About Trofim Lysenko
Trofim Denisovich Lysenko (Russian: Трофим Денисович Лысенко; Ukrainian: Троxим Денисович Лисенко, romanized: Trokhym Denysovych Lysenko, IPA: [troˈxɪm deˈnɪsowɪtʃ lɪˈsɛnko]; 29 September [O.S. 17 September] 1898 – 20 November 1976) was a Soviet agronomist. He 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 lower agricultural yields in the Soviet Union throughout the late 1930s until his downfall in the mid-1960s; and found political and academic influence in other Eastern Bloc countries and China from the late 1940s through the mid-1950s. 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. On 30 December 1935, Lysenko was awarded the Order of Lenin and elected a full member of the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences. 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. 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.
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