Trofim Lysenko

Trofim Denisovich Lysenko (Russian: Трофи́м Дени́сович Лысе́нко; Ukrainian: Трохи́м Дени́сович Лисе́нко, romanized: Trofym Denysovych Lysenko, IPA: [troˈxɪm deˈnɪsowɪtʃ lɪˈsɛnko]; 29 September [O.S. 17 September] 1898 – 20 November 1976) was a Soviet agronomist and scientist. He was a proponent of Lamarckism, and rejected Mendelian genetics in favour of his own idiosyncratic, pseudoscientific ideas later termed Lysenkoism.

In 1940, Lysenko became director of the Institute of Genetics of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, and he used his political influence and power to suppress dissenting opinions and discredit, marginalize, and imprison his critics, elevating his anti-Mendelian theories to state-sanctioned doctrine.

Soviet scientists who refused to renounce genetics were dismissed from their posts and left destitute. Several were imprisoned including the botanist Nikolai Vavilov. Lysenko's ideas and practices contributed to the famines that killed millions of Soviet people; the adoption of his methods from 1958 in the People's Republic of China had similarly calamitous results, contributing to the Great Chinese Famine of 1959 to 1961.

The son of Denis Nikanorovich and Oksana Fominichna Lysenko, Trofim Lysenko was born into a peasant family of Ukrainian ethnicity in the village of Karlovka, Poltava Governorate (present-day Poltava Oblast, Ukraine) on 29 September 1898. The family later welcomed two sons and a daughter.

Lysenko learned to read and write only at the age of 13. In 1913, after graduating from a two-year rural school, he entered the lower school of horticulture in Poltava. In 1917, he entered and in 1921 he graduated from the secondary school of horticulture in Uman (now the Uman National University of Horticulture [ru]).

Lysenko's period of study in Uman coincided with the First World War and the Russian Civil War: the city was captured by Austro-Hungarian troops, then by the Central Ukrainian Rada. In February 1918, Soviet power was proclaimed in Uman, after which until 1920 the city periodically passed into the hands of the Red and White Armies.

In 1922, Lysenko entered the Kiev Agricultural Institute (now the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine). During his studies, he worked at the Belotserkovsk experimental station as a garden plant breeder. In 1923, he published his first scientific works: "Techniques and methods of tomato selection at the Belotserkovskaya selection station" and "Grafting of sugar beets." Lysenko graduated from the institute with a degree in agronomy in 1925.

In October 1925, Lysenko was sent to Azerbaijan, to a breeding station in the city of Ganja. The Ganja breeding station was part of the staff of the All-Union Institute of Applied Botany and New Crops (now the Institute of Plant Industry), created in 1925, which was headed by Nikolai Vavilov. The director of the station at that time was Nikolai Derevitsky, a specialist in mathematical statistics in agronomy. Derevitsky set Lysenko the task of introducing legume crops (lupine, clover, peavine, vetch) into Azerbaijan, which could solve the problem of starvation of livestock in early spring, as well as increasing soil fertility when plowing these crops in the spring. Vavilov had done experiments on converting winter wheat into spring wheat. It was Vavilov who initially supported Lysenko and encouraged him in his work. In an article, Pravda correspondent Vitaly Fedorovich described his first impression of the meeting with Lysenko: