Aleksandr Nikolayevich Bakulev () ( - March 31, 1967) was a Soviet surgeon, one of the founders of cardiovascular surgery in the USSR. Born in Nevenikovskaya (now in the Kirov oblast) into a peasant family which belonged to the old Vyatka clan of Bakulevs, Bakulev attended the medical faculty of Saratov University after graduating from high school. During the First World War he served as a regimental medical officer on the Western Front. In 1938 Bakulev conducted a successful lobectomy in a case of chronic lung abscess. In 1939 he earned the academic degree of Professor and the same year conducted a successful lobectomy in a case of pulmonary actinomycosis. In 1943 Bakulev became head of the surgery department of the 2nd Pirogov Moscow Institute of Medicine. On the Eastern Front of World W