 1912-13 while in university he published a number of mathematical works on group theory which laid foundation for Krull–Schmidt theorem.\n', '

In 1913, Schmidt married Vera Yanitskaia and graduated from the University of Kiev, where he worked as a privat-docent starting from 1916. After the October Revolution of 1917, he was a board member at several People\'s Commissariats (narkomats) – such as Narkomprod from 1918 to 1920 (Narodnyi Komissariat Prodovolstviya, or People\'s Commissariat for Supplies), People\'s Commissariat for Finance from 1921 to 1922 (Narodnyi Komissariat Finansov, or People\'s Commissariat for Finances). Schmidt was one of the chief proponents of developing the higher education system, publishing, and science in Soviet Russia.\n', '

He worked at Narkompros (People\'s Commissariat for Education), the State Scientific Board at the Council of People\'s Commissars of the USSR, and the Communist Academy. He was Chair of the Foreign Literature Committee from October 1921. Following the Litkens Commission Schmidt was also employed as the director of the State Publishing House (Gosizdat) from 1921 to 1924, and chief editor of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia from 1924 to 1941. From 1923 he was a professor at the Second Moscow State University and later at the Moscow State University, and from 1930 to 1932, Schmidt was the head of the Arctic Institute.\n', '

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