Nikolai Ivanovich
Vavilov
1887-1943
Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov was a Russian botanist and plant breeder, geneticist and breeder, traveller and geographer, organiser of agricultural science, public figure; Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1929), Academician (1929) and first president (1929-1935) of the All-Union Agricultural Academy of Sciences, Academician. He was S.I. Vavilov`s brother. He was born in Moscow on November 25, 1887, in the family of a merchant. Nikolai Vavilov had a fancy for science from childhood. There was a rich library of rare books and geographical maps in the house. In 1910 he graduated from Moscow Agricultural Institute (now Moscow Agricultural Academy named after K.A. Timiryazev) and was employed in the department of private agriculture. In 1913-1914 he trained at leading genetic and plant breeding institutions in Britain, France and Germany. On his return to Russia, he defended his doctoral thesis and was appointed as professor at Saratov University, where he taught and researched the peculiarities of agriculture in the conditions of the Volga region and the variability of cultivated plants. In 1917-1921 he established the doctrine of plant immunity to infectious diseases, drew the attention of breeders to the possibility of breeding immune varieties, and formulated the law of homological series in hereditary variability, which made it possible to systematise disparate facts in the study of variability and predict the possibility of finding new plant forms. In the 1920s and 1930s, N.I. Vavilov undertook numerous expeditions around the world for scientific purposes: to Afghanistan in 1924, to Khorezm in 1925, to the Mediterranean countries, Ethiopia and Eritrea, to Germany around the Wurttemberg mountains in 1926-1927, to China, to the island of Taiwan, to Japan, to Korea in 1929, to Cuba, Yucatan, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Puerto Rico and the island of Trinidad in 1932-1933. The seeds collected during these expeditions later became the basis for many high-yielding varieties and hybrids. In 1925, the Russian Geographical Society awarded him the silver medal named after N.M. Przhevalsky for his trip to Afghanistan. Under the leadership of N.I. Vavilov, the world’s largest collection of seeds of cultivated plants was created, which is stored in the All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources named in honour of the scientist. He laid the foundations of the system of state trials of crop varieties. He formulated the principles of activity of the country’s main scientific centre for agricultural sciences, created a network of scientific institutions in this field. He was Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences since 1929. In 1931-1940 he headed the Geographical Society of the USSR. A memorial plaque was placed on the building of the Institute of Problems of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences named after A.N. Severtsov in Moscow.
Address: Moscow, Leninsky Avenue, 33
