Nikolai Vavilov was bornNovember 25, 1887in the family of Ivan Ilyich and Alexandra Mikhailovna Vavilov. Father, Ivan Ilyich, was born in 1863 in the village of Ivashkovo, Volokolamsk district, Moscow province, into a peasant family and, thanks to his extraordinary abilities, became a major businessman. In 1918 he emigrated to Bulgaria, in 1928, with the help of his son Nikolai, he returned to Russia, and soon died. Mother, Alexandra Mikhailovna, née Postnikova, was the daughter of an engraver at the Prokhorov Manufactory.
In 1906, after graduating from the Moscow Commercial School, Vavilov entered the Moscow Agricultural Institute (formerly Petrovskaya, now Timiryazevskaya Agricultural Academy), from which he graduated in 1911.
Nikolai Vavilov, while still a student, began to engage in scientific work. In 1908, he conducted geographical and botanical research in the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia. On the occasion of Darwin’s 100th anniversary, he gave a report “Darwinism and Experimental Morphology” (1909), and in 1910 he published his thesis “Naked slugs (snails) damaging fields and vegetable gardens in the Moscow province,” for which he received a prize from the Moscow Polytechnic Museum. After graduating from the institute, D.N. Pryanishnikov left him at the department of private agriculture to prepare for the rank of professor. In 1911-1912, Vavilov taught at the Golitsyn women's higher agricultural courses (Moscow). In 1912 he published a work on the connection between agronomy and genetics, where he was one of the first in the world to propose a program for using the achievements of genetics to improve cultivated plants. During these same years, Vavilov took up the problem of resistance of wheat species and varieties to diseases.
In 1913 he was sent to England, France and Germany to complete his education. Vavilov spent most of his business trip, interrupted in 1914 by the outbreak of the First World War, in England, listening to lectures at the University of Cambridge and conducting experimental work on plant immunity in Merton, near London, under the leadership of William Bateson, one of the founders of genetics. Vavilov considered Bateson his teacher. In England, he also spent several months in genetic laboratories, in particular with the famous geneticist R. Punnett. Returning to Moscow, he continued his work on plant immunity at the breeding station of the Moscow Agricultural Institute.
In 1917, Vavilov was elected professor of the agronomic faculty of Saratov University, which soon became the Saratov Agricultural Institute, where Nikolai Ivanovich became head of the department of private agriculture and selection. In Saratov, Vavilov deployed field studies a number of agricultural crops and completed work on the monograph “Plant Immunity to Infectious Diseases,” published in 1919, in which he summarized his research carried out earlier in Moscow and England.
The Vavilov school of researchers, botanists, plant growers, geneticists and breeders began to be created in Saratov. There, Vavilov organized and conducted an expedition to survey the species and varietal composition of field crops in the South-East of the European part of the RSFSR - the Volga and Trans-Volga regions. The results of the expedition were presented in a monograph 
fiction "Field Cultures of the South-East", published in 1922.
At the All-Russian Selection Congress in Saratov (1920), Vavilov made a presentation on “The Law of Homologous Series in Hereditary Variation.” According to this law, genetically similar plant species are characterized by parallel and identical series of characters; Close genera and even families also show identity in the ranks of hereditary variability. The law revealed an important pattern of evolution: similar hereditary changes occur in closely related species and genera. Using this law, based on a number of signs and properties of one species or genus, one can predict the presence of similar forms in another species or genus. The law of homologous series makes it easier for breeders to find new initial forms for crossing and selection.
Botanical and agronomic expeditions of Vavilov. Theory of centers of origin and diversity of cultivated plants
Vavilov organized and conducted his first expeditions to Persia (Iran) and Turkestan, Mountainous Tajikistan (Pamir), where he repeatedly risked his life and collected previously unknown forms of wheat, barley, and rye in hard-to-reach places (1916). Here he first became interested in the problem of the origin of cultivated plants.
In 1921-1922, Vavilov became acquainted with the agriculture of vast regions of the USA and Canada. In 1924, Vavilov made a very difficult expedition to Afghanistan, which lasted five months, studying cultivated plants in detail and collecting a large amount of general geographical material.
For this expedition, the Geographical Society of the USSR awarded Vavilov a gold medal named after. Przhevalsky (“for geographical feat”). The results of the expedition are summarized in the book “Agricultural Afghanistan” (1929).
In 1926-1927, Vavilov organized and conducted a long expedition to the Mediterranean countries: Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Transjordan, Greece, the islands of Crete and Cyprus, Italy (including Sicily and Sardinia), Spain and Portugal, Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea.
In 1929, Vavilov made an expedition to Western China (Xinjiang), Japan, Korea, and the island of Formosa (Taiwan).
In 1930 - to North America (USA) and Canada, Central America, Mexico.
In 1932-1933 - to Guatemala, Cuba, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Uruguay, Trinidad, Puerto Rico.
Soviet expeditions, with his participation and/or leadership, discovered new types of wild and cultivated potatoes that were resistant to diseases, which was effectively used by breeders in the USSR and other countries. In these countries, Vavilov also conducted important research on the history of world agriculture.
As a result of studying the species and varieties of plants collected in Europe, Asia, Africa, North, Central and South America, Vavilov established the centers of formation, or centers of origin and diversity of cultivated plants. These centers are often called centers of genetic diversity or Vavilov centers. The work “Centers of Origin of Cultivated Plants” was first published in 1926.
According to Vavilov, the cultural flora arose and was formed in relatively few centers, usually located in mountainous areas. Vavilov identified seven primary centers:
1. The South Asian tropical center (tropical India, Indochina, South China and the islands of Southeast Asia), which gave humanity rice, sugar cane, Asian varieties of cotton, cucumbers, lemon, orange, and a large number of other tropical fruit and vegetable crops.
2. East Asian center (Central and Eastern China, Taiwan Island, Korea, Japan). The homeland of soybeans, millet, tea bush, many vegetable and fruit crops.
3. South-West Asian center ( Asia Minor, Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia, North-West India), from where came soft wheat, rye, legumes, melon, apple, pomegranate, figs, grapes, and many other fruits.
4. The Mediterranean center is the birthplace of several types of wheat, oats, olives, many vegetable and fodder crops, such as cabbage, beets, carrots, garlic and onions, and radishes.
5. Abyssinian, or Ethiopian, center - distinguished by the variety of forms of wheat and barley, homeland coffee tree, sorghum, etc.
6. Central American center (Southern Mexico, Central America, West Indies Islands), which produced corn, beans, upland cotton (long-fiber), vegetable peppers, cocoa, etc.
7. The Andean center (mountainous regions of South America) is the birthplace of potatoes, tobacco, tomatoes, rubber trees and others.
The theory of centers of origin of cultivated plants helped Vavilov and his collaborators assemble the world's largest collection of seeds of cultivated plants, numbering 250 thousand samples by 1940 (36 thousand samples of wheat, 10,022 of corn, 23,636 of legumes, etc.). Using the collection, breeders have developed over 450 varieties of agricultural plants. The world collection of seeds of cultivated plants, collected by Vavilov, his collaborators and followers, serves the cause of preserving the genetic resources of useful plants on the globe.
Vavilov was a major organizer of Soviet science. Under his leadership (from 1920), a relatively small scientific institution - the Bureau of Applied Botany - was transformed in 1924 into the All-Union Institute of Applied Botany and New Crops, and in 1930 into a large scientific center - the All-Union Institute of Plant Growing (VIR), which had thirteen large departments and experimental stations in different parts of the USSR. VIR, which Vavilov headed until August 1940, was a scientific center for developing the theory of plant breeding of world significance.
On the initiative of Vavilov, as the first president of VASKhNIL (from 1929 to 1935, and then vice-president until his arrest), a number of research institutions were organized: the Institute of Grain Farming of the South-East of the European Part of the USSR, institutes of fruit growing, vegetable growing, subtropical crops , corn, potatoes, cotton, flax, oilseeds and others. On the basis of the genetic laboratory, which he led since 1930, Vavilov organized the Institute of Genetics of the USSR Academy of Sciences and was its director (until 1940).
From 1926 to 1935, Vavilov was a member of the USSR Central Executive Committee and the All-Russian Executive Committee (VTsIK). He took an active part in organizing the All-Union Agricultural Exhibitions of 1923 and 1939. From 1931 to 1940 (before his arrest) Vavilov was president of the All-Union Geographical Society.
Vavilov was elected vice-president of the VI International Genetic Congress in the USA in 1932 and honorary president of the VII International Genetic Congress in Great Britain in 1939.
According to many scientists who knew Vavilov, the most characteristic and most memorable thing about his appearance was his enormous charm. Nobel laureate, geneticist G. Meller recalled: “Everyone who knew Nikolai Ivanovich was inspired by his inexhaustible cheerfulness, generosity and charming nature, versatility 
interest and energy. This bright, attractive and sociable personality seemed to infuse into those around her her passion for tireless work, achievements and joyful cooperation. I didn’t know anyone else who would develop events on such a gigantic scale, develop them further and further and at the same time delve into all the details so carefully.”
Vavilov had phenomenal performance and memory, the ability to work in any conditions, and usually slept no more than 4-5 hours a day. Vavilov never went on vacation. Rest for him was a change of occupation. “We must hurry,” he said. As a scientist, he had a natural ability for theoretical thinking and broad generalizations.
Vavilov possessed rare organizational abilities, strong will, endurance and courage, which were clearly demonstrated in his travels through remote areas of the globe. He was a widely educated man, spoke several European languages and some Asian ones. During his travels, he was interested not only in the agricultural culture of peoples, but also in their way of life, customs and art.
Being a patriot and in the highest sense a citizen of his country, Vavilov was a staunch supporter and active promoter of international scientific cooperation, collaboration scientists from all countries of the world for the benefit of humanity.
In the early thirties, Vavilov warmly supported the work of the young agronomist Lysenko on the so-called vernalization: the transformation of winter crops into spring crops by pre-sowing exposure to low positive temperatures on the seeds. Vavilov hoped that the vernalization method could be effectively applied in breeding, which would make it possible to more fully use the world collection of useful plants of VIR for breeding, through hybridization, highly productive cultivated plants that are resistant to diseases, drought and cold.
In 1934, Vavilov recommended Lysenko as a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Lysenko impressed the Soviet leaders led by Stalin with his “national” origins, his promise to as soon as possible to increase the yield of grain crops, and also by the fact that he declared at the congress of collective farmers-shock workers in 1935 that there are pests in science.
In 1936 and 1939, discussions took place on issues of genetics and selection, in which Lysenko and his supporters attacked scientists led by Vavilov and Koltsov, who shared the basic principles of classical genetics. Lysenko's group rejected genetics as a science and denied the existence of genes as material carriers of heredity. At the end of the thirties, the Lysenkoites, relying on the support of Stalin, Molotov and other Soviet leaders, began to crack down on their ideological opponents, Vavilov and his associates who worked at VIR and the Institute of Genetics in Moscow.
A torrent of slander falls on Vavilov, his main achievements are discredited. Having become president of VASKHNIL in 1938, Lysenko interfered with the normal work of VIR - he sought to cut its budget, replace members of the academic council with his supporters, and change the leadership of the institute. In 1938, the Soviet government, under the influence of Lysenko, canceled the International Genetic Congress in the USSR, of which Vavilov was to become president.
Vavilov, right up to his arrest, continued to courageously defend his scientific views, the work program of the institutes he heads.
In 1939, he sharply criticized Lysenko’s anti-scientific views at a meeting of the Leningrad Regional Bureau of the section of scientific workers. At the end of his speech, Vavilov said: “We will go to the stake, we will burn, but we will not give up our convictions.”
In 1940, Vavilov was appointed head of the Complex (agrobotanical) expedition of the USSR People's Commissariat of Agriculture to the western regions of the Ukrainian and Byelorussian SSR. On August 6, 1940, Vavilov was arrested in the foothills of the Carpathians, near the city of Chernivtsi. The arrest warrant was signed “retroactively”; on August 7, he was imprisoned in the internal NKVD prison in Moscow (on Lubyanka). The arrest warrant accused Vavilov as one of the leaders of the counter-revolutionary Labor Peasant Party<никогда не существовавшей — Ю. В.>, sabotage in the VIR system, espionage, “the fight against the theories and works of Lysenko, Tsitsin and Michurin.”
During the investigation, which lasted 11 months, Vavilov endured no less than 236 interrogations, often taking place at night and often lasting for seven or more hours.
On July 9, 1941, Vavilov was sentenced to death at the “trial” of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, which took place within a few minutes. At the trial, they were told that “the accusation is based on fables, false facts and slander, which were not in any way confirmed by the investigation.” His petition for pardon to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was rejected. On July 26, he was transferred to Butyrka prison to carry out the sentence. On the morning of October 15, an employee of Beria visited him and promised that Vavilov would be allowed to live and given him a job in his specialty. In connection with the German offensive on Moscow, he was transported to Saratov on October 16-29, placed in the 3rd building of prison No. 1 in Saratov, where he spent a year and 3 months in the most difficult conditions (death row).
By decision of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on June 23, 1942, execution by pardon was replaced by 20 years of imprisonment in forced labor camps. From hunger, Sergei Ivanovich fell ill with dystrophy and died, extremely exhausted, in the prison hospital on January 26, 1943. He was apparently buried in a common grave in the Saratov cemetery.
During the investigation, in the internal prison of the NKVD, when Vavilov had the opportunity to receive paper and pencil, he wrote a large book “The History of World Agriculture”, the manuscript of which was destroyed “as having no value” along with big amount other scientific materials seized during searches at the apartment and in the institutes where he worked.
On August 20, 1955, Vavilov was posthumously rehabilitated. In 1965, the prize named after. N.I. Vavilov, in 1967 his name was given to VIR, in 1968 a gold medal named after Vavilov was established, awarded for outstanding scientific work and discoveries in the field of agriculture.
During his lifetime, Nikolai Ivanovich was elected a member and honorary member of many foreign academies, including the Royal Society of London (1942), Scottish (1937), Indian (1937), Argentine Academies, corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of Halle (1929; Germany) and the Czechoslovak Academy (1936), honorary member of the American Botanical Society. Linnean Society in London, etc.
Yu. N. Vavilov
We are so accustomed to living in a world of patterns and stereotypes that we have forgotten how not only to think, but even to be interested in anything.
I’m not talking about everyone without exception (fortunately, there are exceptions!), but about the overwhelming majority, who with such unshakable conviction judge issues that they do not understand at all and know nothing about.
For example, ask anyone what they think about Vavilov And Lysenko? Not among young people, of course, to whom these names are completely unknown, but among older people, those who still remember “Ogonyok” of the late 80s and the film “White Clothes.” They will answer you that Vavilov was a geneticist, and Lysenko was a persecutor of genetics (whoever wants to show off his erudition will add that Lysenko was a “Michurinist”).
Meanwhile, this has nothing to do with the truth. This is just a stereotype, and a stupid, primitive one, designed to convey complete (not even partial, but complete!) ignorance of the subject.
The truth is that both were geneticists. Both Lysenko and Vavilov argued for the existence of the genome and the laws of heredity. Fundamentally, they differed only in one thing - the question of the heritability of acquired properties. Vavilov believed that acquired properties are not inherited and the genome remains unchanged throughout the history of its existence. In this he relied on the work of Weismann and Morgan (hence the “Weismann-Morganists”). Lysenko, on the contrary, argued that the genome can change, fixing acquired properties. In this he relied on Lamarck's neo-Darwinism.
Roughly speaking, if I succeed in the technical sciences or humanities through my labors and efforts, I have every chance of passing on these achievements in the form of a genetic inheritance to my son (daughter), and it doesn’t matter that my grandfather had no idea about these sciences.
Actually, the dispute between the “Weismannists” and the “neo-Darwinists” was purely academic. And this was not a dispute between genetics and antigenetics, but dispute between two directions in genetics. So there was no “persecution of genetics”! The Weismannists had troubles, yes, but not at all because they were geneticists, but for another reason: first, waste of public money, and then an attempt to attack their scientific opponents with the involvement of foreign colleagues (the conflict in the VASKhNIL was provoked precisely by them, through denunciations , study primary sources!).
Modern scientific research has fully confirmed the correctness of Lysenko and the fallacy of Vavilov’s views. Yes, the genome is changing! But the most interesting thing is that this had nothing to do with the fates of these two scientists.
Let me allow myself the smallest digression. Among the many modern, most modern and now classic works confirming the variability of the genome, I will cite only one paragraph and only for one reason: it is written L.A. Zhivotovsky, employee of the Institute of General Genetics named after. N.I. Vavilova (!) RAS.
“So, the only thing that remains on the issue under discussion is to call a spade a spade. Namely, J. Lamarck’s hypothesis about the inheritance of acquired characteristics is correct. A new trait may arise through the formation of protein/DNA/RNA regulatory complexes, modification of chromatin, or changes in the DNA of somatic cells and then be transmitted to offspring ... "(Zhivotovsky L.A. “Inheritance of acquired characteristics: Lamarck was right.” “Chemistry and Life”, 2003. No. 4. pp. 22-26).
So, geneticists working at the Institute named after. N.I. Vavilov, in fact, the “Vavilovites” confirm Lysenko’s rightness! What remains for them?
Of course, the range of interests and active work Lysenko was not limited to genetics. And of course, this is another reason to reproach him for being a dork. For example, for the introduction of the method of planting potatoes with the tops of tubers on March 22, 1943, T.D. Lysenko was awarded the Stalin Prize of the first degree.
If anyone doesn’t know: this means cutting the tuber into pieces, one eye for each, and using them as planting material instead of the whole tuber. You can go even further - use only the eye with a small fragment of the tuber - the top - for planting, and eat the rest of the potato.
“Trofim Lysenko took the risk of preparing these tops in the fall and eating the planting potatoes themselves during the winter, which was incredible - no one believed that the tops could be saved as planting material until spring. He also took the risk of sowing crops over the stubble. This method, which saves the soil from erosion, is still used both here on virgin lands and in Canada...”(Kyiv Telegraph, 2010, November).
Fi, planting potatoes with tops, ha ha! But the date of the award says a lot about how this method helped save the country from hunger, helped feed the nation and ultimately win the war. From one tuber you can get one potato bush or five to ten bushes, plus saved potatoes, which truly became “second bread” during the Second World War, is there a difference? For armchair science, probably none. And during the war - big, huge!
“In 1936, Trofim Lysenko developed a method of minting (removing the tops of shoots) of cotton, and this agrotechnical technique, which increases cotton yield, is still used everywhere throughout the world. In 1939, he developed new agricultural technology for millet, which made it possible to increase the yield from 8-9 to 15 centners per hectare. In the pre-war years, he proposed using summer planting of potatoes in the southern regions of the Soviet Union to improve its varietal qualities. And its forest belts, which protected millions of hectares in the USSR from dry winds, and the use of natural enemies of agricultural pests instead of pesticides?..”(Kyiv Telegraph, 2010, November)
That is why on September 10, 1945, Lysenko was awarded the next Order of Lenin “for the successful completion of the government’s task during the war to provide the front and the country’s population with food.” Also nonsense, of course. And Lysenko has many such achievements, not just the Order of Lenin, but he had eight of them(!) (the same amount as A.N. Tupolev and S.V. Ilyushin), was not awarded just like that. Under Stalin, orders of Lenin were not simply awarded.
Word to the People's Commissar and Minister of Agriculture of the USSR I.A. Benediktov:
“...After all, it is a fact that on the basis of Lysenko’s work such varieties of agricultural crops as spring wheat “Lutents-1173”, “Odesskaya-13”, barley “Odessky-14”, cotton “Odessky-1” were created, a number of agrotechnical methods were developed , including vernalization, cotton minting. A devoted student of Lysenko, who highly revered him until the end of his days, was Pavel Panteleimonovich Lukyanenko, perhaps our most talented and prolific breeder, who has 15 zoned varieties of winter wheat, including the world-famous “Bezostaya-1”, “Aurora” ", "Caucasus"..."
The key words here are “may be interpreted” as sabotage. Conscious or unconscious is difficult to prove, the main thing is facts. Waste - sabotage! Here are the words of N.I. himself. Vavilov from the interrogation protocol:
“One of the main sabotage measures was the creation of an excessively large number of narrowly specialized, completely non-viable, scientific research institutes... divorced from direct agronomic work, this led to disorganization of scientific research work... to the scattering of already insufficient personnel and caused completely unnecessary large government expenditures..."(Protocol of interrogation of N.I. Vavilov on September 6, 1940)
All the fault of N.I. Vavilov was waste of huge public funds, including foreign exchange, which today, strictly speaking, is a crime. Another thing is that today they are not punished for this, they are not even deprived of bonuses. And in the difficult pre-war years, when every ruble counted, they questioned and punished.
But T.D. Lysenko spoke about this, repeatedly, persuaded, exhorted:
“I have repeatedly stated to Mendelian geneticists: let’s not argue, I won’t become a Mendelian anyway. It's not a matter of arguing, but let's work together according to a strictly scientifically developed plan. Let's take certain problems, receive orders from the People's Commissariat for Health of the USSR and carry them out scientifically. The paths for carrying out this or that practically important scientific work can be discussed, you can even argue about these paths, but arguing is not pointless...”(“Under the Banner of Marxism”, No. 11, 1939)
Actually, Vavilov was quite normal "academic scientist", cut off from his country and his people. Perhaps this can be forgiven for an “academic scientist,” but this is not what he was allocated money for, and this is not what he promised, but the creation of new varieties. And he didn’t fulfill his promise, he squandered the money, which means he deliberately misled and deceived the state. And you won’t be jailed for this? Scold him and let him go? This is probably what Vavilov was counting on. But I couldn’t get away with it, I had to sit down.
Vavilov’s trouble was the timing. In some 1970s, he would have received great prizes and titles. But in order to finance purely theoretical science, without practical return, requires exceptionally favorable conditions, few people can afford it. Of course, such conditions did not exist either in the 1930s or 1940s! But Vavilov pointedly ignored this fact, and he paid for it.
By the way, when this happened, everyone happily began to kick him, without in the least challenging the justice of the accusations. The people “in white robes” readily betrayed their comrade-in-arms and teacher. The only one who refused to participate in the condemnation campaign was... Lysenko! Testimony T.D. Lysenko:
“In response to the question asked, what do I know about the sabotage activities of N.I. Vavilov on the destruction of the seed collection at VIR, I answer: I know that Academician N.I. Vavilov collected this collection. I don’t know anything about the fact that he destroyed this collection...” Signature: Academician T.D. Lysenko. (From the investigation materials in the case of N.I. Vavilov)
From an interview with I.A. Benediktova:
“When Vavilov was arrested, his closest supporters and “friends,” shielding themselves, one after another began to confirm the investigator’s “sabotage” version. Lysenko, who by that time had disagreed with Vavilov on scientific positions, flatly refused to do this and confirmed his refusal in writing. But for aiding the “enemies of the people” at that time, people with a much higher position than Lysenko could have suffered, which he, of course, knew very well...”(Benediktov I.A. “About Stalin and Khrushchev.” Young Guard. 1989. No. 4.)
Well, what about the film based on Dudintsev’s book? "White Clothes"? The action takes place after the war in connection with the so-called “defeat of VASKHNIL and genetics.” Although, as we know, we can only talk about the defeat of the Weismannists, followers of N.I. Vavilov, but not geneticists and not VASKHNIL. Genetics in the USSR both developed and continued to develop, and no one decisively smashed her!
Word T.D. Lysenko:
“Approval of Academician. Serebrovsky that I deny the often observed facts of diversity of hybrid offspring in a 3:1 ratio is also incorrect. We don't deny this. We deny your position that this ratio cannot be manipulated. Based on the concept we are developing, it will be possible (and quite soon) to control fission..."(T.D. Lysenko “Agrobiology. Works on genetics, selection and seed production.” 6th edition. M.: Selkhozgiz, 1952. – p. 195.)
Thus, the work was carried out with the same notorious “Mendelian splitting”, the existence of which, according to Dudintsev, Lysenko allegedly denied! So genetics clearly has nothing to do with it. Here's a summary of what happened:
IN 1946-47 gg. Weismanists launched an attack against Lysenko, trying to remove him from the post of president of VASKHNIL. At first, their offensive, carried out with the involvement of the party apparatus and attempts to exert pressure by the foreign press, was successful. However, it ultimately failed. At the August session of VASKhNIL 1948, T.D. Lysenko and his group, supported by Stalin, defeated their opponents. Why I.V. Stalin supported Lysenko, of course. Because he knew very well that his work was beneficial to the country, and the Weismannists were useless.
“As a result of many years of work, Dubinin “enriched” science with the “discovery” that during the war, in the fly population of fruit flies in Voronezh and its environs, there was an increase in the percentage of flies with some chromosomal differences and a decrease in other fruit flies with other differences in chromosomes. Dubinin is not limited to the discoveries he made during the war, so “highly valuable” for theory and practice, he sets himself further tasks for the recovery period and writes: “It will be very interesting to study over the next few years the restoration of the karyotypic structure of the city’s population in connection with the restoration normal conditions life." (Movement in the hall. Laughter). This is the typical “contribution” of Morganists to science and practice before the war, during the war, and these are the prospects of Morganist “science” for the recovery period! (Applause)". (From the report of T.D. Lysenko at the session of the All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences in 1948)
East. Chronicles: 1938 - Vavilov And LysenkO
Michurintsy are against« geneticists» : in defense of LysenkO
"White Clothes"(all series)
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Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov is the largest Russian scientist - geneticist, plant breeder, creator of the law on homological series, on hereditary changes in organisms, author of doctrines on plant immunity, on the biological foundations of selection, on the world centers of origin of plants, the first president of the All-Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
Nikolai Vavilov - academician of the USSR and Ukrainian SSR, creator of the world's largest collection of seeds of cultivated plants. And this is far from a complete list of the merits of the great scientist, whose name glorified Russia. The future scientist was born on November 25, 1887 in the family of the Moscow merchant of the 2nd guild, entrepreneur and public figure Ivan Vavilov, who came from a peasant background. Only thanks to his extraordinary abilities he managed to become a major entrepreneur.
Before the revolution of 1917, I.I. Vavilov headed the manufacturing company Udalov and Vavilov. His mother, A.M. Postnikova, was the daughter of an engraver. The Vavilovs had seven children, although three died at a young age. All the children eventually became famous specialists, and two of them, Nikolai and Sergei, became presidents of the Academies.
Nikolai Vavilov received his primary education at a Moscow commercial school, after which he entered the Agricultural Institute in 1906. Later, the scientist will remember Petrovka with great warmth and will call the fact of entering this institute a “happy accident” (today it is the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy).
Its independent research about naked slugs (snails) - pests of garden plants and winter crops, received a prize from the Polytechnic Museum and was counted as a diploma. After graduating from the Institute in 1911, Vavilov was left at the department of private agriculture on the initiative of his teacher - the famous biologist, founder of agrochemical science in Russia D.N. Pryanishnikov. In 1912, a young researcher’s work appeared on the connection between agronomy and genetics, in which he was one of the first to propose using the achievements of genetics to improve cultivated plants.
In 1912, he married Ekaterina Sakharova, who shared her husband’s views and dreamed of becoming an agronomist since childhood. To complete his education, Vavilov and his wife go abroad, most spends time in England, near London, in the laboratory of one of the founders of genetics - the famous English biologist W. Bateson.
At Merton, Vavilov conducts experiments on plant immunity. In addition to his main specialty - immunology, Vavilov is interested in news of genetics and agricultural technology. In 1916, the young scientist visited Northern Iran, the Pamirs, Fergana and, based on the collected material, made major discoveries: 1 - established the laws of homological series; 2 - established centers for the distribution of cultivated plants.
Since 1917 N.I. Vavilov is a professor at Saratov University, where he heads the department of private agriculture and breeding. Here he continued his research on a number of crops and in 1919 published his famous monograph on plant immunity to various infectious diseases.
His discovery placed him among the world's leading biologists. In November 1918, Vavilov’s son was born in Moscow. Nikolai Ivanovich's father, without waiting for the birth of his grandson, goes abroad to Bulgaria. He returned back to Russia only in 1926, agreeing to his son’s entreaties.
In 1921, Vavilov moved to Petrograd, where he headed the Department of Applied Botany, which was reorganized in 1924 into the All-Union Institute of Applied Botany and New Crops; in 1930, it was renamed the All-Union Institute of Plant Growing. Until August 1940, Vavilov was its permanent leader.
For twenty years, Nikolai Ivanovich led many expeditions, the purpose of which was to study and collect samples of the flora of Central Asia, the Mediterranean and other countries. As a result, VIR collected a unique collection of plants, which contains about 300 thousand specimens.
In 1926, N. Vavilov was awarded the Lenin Prize for outstanding achievements in the field of immunity. For research in Afghanistan he was awarded a gold medal named after. Przhevalsky, and in 1940 - the Great Gold Medal of the Air Force for outstanding work in breeding and seed production.
In 1929, he was elected academician of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences and almost simultaneously - its president. Nikolai Vavilov was an active participant in International Genetic Congresses and All-Union Agricultural Exhibitions. With his assistance, the All-Russian Olympiad, congresses and various seminars on genetics were organized.
Unfortunately, the campaign started by T.D. Lysenko, a former student of Vavilov, supported by party ideologists, led to the scientist being accused of sabotage and soon arrested. As a result, Soviet genetics, like most important industry science was liquidated, and many scientists were repressed.
26.01. 1943 The great scientist died in Saratov prison. And only in 1955, all charges against the scientist were dropped, he was rehabilitated and restored to the list of academicians.
Soviet botanist, plant breeder and geneticist, academician (since 1929, corresponding member since 1923), full member of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, full member of the All-Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences (1929). Brother famous physicist S. I. Vavilova. In 1911 he graduated from the Moscow Agricultural Institute and was left to prepare for the professorship. In 1917-21 - Professor at Saratov University. In 1921 he moved to Petrograd (Leningrad), where in 1923-29. was director State Institute experimental agronomy, in 1924-40. – Director of the All-Union Institute of Applied Botany and New Crops (later the All-Union Institute of Plant Growing). In 1930-40 - Director of the Institute of Genetics of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1929-35. - President, 1935-37. - Vice-President of VASKhNIL.
In order to study the plant growing resources of the globe, on the initiative of N. I. Vavilov, numerous expeditions were organized, in most of which he took personal part. In addition to various regions of the USSR, N. I. Vavilov traveled to Iran, Afghanistan, the Mediterranean countries, Ethiopia, Xinjiang, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and the countries of North, Central and South America. The world's richest collection of cultivated plants, collected (as a result of expeditions) at the All-Union Institute of Plant Growing, was widely used for a comprehensive and systematic study of them and served as the source material for selection and introduction. N.I. Vavilov was a major expert on cultural flora (especially cereals). Vavilov's work on the origin of cultivated plants became widely known. He established the main centers of origin of cultivated plants.
While studying variability, he observed various types and even plant genera, the existence of repeating similar, parallel series of forms (i.e., forms similar in their morphological and physiological characteristics), which gave the name “homologous series” (“The Law of Homologous Series in Hereditary Variation”, 1920). N.I. Vavilov carried out works on plant immunity to infectious diseases. He proposed his classification of immunity phenomena (mechanical and physiological immunity). For his work on the origin of cultivated plants and plant immunity, N. I. Vavilov was awarded the Prize. V. I. Lenin (1926); For geographical research in Afghanistan, the All-Union Geographical Society awarded Vavilov a gold medal. Przhevalsky.
In August 1940, Vavilov was arrested. He was charged false accusations in espionage, sabotage, leadership of the never-existent “Labor Peasant Party”. On July 9, 1941, Vavilov was sentenced to death. Until January 1943 he was in prisons, including on death row, in Moscow and Saratov, where he died in a prison hospital.
Bibliography
- Biographical dictionary of figures in natural science and technology. T. 1. – Moscow: State. scientific publishing house "Big Soviet Encyclopedia", 1958. - 548 p.
Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov as a geographer and traveler
The range of scientific interests of N. I. Vavilov was very extensive. Vavilov belonged to the now almost extinct type of encyclopedist scientist who successfully developed a number of branches of science simultaneously. The most important of the sciences in which Vavilov left bright traces are botany, scientific agronomy and geography. Among the more specific branches of knowledge are plant growing with genetics and plant selection, phytopathology and, finally, the geography of cultivated plants, the founder of which he was along with the 19th-century Swiss botanist Alphonse Decandol.
At the center of Vavilov’s work were invariably cultivated plants, their origin, role and significance in the life and development of mankind. Having begun to study the nature of the immunity of cultivated plants to infectious diseases and, in connection with this, the varietal diversity of these plants, he realized the need to clarify not only purely genetic, but also geographical patterns of variability. So the plant pathologist became both a geneticist and a geographer. A deep study of the geography of cultivated plants on the globe aroused in Vavilov a natural interest in the problems of the history of agriculture, and then in the history of the material culture of mankind in general.
As a true patriot and progressive thinker, Vavilov spent his entire life striving for a close unification of theory with the needs of practice. The scientific generalizations he created were supposed to serve as a theoretical basis for the mobilization of the world's plant resources for the needs of agriculture and industry. That is why he acted as the largest organizer of Soviet agricultural science.
In this essay we will focus only on one aspect of Vavilov’s multifaceted activities - in the most general terms we will characterize him as a geographer and traveler. Recognition of Vavilov's merits in this area was expressed in his election as president of the All-Union Geographical Society. He held this responsible and honorable post in 1931-1940.
Vavilov was born in Moscow on November 26, 1887. He received his secondary education at the Moscow Commercial School, which he graduated in 1906, and his higher education at the Moscow Agricultural Institute (MSHI), the former Petrovsky Agricultural Academy [Moscow Agricultural Academy named after K. A. Timiryazev] , from which he graduated in 1911. The departments of the institute at that time were well equipped and were headed by a number of prominent professors and teachers. His teachers had a significant influence on the formation of Vavilov as a scientist: D. N. Pryanishnikov (agrochemistry and plant growing), D. L. Rudzinsky (plant breeding), S. I. Rostovtsev (botany and phytopathology), (soil science), N. M. Kulagin (zoology), S. I. Zhegalov (genetics and selection), N. N. Khudyakov (microbiology), etc.
The young scientist received great scientific energy from attending meetings of our oldest natural history societies (the Moscow Society of Naturalists and especially the Society of Lovers of Natural History, Anthropology and Ethnography), where geographical meetings were usually chaired by a venerable scientist.
After graduating from the institute, Vavilov was left at the department of prof. D. N. Pryanishnikov for preparation for the professorship. In 1913, the institute sent him abroad to complete his education. The young scientist worked in a number of famous biological and agronomic laboratories and institutes in England, France and Germany with famous representatives of world science, with whom he established close relationships. friendly relations. Vavilov captivated many of these scientists with his bright individuality, original generalizations, breadth of interests and depth of knowledge of the material.
Upon returning from abroad in 1914, Vavilov continued his scientific activities at the Moscow Agricultural Institute and began teaching work. He became a teacher at the Golitsyn agricultural courses in Moscow, and from 1917 to 1921 he was a professor at Saratov University in the department of private agriculture and selection.
In 1921, Vavilov was elected head of the Department of Applied Botany and Selection of the Agricultural Scientific Committee. In 1921-1922 Vavilov was on a business trip to the USA and Western European countries. He became acquainted with the formulation of the case in biological, agronomic and some geographical institutes of the USA, Canada, England, France, Germany, Sweden and Holland. As a result of this trip, scientific ties between Russia and a number of foreign countries were restored, and valuable foreign literature, a number of reviews of the achievements of world science were made.
In 1923, Vavilov was elected director of the State Institute of Experimental Agronomy, which he held until mid-1929. In 1924-1940. he was the director of the All-Union Institute of Applied Botany and New Crops, which he created, later renamed the All-Union Institute of Plant Growing (VIR). From the moment of the organization of the All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences named after V.I. Lenin, Vavilov took an active part in its work: he was (1929-1935) its president, and later (1935-1940) - vice-president. In 1930-1940 Vavilov was the director of the Institute of Genetics of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He was repressed and died on August 2, 1942 in a Saratov prison.
Vavilov’s merits were noted by numerous Soviet and foreign academies and scientific societies: Academy of Sciences of the USSR (academician since 1929), Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR (academician), All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences named after V.I. Lenin (academician), Moscow Society of Natural Scientists (honorary member), Royal Society of London (member), Scottish Academy of Sciences (member), Leopoldine Academy of Sciences at Halle (corresponding member), Indian Academy of Sciences (honorary member), New York Geographical Society (full member), Linnean Society of London (honorary member), Horticultural Society of London (honorary member).
Vavilov was repeatedly elected as a deputy of the Leningrad City Council, and in 1925-1936. he was a member of the USSR Central Executive Committee.
Vavilov managed to rally a large friendly team around himself at the All-Union Institute of Applied Botany and New Cultures (with good reason, it was called “Vavilov’s school”). All work at the institute was carried out on the basis of the theory of the origin of cultivated plants developed by Vavilov and was aimed at using an assortment of useful plants (wild and cultivated) for the needs and improvement of human life.
Vavilov never considered the theory he developed as something unshakable, not requiring new confirmation and protected from criticism. The works of Vavilov himself, his students and like-minded people constantly deepened the theory of the origin of cultivated plants.
The institute headed by Vavilov became a generally recognized world research center, which also played a major role in the development of the geography of cultivated plants, and in the geographical knowledge of a number of the most interesting, little-studied territories of the Earth (both lowland and mountainous). The Institute had a network of peripheral departments, experimental stations, a valuable herbarium of cultivated plants and a unique so-called “world collection of seeds” (it was collected by Vavilov, his employees and correspondents from samples of useful plants growing in the wild and cultivated all over the world; by 1940 . it numbered up to 200,000 samples).
Working literally tirelessly, Vavilov, together with his employees, organized, according to a specific, strictly tested and methodically uniform program, extensive crops of various varieties of cultivated plants in different regions. natural conditions zones These, for the first time in the world, organized geographical experiments to study the individual variability of cultivated plants, begun in 1923, were carried out first in 25 and then in 115 points of the Soviet Union. Already preliminary processing of the materials from these experiments helped to identify a number of patterns regarding changes in the duration of the growing season for certain groups of plants, to establish constant characteristics that should be the basis for the classification of cultivated plants, to outline recommendations for the placement of their crops, etc.
Based on the richest store of facts, Vavilov made a number of major generalizations and introduced fundamentally new points of view into science. For genetics and taxonomy, Vavilov’s “law of homological series in hereditary variability” is of particular importance, which makes it possible to predict the discovery of new organic forms, for phytopathology - the classification of types of immunity, and for geography - the identification of the centers of origin of cultivated plants.
It should be added that Vavilov developed and published interesting considerations about the Linnaean species in plants (Linneon). He considered the latter “as an isolated complex mobile morphological and physiological system, associated in its genesis with a specific environment and area.” According to Vavilov, plant species are natural, truly existing real complexes, mobile systems, covering categories of different volumes and subordination.
The creation of a theory of the origin and geographical distribution of cultivated plants, the mobilization of the Earth's plant wealth and the collection of a world collection of seeds and samples of useful plants could not be carried out without the systematic organization of expeditions and excursions both within the country and abroad. Vavilov himself participated in numerous expeditions, a simple list of which once again confirms the huge range of geographical interests of this scientist. Vavilov explored the most diverse territories of the globe. and the famous English scientist E.D. Russell characterized Vavilov as the most outstanding world traveler of our time.
While still a student, Vavilov made his first expedition, visiting the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia in 1908.
In 1916, he traveled to Northern Iran, Fergana and the Pamirs and found the original so-called non-league forms of cereals.
In 1919-1920 Vavilov explored the southeast of the European part of the USSR and in the book “Field Crops of the South-East” he gave a summary of all the cultivated plants of the Volga and Trans-Volga regions, the questions of the origin of which he examined against the background of physical, geographical and historical conditions.
In 1921-1922 Vavilov traveled to many regions of Canada and the USA and, in particular, studied the agricultural culture in Indian villages (reserves) in the northern states of the USA.
In 1924, one of the most remarkable and productive expeditions, based on published materials, was carried out within Afghanistan, including to the geographically almost unlit areas of Kafiristan. The expedition traveled about 5,000 km along the caravan route. Its fruit was a large book (written jointly with D. D. Bukinich) - “Agricultural Afghanistan”. It is a truly geographical work. Besides detailed description of all cultivated and wild useful plants, the work contains the first such detailed and comprehensive geographical and economic description of Afghanistan in world literature. We find in this monograph a physical-geographical, hydrogeological and soil-botanical overview of the country, a description of its geographical and agricultural landscapes, a review of the ethnic composition of the agricultural population, information about the types of agricultural culture of Afghanistan (with the inclusion of a special section “Mountain cultural zones and the limits of cultivation of individual plants "), chapters devoted to cotton growing and viticulture.
As a result of the geographical and ethnic study of Kafiristan, Vavilov came to an important geographical conclusion about the need to clarify the very concept of Kafiristan. By Kafiristan he understood the region enclosed between the main massif of the Hindu Kush from the north and its southern spurs to the parallel of Gussalik from the south, i.e., half as long in extent from north to south as was previously thought. The author is inclined to believe that the population of Kafiristan - the infidels - “in the original basis... are close to the Tajiks ethnic group" Geographical isolation, a unique local landscape, and the persistence of idolatry until the end of the 19th century characterize the identity and originality of Kafiristan.
For the Afghanistan expedition, Vavilov was awarded the gold medal named after N. M. Przhevalsky by the Geographical Society.
In 1925, Vavilov worked in Central Asia, he explored the Khiva oasis and visited Bukhara. In the work “Cultivated Plants of the Khiva Oasis,” along with a botanical and agronomic sketch, some geographical information is also provided.
In 1926-1927 Vavilov covers with his research a complex of countries located in the basin Mediterranean Sea. He visited Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Transjordan, Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, including the islands of Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus and Crete. In 1927, Vavilov entered Ethiopia (Abyssinia) and Eritrea through French Somalia.
Unfortunately, except short articles devoted to the description of observations made in some of the countries mentioned above (Spain, Egypt, Abyssinia, etc.), as well as some special publications (Abyssinian wheat, etc.), Vavilov was unable to publish complete monographic reports summarizing the results of these heroic research. In all his expeditions and excursions, Vavilov carefully kept diaries, which he considered as preparatory materials for future reports.
Until his arrest in 1940, Vavilov continued his travels with the same energy and persistence. So, in 1929 he visited Western China (Xinjiang), Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and in the fall - a number of countries in the Far East: Japan, Korea and the island of Taiwan. He outlined his impressions from these trips in two articles: “Western China, Korea, Japan, Formosa Island” and “Science in Japan.”
In 1930, he traveled to the USA (Florida, Louisiana, Arizona, Texas, California), Mexico, Guatemala and the tropical part of Honduras. In 1932-1933 Vavilov made a personal acquaintance with the countries of South America: Cuba, Mexico (Yucatan), Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Trinidad, Puerto Rico.
Among the generalizing articles related to Central Asia, “The Role of Central Asia in the Origin of Cultivated Plants” stands out, and among the articles that treat the ancient agricultural cultures of America, “The Great Agricultural Cultures of Pre-Columbian America and Their Relationships” and “Mexico and Central America as the main center of origin of cultivated plants of the New World."
The ancient Mexican agricultural culture, associated with the Mayan people and those close to them, differs from the agricultural cultures of the Old World in the absence of farm animals and, before the introduction of Europeans into this culture, was carried out using manual labor. A number of cultural endemic species that have not gone beyond the boundaries of this territory have been preserved here. The author provides a description of these endemic species. Since the beginning of agriculture, corn has played the main role here. Vavilov believed that “the very development of agriculture, and indeed the entire sedentary culture of southern Mexico and the adjacent regions of Central America, was associated with the presence of original wild forms of corn, which, unfortunately, no longer exist today or have not yet been found.”
In the highlands of Peru and Bolivia, in the area of the highland Peruvian-Bolivian steppes (Puna), a special pre-Inca, otherwise megalithic, culture of the Indians was concentrated. In the mountainous regions of the Andes, unlike Mexico and Central America, along with agriculture (a special Andean agricultural culture), original animal husbandry (breeding llamas, alpacas, etc.) is developed. Based on botanical-geographical and climatological facts, Vavilov sharply distinguishes the ancient high-mountain, usually non-irrigated agriculture of the Puna, i.e., the mountain steppes of Peru and Bolivia, from the later irrigated agriculture associated with the desert and semi-desert regions of the western slopes of the Andes.
In addition to the mentioned main expeditions conducted by Vavilov, he studied in detail the plant resources of the following countries in genetic aspect: the USA, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Denmark and Sweden.
Along with the study of foreign countries, Vavilov systematically continued the study of various regions of the USSR, focusing on Special attention Caucasus and Central Asia. In 1934-1940 he traveled to the Caucasus almost every year, covering the most inaccessible corners of this region for a naturalist and geographer. The last in his expeditionary activities was a complex expedition in 1940, which he led, directed to the western regions of the Byelorussian SSR and Ukrainian SSR (including the Carpathians).
In terms of the range of travels he carried out, Vavilov can be placed on a par with the most outstanding travelers of all times and peoples, for example, F. Richthofen, and others. Vavilov continued the glorious traditions of domestic travelers. This powerful expeditionary activity of Vavilov alone gives every right to inscribe his name in golden letters among the luminaries of Russian geography.
Vavilov’s main research, as already mentioned, relates to the origin of cultivated plants in connection with their geography. It was for these works that Vavilov, one of the first Soviet scientists, was awarded the V. I. Lenin Prize in 1926. These works should be discussed in a little more detail.
Vavilov repeatedly emphasized “the need for a broad geographical approach to the study of the evolution of species from the initial homeland, where the plant was taken into cultivation, to the final links of modern evolution.” In one of his last works, Vavilov wrote: “Translated into the language of modern biogeography, Darwin’s geographical idea of evolution is that each species is localized in its initial origin, evolution is historical and therefore knowledge of the origins of the species, the ways of its geographical distribution is crucial in understanding paths of evolution, in mastering its stages, in tracing the dynamics of the evolutionary process.”
Like Darwin, Vavilov came from the question of the evolution of species from a geographical point of view to the recognition of the connection between the emergence of species and a certain unified region. In order to establish the centers of origin of cultivated plants, he applied the differential botanical-geographical method.
According to Vavilov, the homeland of a cultivated plant is determined by: 1) the greatest morphological and physiological diversity of the characteristics of a given plant, the diversity manifested in a certain territory of its distribution (area), 2) the mountainous nature of the foci (centers) of origin, usually lying in the tropics or subtropics, 3) the antiquity or primitiveness of agriculture of a given focus.
Vavilov and his collaborators found that many types of cultivated plants, such as rye and oats, in their genesis are weeds, which in their homeland clogged primary crops such as wheat and barley. Thus, back in 1917, Vavilov proved that cultivated rye originated from wild rye that infested wheat and barley crops in South-West Asia.
In his large work “Centers of Origin of Cultivated Plants,” published in 1926, Vavilov established five main world centers of origin of cultivated plants. Subsequently, Vavilov significantly detailed and clarified this initial list of centers of origin of cultivated plants; some of them received new names; others, small ones, under the name of foci are subordinated to larger ones.
1) The South Asian tropical center (the territories of tropical India, Indochina, southern tropical China and the islands of Southeast Asia) gave rise to about 33% of all types of cultivated plants, including: rice, sugar cane, lemon, orange. It consists of three centers: Indian, Indochine (including Southern China) and Island (this includes the Sunda Islands, Java, Sumatra, Kalimantan, Philippines, etc.).
2) The East Asian center (temperate and subtropical regions of Central and Eastern China, Korea, Japan, part of the island of Taiwan) produced up to 20% of all types of cultivated plants (not counting ornamental ones). In this center, the main Chinese and secondary Japanese outbreaks are noted.
3) South-West Asian center (inner mountainous Asia Minor, Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia and North-West India) with foci: Caucasian, Western Asian and north-western Indian. The total species composition of cultivated plants associated by origin with this center is equal to about 14% of the world's entire cultivated flora, including a number of species of wheat, rye, grapes, walnuts, figs, and alfalfa.
4) Mediterranean center. Covers a number of countries located along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Approximately 11% of cultivated plant species are genetically related to this center, including olive, carob, and a number of vegetables (for example, beets).
5) The Abyssinian center (Ethiopia and Eritrea) gave only 4% of the species to the world's cultural flora, including barley, the cereal - teff, and the oil plant - nougat. The Mountain Arabian (Yemen) focus is adjacent to it.
6) The Central American center, including Southern Mexico, is divided into three centers: Mountainous South Mexican, Central American and West Indian Island. This center produced plants such as corn and teosinte, American species pumpkins, peppers, upland cotton, cocoa.
7) Andean center (in South America), divided into foci: Andean proper (mountainous regions of Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador), Chiloan (Araucanian) in Southern Chile and on the island of Chiloe and Bogotan in Eastern Colombia. Here, in particular, is the birthplace of potatoes and many peculiar tubers (oka, anyu, ulyuho).
The identified seven main geographical centers of cultivated plants are associated both with the richest floristic complexes of the Earth and with the most ancient civilizations.
All of Vavilov’s works are distinguished by their exceptional wealth of factual material; they are illustrated with numerous photographs (most of them are unique, taken in nature personally by Vavilov, who was an extraordinary photographer), drawings and maps. Of great interest are maps of the distribution of important cultivated plants, as well as the areas of agricultural crops, agricultural boundaries, etc.
In conclusion, it should be noted that Vavilov was a major plant introducer. On his initiative, new valuable crops were introduced into the plant growing of the Soviet Union, for example, rubber plants - guayule, cinchona, jute, tung tree, a number of citrus fruits, some varieties of tea bush, new essential oils, tannins, medicinal plants and others.
A great worker, a great thinker, a brilliant scientific organizer, a patriot, public figure, a humanist and at the same time a simple, accessible person - this is how the vivid image of the natural explorer and geographer Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov entered history and will remain in it for many centuries.
Bibliography
- Lipshits S. Yu. Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov as a geographer and traveler / S. Yu. Lipshits, D. V. Lebedev // Domestic physical geographers and travelers. – Moscow: State educational and pedagogical publishing house of the Ministry of Education of the RSFSR, 1959. – P. 537-547.
Vavilov Nikolay Ivanovich, short biography which is studied in the school curriculum, is a famous plant breeder, geographer, founder of the doctrine of the origin of cultivated plants and the biological foundations of selection, initiator of the creation of many research institutions, born in Moscow on November 25, 1887.
The Russian scientist made an invaluable contribution to science, which was recognized by biologists around the world.
Passion for plants stems from childhood
Nikolai's father, Ivan Ilyich, came from a peasant family, was a merchant of the second guild and was engaged in social activities. Before the revolution, he headed the Udalov and Vavilov manufacturing factory. Mom - Alexandra Mikhailovna - was the daughter of an artist-carver of the Prokhovskaya manufactory. In total, there were seven children in the family, three of them died in childhood. The younger brother of the future scientist, Sergei Vavilov, devoted his life to physics, founded a scientific school of physical optics in the USSR, and headed the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1945-1951. The elder sister Alexandra chose the medical path, becoming the organizer of sanitary and hygienic networks in Moscow. Lydia, the younger sister, trained as a microbiologist, during one of the expeditions she became infected and died.
Nikolai Vavilov, whose short biography is interesting to his admirers scientific activity, unlike other children, from childhood he was fascinated by the flora and fauna and had a high predisposition to the natural sciences. This hobby was facilitated by rare books, herbariums and geographical maps, which were available in my father’s large library and contributed to the formation of the personality of the future geneticist.
Vavilov Nikolai Ivanovich: short biography for children
By the will of his father, Nikolai Vavilov entered a commercial school. Upon graduation, in 1906, he became a student at the Agricultural Institute (Faculty of Agronomy) in Moscow. The year 1908 was marked by a student expedition to Transcaucasia and North Caucasus, where Vavilov N.I., whose brief biography is compulsorily studied in the school curriculum, conducted geographical and botanical research. In 1910, agronomic practice took place at the Poltava Experimental Station, which charged Vavilov for further fruitful work.
From 1911 to 1912, he completed an internship in St. Petersburg, the purpose of which was to gain a more in-depth understanding of the geography of cultivated cereals, study their characteristics and diseases, and in 1913, he traveled abroad to complete his education. In Germany, Nikolai Ivanovich worked for some time in the laboratory of a German philosopher and naturalist; in France, he became acquainted with new achievements in seed breeding; in England, under the guidance of Professor William Bateson (one of the outstanding geneticists of the time), whom Vavilov considered his teacher, he studied disease resistance. First World War was the reason for the interruption of the business trip, and Nikolai Ivanovich was forced to return to Moscow, where he continued his work on the study of plant immunity, conducting experiments in the capital’s nurseries in tandem with Professor S. I. Zhegalov.
Why did Russian soldiers die in Persia?
In 1916, Nikolai Vavilov received a master's degree, successfully passing the exams; During the same period, he, exempt from military service due to a visual defect (his eye was damaged in childhood), was recruited as a consultant on issues of mass diseases in Persia for Russian army soldiers. Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov was able to identify the cause of the disease. A short biography for children in grade 2 describes that pieces of seeds containing the fungus Stromantinia temulenta, which produces a substance that can cause poisoning in humans - the alkaloid temulin, were mixed into the flour. The result of its action was loss of consciousness, convulsions, drowsiness and dizziness; there was a possibility of death. The problem was solved by banning the consumption of local products; supplies of provisions began to be carried out from Russia.
Having received permission from the military leadership to conduct an expedition, Vavilov went deep into Iran, setting the goal of studying samples of local cereals. Having sowed Persian wheat seeds in England, Nikolai Ivanovich tried to infect it with powdery mildew in various ways, even using nitrogen fertilizer, which caused the development of the disease. All attempts were unsuccessful, on the basis of which scientists concluded that plant immunity is directly dependent on the environmental conditions of the initial formation of this species. It was on this expedition that Nikolai Ivanovich came up with an assumption about the pattern of hereditary variability.
Career successes
The year 1917 was marked for Vavilov by the election of assistants to the head of the Department of Applied Botany on the recommendation of R. E. Regel. None of the scientists working on plant immunity could come so close to the topic, while comprehensively covering the issue, as Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov did. A short biography for children tells that in 1917 the scientist moved to Saratov, where at the Higher Courses he headed the department of selection, genetics and private agriculture. As a professor at the Faculty of Agronomy from 1917 to 1921 at Saratov University, Vavilov, in parallel with lecturing, began an experimental study of the immunity of agricultural crops. The result of this enormous work, including the study of several hundred varieties of wheat and oats, analysis of the immunity of varieties and their susceptibility to diseases, and identification of anatomical abilities, was the monograph “Plant Immunity to Infectious Diseases” published in 1919.
In 1920, he made a report on the law of hereditary variability of homologous series at the III All-Russian Congress, the organizing committee of which he headed. The report became the largest event in world biological science and was positively received by the scientific community.
Experiences, research, achievements
In 1920, having been elected to the post of head of the Department of Applied Botany and Selection, Nikolai Vavilov, whose short biography is described in many school textbooks, moved to Petrograd, where he began to conduct scientific work on a grand scale. Vavilov remained the head of this organization, which was eventually renamed the All-Union Institute of Plant Growing, until the end of 1940. Together with A. A. Yachevsky, Nikolai Ivanovich was sent to the USA, where he negotiated the supply of seeds, while at the same time exploring the grain regions of American territories. On the way back, the scientist visited Belgium, Holland, France, Sweden, England, where he held a number of meetings with scientists, got acquainted with breeding stations and scientific laboratories, established new connections and organized the purchase of scientific equipment, literature and varietal seed material.
The year 1923 was marked for Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov with his election to the post of director of the State Institute of Experimental Agronomy. On the initiative of the scientist in the 1920s, in various climatic and soil conditions of the USSR, a large number of scientific stations who studied and tested various forms of useful plants.
Invaluable contribution to science
The biography of Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov is closely connected with scientific expeditions carried out from 1924 to 1929. These are Afghanistan, Africa, the Mediterranean, Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea, during which scientists replenished the collection of seed material (counting in thousands of samples) and studied the areas of growth of cultivated plants.
In 1927, for the brilliant report “Geographical Experiments on the Study of the Variability of Cultivated Plants in the USSR,” which Nikolai Ivanovich presented in Rome at a conference of agricultural experts, the scientist was awarded a Gold Medal, and the conference decided to apply the system of geographical crops developed by Vavilov on a global scale.
Family of Nikolai Vavilov
Vavilov Nikolai Ivanovich, whose short biography tells about his enormous achievements in the world of science, was married twice. The scientist’s first wife was Ekaterina Nikolaevna Sakharova, from whose marriage a son, Oleg, was born. He died at the age of 28 in the Caucasus while climbing. The second wife is Doctor of Agricultural Sciences, biologist Elena Barulina, whom Nikolai Ivanovich has known since her student days (1918); the young girl took part in many of her mentor’s endeavors (including an expedition to the southeastern part of Russia), wrote articles included in Vavilov’s books on field crops. Nikolai Ivanovich and he created a family in 1926. From this marriage Yuri Vavilov was born, who became a doctor of physical and mathematical sciences, a nuclear physicist and did a lot to find information about his father and publish it.
Vavilov is responsible for the creation of institutes for fruit growing, vegetable and potato farming, subtropical crops, viticulture, feed, aromatic and medicinal plants- more than a hundred scientific institutions. In 1930, Nikolai Vavilov headed the genetic laboratory of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Leningrad, and in 1931 - the All-Union Geographical Society.
Arrest and false accusation
The successful career and world recognition of Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov gave no rest to his envious people, who wrote a letter with political accusations to Stalin, in which they accused Vavilov of being out of touch with the real needs of agriculture, of political promiscuity, in which Vavilov did not distinguish between the true enemies of Soviet power. At the same time, public persecution was carried out in periodicals. Since 1934, Nikolai Ivanovich was prohibited from traveling abroad, his work was considered unsatisfactory.
Vavilov was arrested in August 1940 and charged with counter-revolutionary activities. In 1941, the scientist was sentenced to death; The sentence was commuted in 1942 to a 20-year sentence. Nikolai Ivanovich died in the hospital having suffered from pneumonia and dysentery during his imprisonment; V Last year suffered from dystrophy throughout his life. Death occurred from a decline in cardiac activity. The Russian scientist was posthumously rehabilitated in 1955: all the charges brought against him turned out to be fabricated and untrue. Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov, whose short biography is interesting to a large number of his admirers, was buried in a common grave with the rest of the prisoners.