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 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 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 Crops 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. 
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, and 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 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 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.
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 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.”
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.
On August 20, 1955, Vavilov was posthumously rehabilitated. In 1965 the prize was established. 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
Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov’s contributions to science as a botanist, plant breeder, geneticist, geographer and science organizer are outlined in this article.
Nikolay Vavilov contribution to biology
In 1920, Vavilov formulated law of homological series- hereditary variability in families, related genera and species. This law showed one of the most important laws of evolution, the essence of which was that closely related species and genera have hereditary similar changes. The use of this law makes it possible to foresee the presence of corresponding forms, properties and characteristics of one species or genus in others. Vavilov's law made it easier for breeders to find initial new forms for selection and crossing.
Another greatest discovery of Nikolai Vavilov is theory of plant immunity. Today, not a single breeder in the world can do without knowledge of this theory. It is worth noting that the scientist was very concerned about the problem of world hunger. He believed that with the help of genetics and selection, hunger could be overcome by developing new varieties of cultivated plants. For this purpose, geneticist Nikolai Vavilov traveled to many countries, looking for the places of origin of cultivated plants. As a result, he collected a unique collection of tubers and seeds. If it happened that all food plants in the world disappeared, then plant growing could easily be restored with the help of Vavilov’s collection.
He also redefined the Linnaean species in 1930. The geneticist characterized it as an isolated complex mobile morpho-physiological system associated with a specific area and environment in its genesis. Nikolai Vavilov substantiated the principles of creating material for selection and substantiated geographical and ecological principles.
Vavilov Nikolai Ivanovich (1887–1943), Russian botanist, plant breeder, geneticist, geographer and organizer of science. Born in Moscow on November 13 (25), 1887.
The elder brother of the famous physicist S.I. Vavilov. He graduated from the Moscow Commercial School (1906) and the Moscow Agricultural Institute (formerly Petrovsky Academy, 1910), was left at the department of private agriculture, headed by D.N. Pryanishnikov, to prepare for the professorship, and then seconded to the breeding station.
Let's go to the stake, we'll burn, but we won't give up our convictions!
Vavilov Nikolay Ivanovich
He trained in St. Petersburg at the Bureau of Applied Botany under the leadership of R.E. Regel and in the laboratory of mycology and phytopathology under the leadership of A.A. Yachevsky. In 1913–1914 he worked at the Horticultural Institute with one of the founders of genetics, W. Bateson, whom Vavilov later called his teacher and “the first apostle of the new teaching,” and then in France, in the largest seed-growing company Vilmorins, and in Germany with E. Haeckel. After the outbreak of the First World War, Vavilov barely managed to get out of Germany and returned to Russia. In 1916 he went on an expedition to Iran, then to the Pamirs.
Returning to Moscow, he taught, sorted out the brought materials, conducted experiments with Pamir early-ripening wheat, and continued experiments on immunity on experimental plots at the Petrovsky Academy. 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. At local stations, together with students, he conducted research on selection. In June 1920 he gave a report on homological series at the III All-Russian Congress of Breeders in Saratov.
In March 1921, after the death of Regel, together with a group of employees, he moved to Petrograd and headed the Department of Applied Botany and Selection (formerly the Bureau of Applied Botany of the Agricultural Scientific Committee). 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. He organized a branch of the Department of Applied Botany and Breeding in Washington, headed by D.N. Borodin, who over the next two years managed to purchase seeds, books, and equipment for the Department. On the way back through Europe I visited G. de Vries.
Our life is on wheels.
Vavilov Nikolay Ivanovich
In 1922, Vavilov was appointed director of the State Institute of Experimental Agronomy, which united various departments of the Agricultural Scientific Committee. In 1924 he became director of the All-Union Institute of Applied Botany and New Crops, and in 1930 - director of its successor, the All-Union Institute of Plant Growing with a wide network of departments, experimental stations and strongholds. 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) (from 1938 T.D. Lysenko became president, remaining in office until 1956).
At the All-Union Institute of Plant Growing, Vavilov created a department of genetics, and in 1930 he headed the successor to the Bureau of Genetics (which was headed by Yu.A. Filipchenko until his death) - the Laboratory of Genetics. Three years later, the Laboratory of Genetics was transformed into the Institute of Genetics of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and in 1934, together with the entire Academy, was transferred from Leningrad to Moscow. To work at the Institute, Vavilov attracted not only Filipchenko’s students, but also geneticists and breeders A.A. Sapegin, G.A. Levitsky, D. Kostov, K. Bridges, G. Möller and other prominent scientists. In 1923 the scientist was elected a corresponding member, and in 1929 an academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1931–1940 he 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, according to which “species and genera that are genetically close to each other are characterized by identical series of hereditary variability with such regularity that, knowing the series of forms for one species, one can predict the finding of identical forms of other species and genera .
I don’t feel sorry for giving my life for the smallest thing in science... Wandering through the Pamirs and Bukhara, I had to be on the verge of death more than once, it was scary more than once... And somehow it was even, in general, pleasant to take risks.
Vavilov Nikolay Ivanovich
The closer the genera and Linneons are genetically located in the general system, the more complete the identity in the ranks of their variability. Whole families of plants are generally characterized by a certain cycle of variation passing through all the genera that make up the family.” Vavilov pointed out the need for genetic analysis of those characters that exhibit parallel variability in different species and genera, and in 1935, when the relevant facts had been accumulated, he concluded: “Based on the striking similarity in the phenotypic variability of species within the same genus or closely related genera, due to the unity of the evolutionary process, we can assume that they have many common genes along with the specificity of species and genera.”
Modern molecular genetic studies - comparison of genetic maps of various organisms and analysis of gene homology based on data on the amino acid sequence of gene products or the nucleotide sequence of the genes themselves - have revealed significant similarity of genetic maps within large systematic groups (for example, within the class of mammals) and broad homology individual genes throughout the evolution of organisms. These data completely confirmed and deepened the patterns that were first noticed by N.I. Vavilov many years ago.
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, Eritrea, etc. and after 1933 - to various regions of the USSR, as a result of which a rich collection of plant specimens was collected (by 1940 it contained about 200 thousand forms). The whole work was based on Vavilov’s idea of the need for a “census” of the varieties of all cultivated plants, and to store the collected specimens not in dried form, but alive, sown annually.
Life is short, you have to hurry.
Vavilov Nikolay Ivanovich
The scientist also organized the so-called. geographical crops - annually about two hundred cultivated plants were sown in various climatic and soil conditions, the number of experimental stations reached 115. In 1926, Vavilov created the theory of centers of origin and diversity of cultivated plants, which, as he believed, were located mainly in five centers: the mountainous regions of the South -Western and Southeast Asia, the Mediterranean, mountainous Ethiopia, South and Central America, mainly coinciding with the centers of cultural dissemination. Subsequently, Vavilov’s concept was modified, the number of foci reached eight, and in the final formulation there were seven.
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 Lysenko and other representatives of the “agrobiology of Timiryazev - Michurin - Lysenko,” who promised the rapid restoration of agriculture through the “education” of plants. 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. Moreover, it was Vavilov who supported Lysenko’s work and even nominated him in 1934 as a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, which gave a serious impetus to the rapid career of a fighter against “pests in science.” The International Genetic Congress scheduled for 1937 in Moscow was canceled by the authorities; none of the Soviet geneticists, including Vavilov, who was elected president of the congress, received permission to participate in the VII International Congress in London and Edinburgh (1939) (geneticists from the USSR did not participate in any one of the international congresses on genetics until 1968 - the final defeat of genetics occurred after the war, in 1948, at the August session of the All-Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences).
During the next expedition to the newly annexed Western Ukraine on August 6, 1940, Vavilov was arrested (the arrest order was approved personally by L.P. Beria) and by the decision of the military collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, chaired by V.V. Ulrikh, on July 9, 1941, on charges of belonging to to the anti-Soviet organization "Labor Peasant Party", sentenced to death for sabotage and espionage (in 1930, A.V. Chayanov and other major agricultural economists were arrested and convicted on similar charges). At the trial, Vavilov denied all charges. He spent a long time on death row in Butyrka awaiting execution. The petition for clemency, signed by Vavilov and other scientists involved in the case, was rejected.
The specificity of our differences lies in the fact that, under the name of advanced science, we are offered to return, essentially, to the views that have been experienced by science, outlived, that is, to the views of the first half or mid-19th century.
Vavilov Nikolay Ivanovich
All those convicted in this case were shot on July 28, 1941; in relation to Vavilov, the execution of the sentence on the initiative of L.P. Beria was postponed and later replaced by 20 years of imprisonment. The change in sentence was the result of the active intervention of D.N. Pryanishnikov, who turned to Beria through his wife and his student, who worked at the department of agrochemistry of the Timiryazev Academy.
In a letter to Beria on April 25, 1942, Vavilov wrote: “August 1, 1941, i.e. Three weeks after the verdict, it was announced to me in Butyrka prison by your representative on your behalf that you had filed a petition with the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR to cancel the verdict in my case and that I would be granted life. On October 2, 1941, by your order, I was transferred from Butyrka prison to the Internal Prison of the NKVD, and on October 5 and 10 I had a conversation with your representative about my attitude to the war, to fascism, about using me as a scientific worker with extensive experience. I was told on October 15 that I would be given full opportunity for scientific work as an academician, which would be finally clarified within 2-3 days. On the same day, October 15, 1941, three hours after the conversation, in connection with the evacuation, I was convoyed to Saratov to prison No. 1, where, due to the absence of documents in the accompanying papers about the cancellation of the sentence and about your filing a petition for its cancellation , I was again put on death row, where I remain to this day... As the head of the Saratov prison told me, my fate and position depend on the center as a whole.”
The death row was underground and had no windows; condemned prisoners were deprived of walks. Vavilov fell ill with scurvy, then began to develop dystrophy. In 1942, Vavilov’s wife was evacuated to Saratov and lived two or three kilometers from the prison, however, misled by the NKVD, she believed that her husband was imprisoned in Moscow.
The ranks of Russian scientists are thinning day by day, and one feels terrible about the fate of Russian science, for many are called, but few are chosen.
Vavilov Nikolay Ivanovich
After the arrest of Vavilov, Lysenko was appointed director of the Institute of Genetics (he remained in this position until the end of 1964 thanks to the support of N.S. Khrushchev, and after Khrushchev’s removal he continued his experiments at the experimental base of the All-Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Gorki Leninskie), who by the summer of 1941 completed what he had begun at the beginning 1930s and continued in 1936 and 1939 the defeat of “reactionary formal genetics”, 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 gave lectures on genetics to other prisoners.
Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov - photo
Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov - quotes
The share of science in the country is determined not only by the funds allocated from the state budget, the number of research institutes, but, above all, by the outlook of scientists, the height of their scientific flight. 
Let's go to the stake, we'll burn, but we won't give up our convictions!
Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov, whose brief biography 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 basis 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 of interest to admirers of his scientific work, unlike other children, was fascinated by the flora and fauna from childhood 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 the North Caucasus, where Vavilov N.I., whose short 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 The world war caused 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 pair 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 of Agriculture 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 were created that 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 of 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; in the last year of his life he suffered from dystrophy. 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.
Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov
– Soviet biologist (geneticist, breeder, botanist).
Not all scientists get a place in school textbooks. After all, the school curriculum covers only the most important and major facts and topics of the subject being studied. Vavilov's contributions to biology are such, which is why he deserves a place in the school curriculum and the Unified State Examination.
N. I. Vavilov began to be interested in natural sciences as a child. I decided to go in this direction when choosing a profession. And, undoubtedly, he achieved some success in it.
While still a student, Vavilov participated in scientific expeditions. Great hopes were placed on him. After graduating from the institute, the scientist does an internship abroad (in France, England, Germany). During this period, he studies plant immunity.
And the first serious scientific work of Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov was doctrine of plant immunity. It was a monograph, published in 1919. At that time, Vavilov was already known as a scientist, held some high positions, and was a professor.
Vavilov took part in all kinds of botanical expeditions around the country and abroad, some of which he himself organized. Studied related plant species.
The result of these studies was
law of homological series of hereditary variability
Vavilov established that related species have the same mutations, the same hereditary changes .
- It turns out that it is possible, knowing a certain mutation, a certain genetic disease, a useful trait in a wild plant, to predict the same thing in a cultivated relative
In 1920, Nikolai Ivanovich gave a report on this topic at the All-Russian Congress on Selection and Seed Production. The scientific community responded very positively to the discovery. Moreover, this discovery is recognized as a significant event in the history of world science.
The 20s were a difficult time for our Fatherland. Famine threatened. All breeders, not excluding Vavilov, were engaged in solving this problem. The scientist participated in conferences and organized a system of breeding stations. Cultivated plants were studied.
Vavilov developed a system for testing cultivated varieties. So that only proven varieties are sown. That is, Nikolai Vavilov dealt with the problems of agriculture, and the accusations of Comrade Stalin himself (which we will talk about a little later) that the scientist is allegedly engaged in all sorts of useless nonsense are absurd.
Nikolai Vavilov continues to participate in expeditions and repeatedly risks his life. The scientist began to collect a collection of plant seeds from different parts of the world. Vavilov's travels were recognized by the Geographical Society of the USSR as a feat, for which the scientist received the N. M. Przhevalsky Medal.
In the same 20s, Nikolai Vavilov made another major discovery.
In the early stages of human development began species domestication processes. The domestication of wild plants, which began independently in different parts of the world, led to the emergence of cultivated plants.
- Vavilov established that m The area where the largest number of species of wild relatives of a cultivated plant is observed, where their genetic diversity is higher, is the center (center) of origin of this crop .
Nikolay Vavilov established 7 centers of origin of cultivated plants:
- South Asian Tropical Center: rice, cucumber, citrus fruits, sugar cane, eggplant.
- East Asian Center: millet, radish, soybean, buckwheat, plum, cherry, walnut, persimmon.
- Southwest Asian Center: soft wheat, rye, legumes, hemp, turnip, carrots, grapes, garlic, melon, flax.
- Mediterranean center: cabbage, carrots, clover, olives, sugar beets, lentils, Brussels sprouts.
- Abyssinian (Ethiopian) center: coffee, durum wheat, barley, banana, sesame, cola.
- Central American Center: corn, cocoa, pumpkin, tobacco, beans, sunflower.
- Andean (South American) center: potatoes, pineapple, coca bush, tomato.
The discovery of centers of origin allows us to enrich the gene pool of cultivated plants, better understand the patterns of their distribution, and also establish the most favorable conditions for these plants.
For this discovery N.I. Vavilov received the Lenin Prize.
in 1929, Vavilov took the post of president of the All-Union Academy of Agriculture named after Lenin. In the same year, the scientist became a member of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture of the USSR. Later he headed the Institute of Genetics of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
Nikolai Vavilov becomes famous all over the world. He is the author of several dozen articles, monographs, and reports. Vavilov is a member of many foreign academies and scientific societies.
The Vavilov seed collection is the richest collection of its kind in the world. Such collections are created to preserve cultivated plants and their genetic diversity. You never know, suddenly a war, a cataclysm, will destroy all cultivated plants: famine will come. Seed collections make it possible to restore them in case of loss.
The Vavilov collection has survived to this day and is located in St. Petersburg. She survived the Great Patriotic War and the occupation. Even in the hungriest months of the blockade, the seeds were not eaten. Today, the value of Vavilov’s collection is 10-11 trillion. dollars!
In the 30s he came to biology. He climbs the career ladder, occupies leadership positions, and removes Vavilov from the post of president of VASKHNIL.
From this moment on, the USSR begins. Pseudoscience reigns in the country. Stalin believes that Lysenko is engaged in useful activities: he is saving the country from hunger, and Vavilov is not only engaged in some kind of nonsense, but also interferes with Lysenko.
Vavilov and Lysenko have differences that develop into open conflict. In the end, Vavilov was arrested. At first he was sentenced to death, but then commuted to a long term.
Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov died in a hungry camp in 1943.
And he was posthumously rehabilitated in 1955.
Scientific achievements of Vavilov:
1. The doctrine of plant immunity.
2. The law of homological series of hereditary variability.
3. The doctrine of the centers of origin of cultivated plants.
4.The largest collection of seeds of cultivated plants.
5. Vavilov described several types of plants. And after the Latin name of these species, according to the rules of taxonomy, the name of the scientist who described this species is written - Vavilov.
N.I. Vavilov is rightfully considered a scientist who has made a huge contribution to the development of evolutionary teaching, the concept of a biological species, and, of course, to practical science.
And of all the foreign academies and societies in which N. Vavilov was a member, it is especially worth noting the German genetic society - this was in the late 30s, when entire institutions there were adjusted to a racial theory based on genetics (and Jews, Gypsies, Slavs were already declared etc. 2nd class people). Any decent person would leave such a society, but alas... By the way, this is about the persecution of geneticists in the USSR and the arrest of N. Vavilov.
All this does not make N. Vavilov a bad scientist, but he also does not look like an innocent martyr.
I don't agree with you.
1) That’s why it’s a community, that issues are resolved collectively. And the concept of “president” of the community in those days and now are so different :)
2) Until about the 35th (!) year, the German genetic community gathered the outstanding minds of the planet, carried out research and published wonderful scientific works. Then - yes, under the influence of ideology the direction became purely racist. and it began to openly declare “second-class” people in 1938. Vavilov no longer had anything to do with this.
As for martyrdom... Of course, no one elevates them to the rank of saints, but I think that the people who worked in exile, in Russian exile (you’re not sitting on the Elbe :) did not roll around in oil. And in general, it’s somehow strange for us to judge in the warm home conditions how these people lived and worked then.
But this is imho.
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