From 1906 to 1917, N. Vavilov, an outstanding scientist, the founder of new scientific directions in botany, plant growing, breeding, and genetics, studied and worked at our academy. He made a number of theoretical generalizations that have received worldwide recognition: the law of homological series of hereditary variability, the doctrine of the centers of origin of cultivated plants, the ecological-geographical principle of intraspecific taxonomy, the doctrine of plant immunity and the theory of introduction. It is very difficult to briefly talk about the life of such an outstanding person as Vavilov. Let's try to highlight the main milestones of his biography.

Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov was born on November 25, 1887 in Moscow. After graduating from the Moscow Commercial School, he entered the Moscow Agricultural Institute, and in 1913-1914 interned at leading plant growing and genetic institutions in Western Europe. His famous expeditions began in 1916.

Many of his journeys were truly heroic. For the expedition to Afghanistan, Vavilov received the Przhevalsky gold medal “For Geographical Feat.” His knowledge of about 20 foreign languages ​​and the ability to easily find a common language with different people helped him in his travels.

Vavilov's trips abroad ceased in the mid-thirties at the behest of Stalin. At a meeting with a group of scientists, Joseph Vissarionovich said that Russian scientists should think not about foreign trips, but about the harvest. Nikolai Ivanovich could no longer travel abroad.

The result of all Vavilov’s expeditions was one of the scientist’s main discoveries - the establishment of the main centers of origin of cultivated plants, which were also the centers of ancient civilizations.

Another of his most important theoretical generalizations was the law of homological series of hereditary variability. Nikolai Vavilov made a report about it in 1920 in Saratov at the third All-Russian Congress of Breeders.

The scientist derived a formula for this law: L 1 * (a+ b+ c+…), where L 1 – species radical, a characteristic common to all forms of Linneon (large species), distinguishing it from related species, and a, b , s, ... - varying characters that can be identical in different linneons.

In 1923, Vavilov was elected a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences and director of the Institute of Experimental Agronomy; in 1924, the scientist headed the All-Union Institute of Plant Growing; he set a difficult task for its employees: to collect all cultivated cultivated plants and their wild varieties, to learn how to grow and store their seeds . In 1929, he was elected a full member of the Academy of Sciences, organized the VASKhNIL (Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sciences), and became a laureate of the Lenin Prize. In 1930, Nikolai Ivanovich headed the country's first academic institution in genetics - a laboratory, which three years later became the Institute of Genetics of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He was also elected a foreign member of the Royal Society of London, the Czechoslovak, Scottish, Indian, and German Academies of Sciences, the Linnean Society in London, and the American Botanical Society. Accordingly, in the thirties, the greatness of the scientist was obvious, which is why he became the object of cruel persecution and unworthy criticism from Lysenko, Present and their like-minded people. Nikolai Ivanovich responded to this disrespect with a courageous defense of the foundations of science. He could not be defeated, and he died in the fight for the truth.

At the insistence of Lysenko, on August 6, 1940, Vavilov was arrested. He was charged with sabotage and espionage. On July 9, 1941, the trial of the scientist took place. He was sentenced to capital punishment - execution, but later the sentence was “commuted” - now the scientist faced 20 years of hard labor. In prison, Vavilov wrote a book about the history of agriculture, the manuscript of which, unfortunately, has not survived to this day.

When German troops approached Moscow, Nikolai Ivanovich, along with other prisoners, was transferred from Butyrskaya prison to Saratovskaya.

On January 26, 1943, at the age of 55, Vavilov died of exhaustion in a prison hospital, but for several years his fate was unknown to his relatives and work colleagues. It was only in 1970 that a modest monument appeared at the site of his supposed burial.

The scientist, who provided the country with millions of tons of grain thanks to his works and discoveries, who created a theoretical basis for researchers around the world, died in prison from hunger. This is the tragic paradox of the fate of this wonderful man.

The following literature was used in preparing the article :

1.N.P.Dubinin “Genetics. Pages of history", Chisinau, "Shtiintsa", 1990.

2.I.A.Zakharov “Brief essays on the history of genetics”, Moscow, “Bioinformservis”, 1999

3. Magazine “Science and Life”, Moscow, publishing house “Pravda”,

No. 2/1979, B. Mednikov “The law of homological series in our days”, p.32

Krasnova Maria

Personality in genetics: 20-30s of the twentieth century

(“The Golden Age” of Russian genetics – from Vavilov to “Vavilovia the Beautiful”)

Vavilov Nikolai Ivanovich (1887-1943) - botanist, plant breeder, geneticist, geographer and organizer of science; Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1929).

Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov was born in Moscow on November 13 (25), 1887. He graduated from the Moscow Commercial School (1906) and the Moscow Agricultural Institute. In 1913–1914 worked at the Horticultural Institute with one of the founders of genetics, W. Bateson, whom Vavilov later called his teacher, and then in France, in the largest seed-growing company, the Vilmorins, and in Germany, with E. Haeckel. In 1916 he went on an expedition to Iran, then to the Pamirs. From September 1917 to 1921 he taught at the Saratov Higher Agricultural Courses, where in 1918, with the transformation of the courses into an institute, he was elected professor and headed the department of genetics, selection and private agriculture. In March 1921 he moved to Petrograd and headed the Department of Applied Botany and Selection. Also in 1921, he visited the USA, where he spoke at the International Congress of Agriculture, became acquainted with the work of the Bureau of Plant Industry in Washington and the work of T. G. Morgan's Columbia Laboratory. In 1922, Vavilov was appointed director of the State Institute of Experimental Agronomy. In 1924 he became director of the All-Union Institute of Applied Botany and New Crops, and in 1930 - director of the All-Union Institute of Plant Growing. In 1927 he participated in the V International Genetic Congress in Berlin. He was president, and in 1935–1940. - Vice-President of the All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences named after. V.I.Lenin (VASKhNIL).

At the All-Union Institute of Plant Growing, Vavilov created a department of genetics, and in 1930 he headed the Laboratory of Genetics. Three years later, the Laboratory of Genetics was transformed into the Institute of Genetics of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Vavilov attracted Yu.A. to work at the Institute. Filipchenko, A.A. Sapegina, G.A. Levitsky, D. Kostov, K. Bridges, G. Möller and other prominent scientists.

In 1923 N.I. Vavilov was elected a corresponding member, and in 1929 an academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1931–1940 was president of the All-Union Geographical Society. In 1942 he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Society of London.

Vavilov is the founder of the doctrine of plant immunity to infectious diseases, which continued the general doctrine of immunity developed by I.I. Mechnikov. In 1920, the scientist formulated the law of homological series in hereditary variability. In the 1920–1930s, Vavilov was a participant and organizer of many expeditions to collect cultivated plants, in particular to Afghanistan, Japan, China, countries of Central and South America, North Africa, the Middle East, the Mediterranean, Ethiopia, etc., and after 1933 - to various regions of the USSR, as a result of which a rich collection of plant samples was collected. The whole work was based on Vavilov’s idea of ​​the need for a “census” of the varieties of all cultivated plants.

Starting from the mid-1930s, mainly after the famous IV session of the All-Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences in December 1936, Vavilov became the main and most authoritative opponent of T.D. Lysenko and other representatives of the “agrobiology of Timiryazev – Michurin – Lysenko”. Vavilov called this group of biologists “neo-Lamarckians” and treated them tolerantly, as representatives of a different point of view, but one that had the right to exist. The International Genetic Congress scheduled for 1937 in Moscow was canceled by the authorities; not a single Soviet geneticist, including Vavilov, who was elected president of the congress, received permission to participate in the VII International Congress in London and Edinburgh (1939).

On August 6, 1940, Vavilov was arrested and by the decision of the military collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR on July 9, 1941, on charges of belonging to the anti-Soviet organization “Labor Peasant Party”, and sentenced to death for sabotage and espionage. All those convicted in this case were shot on July 28, 1941; in relation to Vavilov, the execution of the sentence was carried out on the initiative of L.P. Beria's sentence was suspended and later commuted to 20 years in prison. The change in sentence was the result of the active intervention of Academician D.N. Pryanishnikov. On October 15, 1941, Vavilov was sent to Saratov to prison No. 1.

After Vavilov’s arrest, T.D. was appointed director of the Institute of Genetics. Lysenko, who by the summer of 1941 completed the defeat of “reactionary formal genetics” that began in the early 1930s and continued in 1936 and 1939, accompanied by arrests and physical destruction of Vavilov’s friends and collaborators. In prison, after being transferred to a general cell, sick and exhausted by the expectation of death, Vavilov wrote a (not preserved) book, “The History of the Development of World Agriculture,” and read lectures on genetics to other prisoners.

Nikolay Vavilov born into 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 eldest 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.

The beginning of Vavilov’s scientific activity. Business trip abroad

Nikolay Vavilov While still a student, he 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.

Vavilov in Saratov. The law of homological series in hereditary variability

In 1917 Vavilov was elected professor of the agronomy 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 launched field research on a number of crops and completed work on the monograph “Plant Immunity to Infectious Diseases,” published in 1919, in which he summarized his research previously carried out 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 the monograph “Field Cultures of the Southeast,” 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

First expeditions Vavilov organized and led to Persia (Iran) and Turkestan, Mountainous Tajikistan (Pamir), where, risking his life many times, he 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, 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), where soft wheat, rye, legumes, melon, apple, pomegranate, figs, grapes, and many other fruits originated.
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, radishes.
5. Abyssinian, or Ethiopian, center - distinguished by the variety of forms of wheat and barley, the birthplace of the 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 grain 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.

Scientific, organizational and social activities of N. I. Vavilov

Vavilov was a major organizer of Soviet science. Under his leadership (since 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.

The appearance of a scientist and a person

According to many scientists who knew Vavilova, the most characteristic, 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 of interests 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 a high sense, a citizen of his country, Vavilov was a staunch supporter and active promoter of international scientific cooperation, the joint work of scientists from all countries of the world for the benefit of humanity.

Vavilov and Lysenko

In the early thirties Vavilov warmly supported the work of the young agronomist T. D. Lysenko according to 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 increase the yield of grain crops in the shortest possible time, and also because he stated 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 and the work program of the institutes he headed.
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.”

Arrest of Vavilov. Consequence. Sentence to death. Death in Saratov prison

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 a large number of other scientific materials confiscated during searches in his apartment and in the institutes where he worked.

Scientific merits of Vavilov

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, English Horticultural Society, etc.

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).

His independent research work on 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 went abroad, spending most of their 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, as the most important branch of science, was liquidated, and many scientists were repressed.

26.01. 1943 The great scientist died in Saratov prison. And only in 1955 all charges were dropped against the scientist, 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 of the famous physicist S.I. Vavilov. 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 of the State Institute of 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 in various species and even genera of plants the existence of repeating similar, parallel series of forms (i.e., forms similar in their morphological and physiological characteristics), to which he gave the name “homologous series” (“Law of homologous series in hereditary variability", 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 falsely accused of espionage, sabotage, and leadership of the Labor Peasant Party, which never existed. 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

1. 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 friendly relations. Vavilov captivated many of these scientists with his bright personality, 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, valuable foreign literature was received, and 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 the “Vavilov 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 zones with different natural conditions. 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. In addition to a 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 first place... form a close ethnic group with the Tajiks.” 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’s research covers a complex of countries located in the Mediterranean basin. 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 for brief articles describing observations made in some of the countries mentioned above (Spain, Egypt, Abyssinia, etc.), as well as some special publications (Abyssinian wheat, etc.), Vavilov was not able to publish full reports monographic nature, summarizing the results of these heroic studies. 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, paying special attention to the 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 types of pumpkins, peppers, upland cotton, and 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, a public figure, a humanist and at the same time a simple, accessible person - this is how Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov entered history and will remain in it for many centuries.

Bibliography

1. 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.