Vavilov Nikolai Ivanovich: short biography for children

Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov, whose short biography is studied by the school program, was born in Moscow on November 25, 1887, the famous geneticist, Russian plant breeder, geographer, founder of the theory of the origin of cultivated plants and the biological bases of selection, the initiator of the creation of a multitude of scientific research institutions. The Russian scientist made an invaluable contribution to science, which was recognized by the biologists of the whole world.

Hobby of plants born in childhood

Nikolai's father, Ivan Ilyich, came from a peasant family, was a merchant of the second guild and was engaged in public activities. Prior to the revolution, he headed the factory of Udalov and Vavilov. Mother - Alexandra Mikhailovna - was the daughter of the artist-carver of the Prokhov Manufactory. In total there were seven children in the family, three of them died in childhood. The younger brother of the future scientist - Sergey Vavilov - devoted his life to physics, founded the scientific school of physical optics in the USSR, in 1945-1951 he was head of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The elder sister of Alexander chose the medical path, becoming the organizer of sanitary-hygienic networks in Moscow. Lydia - the younger sister, learned on a microbiologist, during one of the expeditions infected with smallpox and died. Nikolai Vavilov, whose brief biography is interesting to admirers of his scientific activity, unlike other children, since childhood he was fond of flora and fauna and had a high predisposition to natural sciences. This hobby was promoted by rare books, herbariums and geographical maps, available in the big father's library and contributed to the formation of the future genetics person.

Vavilov Nikolai Ivanovich: short biography for children

At the behest of his father, Nikolai Vavilov entered the commercial school. Upon his graduation, in 1906, he became a student of the Agricultural Institute (Faculty of Agronomy) in Moscow. 1908 was marked by a student expedition to the Transcaucasus and the North Caucasus, where Vavilov NI, whose brief biography is compulsorily studied by the school program, conducted geographic and botanical research. In 1910, agronomic practice took place at the Poltava Experimental Station, which charged Vavilov for further fruitful work.

During the period of study at the Institute, a tendency to research activity was manifested in Nicholas repeatedly; The student presented reports on genealogy in the plant world and experimental morphology, presented a thesis on bare slugs that harm the agricultural lands of the Moscow province. For this work, Nikolai Vavilov was awarded the prize of the Moscow Polytechnic Museum. At the end of his studies, the promising young man was left to prepare for the title of professor at the Department of Agriculture and was assigned to the Breeding Station of this educational institution, where he was closely involved in studying the immunity of cultivated plants to parasitic fungi. In parallel, Nikolai Ivanovich taught at the institute and at the women's courses in agriculture.

Acquaintance with the experience of European colleagues

From 1911 to 1912, he spent his internship in St. Petersburg, whose goal was to better understand the geography of cultural crops, study their characteristics and diseases, and in 1913 - a trip abroad to complete education. In Germany, Nikolai Ivanovich worked for some time in the laboratory of the German philosopher and naturalist Ernst Haeckel, in France he got acquainted with new achievements in selection seed production, in England, under the leadership of Professor William Bateson (one of the outstanding geneticists of the time), whom Vavilov considered his teacher, To diseases of cereals. The First World War served as the reason for the interruption of the trip, and Nikolai Ivanovich was forced to return to Moscow, where he continued work on the study of plant immunity, conducting experiments in the capital nurseries paired with Professor SI Zhegalov.

Why did Russian soldiers die in Persia?

In 1916, Nikolai Vavilov received a master's degree, successfully passing the exams; In the same period, he, who was released from military service because of a visual defect (damaged eyes in his childhood), attracted Russian army soldiers as a consultant on mass diseases in Persia. The cause of the disease was able to identify Vavilov Nikolai Ivanovich. A brief biography for children of the 2nd class describes that pieces of Pleven's intoxicating seeds with Stromantinia temulenta, which produces a substance that can cause poisoning in humans - the alkaloid temelin, fell into the flour. The result of his action was loss of consciousness, convulsions, drowsiness and dizziness; There was a probability of a lethal outcome. The problem was solved by banning the use of local products; The supply of provisions began to come from Russia.

Having received permission from the military leadership to conduct the expedition, Vavilov went deep into Iran, setting a goal to study samples of local cereals. Sowing seeds of Persian wheat in England, Nikolai Ivanovich tried to infect it with powdery mildew in various ways, using even a nitrogen fertilizer that conditioned the development of the disease. All attempts were unsuccessful, on the basis of which scientists concluded that the immunity of plants is directly dependent on the environmental conditions of the initial formation of this species. It was in this expedition that Nikolai Ivanovich had an assumption about the regularity of hereditary variability.

Career successes

1917 was marked for Vavilov by the election of assistants to the head of the Department of Applied Botany on the recommendation of Regel RE. None of the scientists who worked on the issues of plant immunity could approach the disclosure of the subject so closely, while fully elucidating the issue, as Vavilov Nikolai Ivanovich did. A brief biography for children tells that in 1917 the scientist moved to Saratov where he headed the Department of Selection, Genetics and Private Agriculture at the Higher School of Agriculture. Being a professor of the agronomic faculty from 1917 to 1921 in the Saratov University, Vavilov, in parallel with lecturing, began experimental study of the immunity of agricultural crops. The result of this huge work, including the study of several hundred varieties of wheat and oats, the analysis of the immunity of varieties and their susceptibility to diseases, the discovery of anatomical abilities, was published in 1919, the monograph "Immunity of plants to infectious diseases."

In 1920, a famous scientist made a report on the law in the hereditary variability of homologous series at the III All-Russian Congress, whose organizing committee he headed. The report was the largest event in the world of biological science and was positively received by the scientific community.

Experiences, research, achievements

In 1920, being elected to the post of head of the Department of Applied Botany and Breeding, Nikolai Vavilov, whose brief biography is described in many school textbooks, moved to Petrograd, where he undertook a scientific work. The head of this organization, renamed in time to the All-Union Institute of Plant Production, Vavilov remained until the end of 1940. Together with AA Yachevsky, Nikolai Ivanovich was sent to the United States, where he negotiated the supply of seeds, while examining the grain areas of American territories. On his way back, the scientist visited Belgium, Holland, France, Sweden, England, where he held a number of meetings with scientists, got acquainted with selection stations and scientific laboratories, established new ties and organized the purchase of scientific equipment, literature and varietal seeds.

1923 was marked for Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov by election to the post of director of the State Institute of Experienced Agronomy. At the initiative of the scientist in the 1920s, in a variety of climatic and soil conditions, the USSR created a large number of scientific stations that studied and tested various forms of useful plants.

An invaluable contribution to science

Biography Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov is closely associated with scientific expeditions, carried out from 1924 to 1929. This is Afghanistan, Africa, the Mediterranean, Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea, during which scientists replenished the collection of seed material (counted in thousands of samples) and studied the centers of growth of cultivated plants.

In 1927, for a brilliant report "Geographical Experiments on the Study of the Variability of Cultivated Plants in the USSR", with which Nikolai Ivanovich spoke in Rome at a conference of agricultural experts, the scientist was awarded the Gold Medal, and the conference decided to apply the system of geographical crops developed by Vavilov on a world scale.

The family of Nikolai Vavilov

Vavilov Nikolai Ivanovich, whose brief biography tells of his enormous achievements in the world of science, was married twice. The first wife of the scientist was Ekaterina Nikolaevna Sakharova, from the marriage with whom Oleg's son was born. He died at the age of 28 in the Caucasus during climbing. The second spouse is the doctor of agricultural sciences, biologist Elena Barulina, with whom Nikolai Ivanovich is familiar from the times of her students (1918); A young girl took part in many of the undertakings of her mentor (including the expedition to the southeast of Russia), wrote articles that were included in Vavilov's books on field crops. Elena Ivanovna and Nikolai Ivanovich created the family in 1926. From this marriage to the world appeared Yuri Vavilov, who became a doctor of physical and mathematical sciences, a nuclear physicist and did a lot to find information about the father and their publication.

On the account of Vavilov, the establishment of fruit-growing institutions, vegetable and potato farms, 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, in 1931 - the All-Union Geographical Society.

Arrest and false accusation

A successful career, the world recognition of Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov, did not give rest to his envious persons who wrote a letter with political accusations to Stalin, in which they accused Vavilov of being detached from the real needs of agriculture, of political indiscrimination, in which Vavilov did not distinguish between the true enemies of Soviet power. In parallel, public harassment was carried out in periodicals. Since 1934, Nikolai Ivanovich was forbidden to travel abroad, his work was found unsatisfactory.

Vavilov was arrested in August 1940, charging him with counter-revolutionary activities. In 1941, the scientist was sentenced to be shot; The sentence was replaced in 1942 for a 20-year sentence. Nikolai Ivanovich died in a hospital in the Saratov prison, after having had an inflammation of the lungs during his imprisonment, dysentery; In the last year of his life he suffered from dystrophy. Death came from the decline of cardiac activity. The Russian scientist was posthumously rehabilitated in 1955: all the charges brought against him were fabricated, untrue. Buried Vavilov Nikolai Ivanovich, whose brief biography is interesting to a large number of his admirers, in a common grave, with the rest of the prisoners.