Nikolai Vavilov

**Life and Career of Nikolai Vavilov:**
– Born in Moscow into a merchant family
– Studied at the Petrovskaya Agricultural Academy, graduating in 1910
– Held positions at the University of Saratov and the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences
– Conducted botanical-agronomic expeditions globally
– Proposed theory on centers of origin of cultivated plants in 1927
– Established the world’s largest collection of plant seeds in Leningrad

**Persecution and Personal Life:**
– Proposed the seventh International Congress of Genetics in the USSR, canceled in 1936
– Criticized Trofim Lysenko’s anti-genetics theories
– Arrested in 1940 and sentenced to death in 1941
– Died in prison in 1943 under harsh conditions
– Had two sons from different marriages, one with geneticist Elena Ivanovna Barulina

**Rehabilitation and Legacy:**
– Sentence vacated in 1955, reputation rehabilitated in the 1960s
– Recognized for contributions to science and agriculture
– Vavilov Institute in St. Petersburg maintains a large plant genetic material collection
– Awards like the Vavilov Award and Vavilov Medal established in his honor
– Leningrad seedbank preserved during the Siege of Leningrad

**Media Portrayal and Recognition:**
– Fictionalized stories in novels like ‘Hunger’ and songs like ‘When The War Came’
– Documentary and TV episodes dedicated to his life and work
– Shevchenko National Prize awarded for a film on Vavilov
– Legacy preserved through renaming of the Vavilov Institute in 1968

**Research Contributions and Publications:**
– Contributions to plant genetics, centers of origin, and spread of crops
– Legacy in the field of genetics and agricultural sciences
– Notable publications and research works by Vavilov and his contemporaries
– Influence on the development of space biology and Soviet genetics
– Concepts like Vavilovian mimicry and Lysenkoism associated with his work