VASKhNIL
Encyclopedia
VASKhNIL was the All-Union Academy of Agricultural
Sciences of the Soviet Union
(the acronym stands for Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences - Всесоюзная академия сельскохозяйственных наук имени В. И. Ленина). Built upon the model of the Academy of Sciences of USSR, VASKhNIL included not only a body of academicians but a vast network of research institutions scattered all over the country with thousands of researchers, plant and cattle breeders.
It operated from 1929 to 1992 (dissolution of the Soviet Union
). In the 1930s - 1940s, meetings of the academy members ("sessions" of VASKhNIL) provided the floor for debates between Lysenkoists
and geneticists. After Trofim Lysenko
had taken control over the Academy, it became for about thirty years a stronghold of Lysenkoism. The proverbial among Russian biologists "August session of VASKhNIL" (July 31 - August 7, 1948) organised under control of the Communist party (Joseph Stalin
personally corrected the drafts of the Trofim Lysenko's opening address "On the Situation in Biological Science") led to a formal ban on teaching "Mendelist-Weismannist-Morganist" genetics (a pejorative label based on the names of Gregor Mendel
, August Weismann
, and Thomas Hunt Morgan
), which was effective until the early 1960s.
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
Sciences of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
(the acronym stands for Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences - Всесоюзная академия сельскохозяйственных наук имени В. И. Ленина). Built upon the model of the Academy of Sciences of USSR, VASKhNIL included not only a body of academicians but a vast network of research institutions scattered all over the country with thousands of researchers, plant and cattle breeders.
It operated from 1929 to 1992 (dissolution of the Soviet Union
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
The dissolution of the Soviet Union was the disintegration of the federal political structures and central government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , resulting in the independence of all fifteen republics of the Soviet Union between March 11, 1990 and December 25, 1991...
). In the 1930s - 1940s, meetings of the academy members ("sessions" of VASKhNIL) provided the floor for debates between Lysenkoists
Lysenkoism
Lysenkoism, or Lysenko-Michurinism, also denotes the biological inheritance principle which Trofim Lysenko subscribed to and which derive from theories of the heritability of acquired characteristics, a body of biological inheritance theory which departs from Mendelism and that Lysenko named...
and geneticists. After Trofim Lysenko
Trofim Lysenko
Trofim Denisovich Lysenko was a Soviet agronomist of Ukrainian origin, who was director of Soviet biology under Joseph Stalin. Lysenko rejected Mendelian genetics in favor of the hybridization theories of Russian horticulturist Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin, and adopted them into a powerful...
had taken control over the Academy, it became for about thirty years a stronghold of Lysenkoism. The proverbial among Russian biologists "August session of VASKhNIL" (July 31 - August 7, 1948) organised under control of the Communist party (Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
personally corrected the drafts of the Trofim Lysenko's opening address "On the Situation in Biological Science") led to a formal ban on teaching "Mendelist-Weismannist-Morganist" genetics (a pejorative label based on the names of Gregor Mendel
Gregor Mendel
Gregor Johann Mendel was an Austrian scientist and Augustinian friar who gained posthumous fame as the founder of the new science of genetics. Mendel demonstrated that the inheritance of certain traits in pea plants follows particular patterns, now referred to as the laws of Mendelian inheritance...
, August Weismann
August Weismann
Friedrich Leopold August Weismann was a German evolutionary biologist. Ernst Mayr ranked him the second most notable evolutionary theorist of the 19th century, after Charles Darwin...
, and Thomas Hunt Morgan
Thomas Hunt Morgan
Thomas Hunt Morgan was an American evolutionary biologist, geneticist and embryologist and science author who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1933 for discoveries relating the role the chromosome plays in heredity.Morgan received his PhD from Johns Hopkins University in zoology...
), which was effective until the early 1960s.
VASKhNIL Presidents
- 1929 — 1935 — Nikolai VavilovNikolai VavilovNikolai Ivanovich Vavilov was a prominent Russian and Soviet botanist and geneticist best known for having identified the centres of origin of cultivated plants...
- 1935 — 1937 — Alexander Muralov
- 1938 — 1956 — Trofim LysenkoTrofim LysenkoTrofim Denisovich Lysenko was a Soviet agronomist of Ukrainian origin, who was director of Soviet biology under Joseph Stalin. Lysenko rejected Mendelian genetics in favor of the hybridization theories of Russian horticulturist Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin, and adopted them into a powerful...
- 1959 — 1961 — Pavel Lobanov
- 1961 — 1962 — Trofim Lysenko, second term
- 1962 — 1965 — Mikhail Olshanskiy
- 1965 — 1978 — Pavel Lobanov, second term
- 1978 — 1983 — Petr Vavilov
- 1984 — 1992 — Alexander Nikonov