Nikolai Iwanowitsch Wawilow (Russian ; * 13/25. November 1887 in Moscow; "† 26 January 1943 in Saratow) was a Russian Botaniker and Genetiker.

Wawilows of Forschungsgebiete were agrarian sciences, Botanik, plant breeding and theory of the plant breeding, genetics, Geobotanik. He was founder of the gene center theory, which he out-formulated on the basis of experiences from expeditions into all five continents.

Life

Wawilow was born as a son Muscovites of a buyer. The Abitur put he 1906 down and studied thereafter at the Muscovite Agrikulturinstitut. After conclusion of the study it researched at the resistance formation of plants and aimed at the professor career. From 1917 to 1921 he was a professor at the agrarian faculty in Saratow, afterwards at Institut for applied plant breeding in Petrograd (today: Pc. Petersburg). He removed this department to Institut for applied plant breeding and new one plants, who was renamed later in Institut for industrielle plant production.

During its expeditions in many countries of Asia, Europe, the Mediterranean area, Eritrea and Somalia and America he collected large quantities of seeds of there domestic cultivated plants. Here less the pure collecting eagerness stood in the foreground than application in breeding of productive and resistant useful plants. The new breeding should strengthen the Soviet agriculture: the losses at agricultural yields, which followed the 1932 of Stalin proclaimed collectivization of the Soviet agriculture and released hunger emergencies, should be made up for by it again. The collection of plant-genetic resources, which Wawilow justified, is today the third biggest gene bank of the world, the N. - I. - Wawilow institute in pc. Petersburg.

Wawilows of contacts to foreign scientists, in particular into the USA, made him for the Soviet regime a Persona non grata. After seizure of power Stalins were collected systematically information, which led in the long run to dismantling and arrest Wawilows in the year 1940. An important role played thereby the system-faithful pseudo scientists Lyssenko, which worked starting from 1933 in Institut Wawilows and was developed by Stalins faithful one to Wawilows successor to the throne.

Due to the accusations Wawilow was condemned in August 1940 to death. This judgement was converted however into 20 years detention in the penal institution in the city Saratow. He still deceased during the detention time on 26 January 1943.

Wawilow failed, because he tried to be in the totalitarian Soviet system a free scientist because he looked for selbstlos the light of the truth in a stronghold of darkness and he was a man of high moral between rogues. (Transmission D. A. after Reznik and Vavilov 1997).

Where Wawilow saw the sense of its life, comes out from a letter, which he wrote his wife: I believe deeply in the science. It is my life and the purpose of my life. I would not hesitate to give my life for the smallest piece of science. (quotes in Greenpeace 1999).

Important functions

• 1923-1929 director of the institute for experimental agrarian sciences
• 1930-1940 director of the institute for genetics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR
• 1929-1935 president, following
• 1935-1940 vice-president of the academy of the agrarian sciences "„W.I. Lenin "“of the USSR.
• 1931-1940 president of the geographical society of the USSR
• 1942-1943 member of the Royal Society, London

Literature

• Anonym (1997): Editorial Foreword [Originally appearing into the roofridge edition OF 1962 in Russian]. In: Vavilov, N.I.: Five Continents. Five Continents. Rome: Internationally Genetics plans institutes
• Greenpeace (1999): The treasure guardians. Greenpeace magazine/message 5. Hamburg: Greenpeace Media GmbH, large Elbstrasse 39, 22767 Hamburg
• Reznik, S. and Vavilov. Y. (1997): The Russian Scientist Nicolay Vavilov. In: Vavilov, N.I. (1997) Five Continents. Internationally Genetics plans institutes, Rome, Italy

Left

• http://www.vir.nw.ru/history/vavilov.htm detailed Biografie (English)

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