Centers of Origin of Cultivated Plants (1926)

N.I.Vavilov was a prominent organizer of science. In the period from 1922 to 1929 he headed the Institute
of Experimental Agronomy (the former ASC) which developed in 1930 into the V.I. Lenin All-Union
Academy of Agriculture; from 1930 to 1935 Vavilov was its fi rst president. From 1930 to 1940 he was
director of the Institute of Genetics. Vavilov organized and participated in signifi cant home and international
scientifi c meetings and congresses on botany, genetics and plant breeding, agricultural economy, and the
history of science. All around the world N.I. Vavilov has gained respect and renown; he was elected member
of many academies of sciences and various foreign scientifi c societies.
Vavilov, the symbol of glory of the national science, is at the same time the symbol of its tragedy. As
early as the beginning of the 1930s his scientifi c programs were being deprived of governmental support. In
the stifl ing atmosphere of a totalitarian state, the institute headed by Vavilov turned into a resistance point to
the pseudo-scientifi c concepts of Trofi m D. Lysenko (died 1977). Lysenko introduced the discredited notion
that acquired characters could be inherited and took Soviet genetics and plant breeding back 20 years. As
a result of this controversy and Stalin’s support of Lysenko, Vavilov was arrested in August 1940, and his
closest associates were also sacked and imprisoned.
Vavilov’s life ceased in the city where his star had once risen. He died in the Saratov prison of dystrophia
on 26 January 1943 and was buried in a common prison grave. Nevertheless, the memory of Vavilov
has been preserved by his followers. During that tragic period they kept on gathering Vavilov’s manuscripts,
documents and pictures. Since mid-1950s, after the offi cial rehabilitation of Vavilov, hundreds of books
and articles devoted to his life and scientifi c accomplishments have been published. Memorial displays
have been opened in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Saratov, and Poltava. The name of Vavilov is born by the
Russian Society of Geneticists and Breeders, the Institute of General Genetics of the Academy of Sciences,
the Institute of Plant Industry, and the Saratov Agricultural Institute.