The Vavilov Institute
St.Petersburg, Russia

Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov

Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov
Explorer and Plant Collectora

BARRY MENDEL COHEN b

During his lifetime Nikolai Vavilov was the foremost plant geographer of the Soviet Union, perhaps of the world. He may be compared with such famous American plant explorers as Dr. David Fairchild, Professor Frank N. Meyer, and Dr. Harry V. Harlan who roamed the globe in search of disease-resistant and/or otherwise valuable new varieties of plants.1 But of all these explorers over the globe it was Professor Vavilov who had the vision of The World Collection of Plants embracing all useful cultivated varieties. Vavilov in 1925 dreamed and prepared for the time when

we have before us the possibility, in Timitiazev’s express,on, of ’sculpturing organic forms at will’. In the near future man will he able, by means of crossing to synthesize forms such as are absolutely unknown in nature.2

By 1936 ’Vavilov’s friend Dr. Khmelarzh in Czechoslovakia could justly boast: "The institutes which he [Vavilov] directs are the world’s largest and have surpassed the American institutes in size and importance."3 As befits his dishonest nature, by 1936 Lysenko had already taken hold of the phrase, "sculpturing forms," substituting a slipshod theory of training plants by developing their acquired characteristics instead of careful plant breeding. He thereby twisted Vavilov’s dream into a nightmare.

Vavilov’s plant collecting had its earliest beginning in childhood when he maintained a small herbarium at home.4 This desire to collect plants remained with Vavilov all of his life-whether as an official duty or not. When Vavilov returned to Russia from England in August 1914, the plant collection gathered by him was lost with some danger to Vavilov himself.

Dr. Malinowski, of Warsaw, arrived, intending to work here, but on the declaration of war a few days later, he returned to Russia. Dr. Vavilov also left about the same time. The whole of his material, representing experiments of great interest, was lost in the "Runo," which struck a mine on the voyage to Russia.5

The first full-fledged expedition for the express purpose of plant collecting, however, was Vavilov’s journey to Persia in 1916. During the early days of World War I, Nikolai had been exempted from military service because of an eye injury, but on 26 February 1916 he was drafted. The army did not take him, but he was directed by the Ministry of Agriculture to undertake an expedition into Iran.6 A. I. Ipat’ev, the Vavilov family historian, gave us a view of Nikolai about to depart on his first major expedition:

One clear summer day in 1916 an automobile, a great rarity then, pulled up to the bouse. Nikolai Ivanovich came up to me while I was sitting in the garden and greeted me. He was, as always, radiant and happy, only his appearance was unusual and strange. He was wearing a cream-colored summer suit, across his shoulders was a full pack, and on his head was the strangest thing of all, a white hat with a double brim, which he called a "hello-good-bye’’ hat. He got into the auto and drove off.7 

From May until August 1916, Vavilov was "on the go" in Iran.8 It was certainly the beginning of many adventures. First, Vavilov was stopped and detained for 3 days by the Russian authorities at the border because he had some German textbooks and kept his diary in English. He was charged as a German spy, but then released upon telegraphed confirmation of his documents.9 His caravan traveled in desert areas with temperatures "110 in the shade," while his path carried Vavilov within 40 to 50 kilometers of the World War I battlefront along the Turkish-Russian border.10 Despite the hardships and dangers, this expedition was most worthwhile from the agricultural point of view, for it resulted in the discovery of many valuable varieties and was the founding expedition of the World Collection.

After completing the expedition into Persia, Vavilov turned his attention to the Pamir Mountains of Central Asia, returning there again in 1924, 1929, and 1932 after the eventful initial expedition. On this first expedition, Vavilov was abandoned by his Kirghiz caravan.11 In Professor Meyer’s career, he was "mobbed; he was arrested; he was attacked by footpads; he was deserted by his guides." All this happened to Dr. Frank Meyer in a lifetime, but it had all come to Vavilov on his first expedition!12

The second major expedition was to the United States lasting from May 1921 through January l922. Accompanying Vavilov was Dr. A. A. Iachevskii; both men were invited delegates to the American Conference of Cereal Pathologists held from 19 to 22 July 1921. The invitation to this meeting was of historical importance, as it was the first example of scientific cooperation between the United States and the newly established Soviet Union. Unfortunately, the two delegates did not arrive in time for the conference, but were nevertheless able to spend their time in plant exploration.’4 I shall later discuss Vavilov’s friendship with Dr. Harry V. Harlan, formed at this time, as well as Vavilov’s role in the founding of the New York Branch of the Division of Applied Botany and also his panicipation as advisor to the American Relief Administration directed by Herbert Hoover.15

The next expedition was Vavilov’s most important, from the geographic point of view, for he was to traverse new ground previously unexplored in Afghanistan. As was his practice, Vavilov read in advance all he could about Afghanistan and he took note of what the English explorer Ferrier had had to say in 1858: "the foreigner who wishes to travel through Afghanistan, must do so under the special protection of heaven, if he wishes to leave there unharmed, and with a head on his shoulders."16 Vavilov began his journey 19 July 1924, crossing the river Kyshk at Chil’dykhturan and travelling in the direction of Herat.17 By now Vavilov had dismissed his translator18 and was using Farsi grammar written in Arabic. He was much interested in linguistics and what it could tell him about the origin of plants. In a real tour-de-force of language, Vavilov set out to compare the names of grain and animals in Russian, Tadzhik, Kaffir (Ethiopian), and Pushtu (Afghanistan) and to derive an idea of the mutual influence of agriculture among these peoples as indicated by the mutual interaction of the agricultural language.19

With the curiosity of the true scientist and scholar, Vavilov was interested in more than language or agriculture. He sought out the archeological at Balkh then being excavated by the French, led by Professor Fouché. He was intrigued by this city because it dated from the Greco-Bactrian times of Alexander the Great. Vavilov viewed the results of this "dig" on-site and in the Guimet Museum in Paris in 1926.20

On 16 October 1924 Vavilov began the most dramatic part of his journey through Nuristan, which "not only was untouched in its agronomical and botanical relations but it had not even been studied geographically."21 He explored this previously unknown region from 16 October 1924 until returning to the city of Kabul on October 31. Because of the special nature of this part of the expedition, Vavilov kept especially detailed notes marking the new geographical features that he discovered. The notes are especially complete for the entire Afghanistan expedition,22 which came to an end on 12 December 1924.23

Vavilov spent several days studying the Soviet-Afghan border region. He related that on 25 December 1924, while travelling by train and on his way to the dining car, he suddenly stepped between two cars and was left dangling between them supported only by his elbows. He thought of the dangers of the Afghanistan expedition and now of the danger he faced on the train. It was enough to make him a fatalist.24

In 1925 Vavilov was awarded the N.M. Przhevalsky Gold Medal by the Soviet Geographic Society for the Afghanistan Expedition.25

In summer 1926, he set out on his most ambitious expedition, actually two combined into one. Part of his intent was to address the Fifth International Genetics Congress in Berlin (11-17 September 1927) and the International Agricultural Congress at Rome.26 But first he would explore the Mediterranean, then continue on to Ethiopia and finally return to Europe for the conferences.

At the outset he went to London and Paris to obtain visas for entry into the colonial areas of North Africa and the Middle East. In London he received permission to visit Palestine, but not Egypt or the Sudan. This was a hindrance to the full purpose of the expedition, but, always optimistic, he wrote to his wife, Elena Bartulina Vavilova: "In a word, all Egypt is contained in the British Museum, and I went to Kew Gardens."27

By 22 June 1926, Vavilov was in Paris. He had difficulties with the French authorities, but found a patron there, or rather a patroness, the Marquise Phillipa de Vilmorin. On that evening he dressed "as never before" and attended a dinner party with Professor Chevalier at the Marquise’s home. She did not make a good first impression. "She must be 50-55 judging by her children-her face, it is true, is pretty enough, with just a trace of tiredness. But she is so confused and stupid …nothing can come of this."28

However, as the evening wore on, Marquise Vilmorin had showed him her library, her Mendel Medal from Brno, Czechoslovakia, awarded to her personally. And when Vavilov mentioned his visa problems she told him not to worry, as she knew an official in the Foreign Ministry who was an intimate personal friend and to whom she would write, saying that Vavilov "was a great scientist and a great friend of my husband."29 The next day after a trip to the House of Vilmorin Seed Station at Verierres, Vavilov took another look at Madame Vilmorin and decided that "toward evening, she grew younger by twenty years, and in the profile even younger."30

There were still difficulties, but with the help of some irate telephone calls by Marquise Vilmorin to the French Foreign Ministry, Vavilov could write by 24 Junc 1926:

It will be awhile before I can believe my eyes. in my pocket are no less than the visas to Syria, Algiers, Tunis, and Morocco as well as Spain . , Italy and even in the end, and most important, Abyssinia, …Somalia.

At the Foreign Ministry there was no objection. This is all the work of the Marquise.31

The Mediterranean Expedition had its share of danger and adventure as did the others: In southern Syria, Vavilov traveled into a Druze area under revolt against French authority- He placed a white flag on his car and found the people friendly and helpful in finding plants, but it was here that he contracted malaria.32

Vavilov traveled in Palestine after his sojourn in Syria. He recalled a curious incident there that occurred on the first day of his visit. He knocked at a door of a private home and asked for admittance in English, but there was no answer. Then he tried German because it is similar to Yiddish, then French. All to no avail. As a last resort he spoke in Russian: the door was opened and he was instantly admitted. When asked to speak during his tour before the Palestine Department of Agriculture symposium, an audience of some 300 scholars voted to hold the lecture in Russian rather than English, French, or Hebrew.33 Since many Jewish settlers were originally from Russia, this was not too surprising.

The next expedition was the most exotic for Vavilov. This was the journey to Abyssinia from 27 December 1926 through April l927. 34 Vavilov arrived by steamer in French Somalia at Djibouti and by 27 December 1926 he was on the railroad headed for Addis-Ababa. Vavilov was the first Soviet citizen to travel in Ethiopia. Once in the capital, Vavilov was given an audience by the Emperor Menelik and the Regent Ras Tafari. Through interpreters they discussed wheat, Ethiopian agriculture, and even the Russian Revolution. Vavilov’s usual charm won their confidence and he gained their permission for his further exploration of their country.35

Vavilov now began to make preparations for his caravan into the Ethiopian interior. First he bought some sandals for the caravan bearers, but they sold them to the bazaar, preferring the money. Yet Vavilov would not have, or allow, the bearers to travel barefooted, and so he bought the sandals back and distributed them the day of the expedition. He then discovered that Ethiopian men would not ride donkeys, this being a mode of conveyance suitable only for women and children. For them to do so would be an insult to their manhood! In addition, there was the problem of the contract. The Ethiopian government required Vavilov to feed, clothe, pay, and provide medical treatment for the bearers. "But what about discipline?" Vavilov wanted to know. The governor suggested that Vavilov do as the other explorers did and simply shackle the natives. Vavilov, however, could not bring himself to do this and soon 7 February 1927, he set out with "fourteen souls, ten mules, three rifles, two spears, and two revolvers."36

Even so, the expedition was extremely successful. Vavilov established to his satisfaction that Ethiopia had indeed been a center of origin for cultivated plants. He also determined that agriculture in that part of the world had originated in Ethiopia and then been adopted in Egypt-the reverse of what had previously been thought. And he made the usual plant discovery: among the discoveries he made was one he described as "first class" a stem-less hard wheat, unknown even by crossing. And it fits the law of homologous series- found on the road to Aksum."37

The expedition was also to prove Vavilov’s most dangerous, for he was to become seriously ill. Already suffering from malaria caught in Syria, he now came down with typhus. In his letter to his wife he spoke of the kind treatment he received and the "touching human relationship." As Reznik rightly observed, the natives did not abandon "the first white explorer to bring sandals rather than shackles."35

Vavilov made several more major foreign expeditions. In November 1929 he toured western China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. He made two more expeditions to North America, one lasting from autumn 1930 until early 1931 and a second in connection with the Sixth International Genetics Congress, held at Ithaca, New York, in August 1932. On the second visit Vavilov went on an extensive tour of South America as well.39

We know little of these expeditions to North and South America, for the sections dealing with them in Vavilov’s charming memoir, Five Continents, were never completed. All we can say is that he was "all over the place." Vavilov’s biographer, Reznik, reconstructed the route of the 1930-1931 American expedition. Arriving in New York, Vavilov went up-state; then down to Washington and Richmond; then he followed the Eastern seaboard into Charleston, Savannah, and Miami, Then he toured the Gulf Coast: St. Petersburg, Gainesville, Mobile, New Orleans, and Galveston. From there Vavilov traveled through Texas and the Southwest: Austin, San Antonio, El Paso, Tucson, Phoenix, and various Indian reservations. Still "on the go," Vavilov found himself in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento. Turning southward, Vavilov returned to Arizona and crossed into Mexico and even into Guatemala. He came back to the United States at El Paso, then on to Oklahoma City, St. Paul, Madison, St. Louis, and finally homeward via New York.40

In Vavilov’s travel memoirs there is an outline of a projected discussion of the North American expedition, and one of the entries reads, "As Guest of the President of the University of Arizona."41 Although Vavilov did not write about this episode, the President of the University of Arizona, Dr. H. C. Shantz, himself a plant geographer, recorded this meeting in a special memoir prepared for the archives of his university.

On July31, 1930 when the Second International Congress of Soil Sciences entrained at Moscow on its field excursion in the USSR, N. I. Vavilov arranged with me to spend some time in the Indian country of Arizona. Accordingly he arrived in Tucson, Arizona and on that day, October 5th, we spent some time on the Papago reservation in and about Sells… We drove north into the Navajo and Hopi country in Northern Arizona... We then returned across the Mogollon Plateau.

I was in constant touch with my office in Tucson and was told on Saturday, October 11th, that there was a telegram For Vavilov.

Vavilov feared an interruption of his search for new plants. He repeatedly used the expression, "Time is short, time is short, there is much to do." He was on his way to California, then Mexico and Central America. He was eager to visit these places since many of the plants now important in world agriculture were not known in Europe in pre-Colombian days, and had originated quite independently in the New World. The list of important plants which originated in America is long and imposing. Since in many cases only one species had been used as a progenitor of the strains in cultivation, and since there are several species which have not yet been used for breeding purposes, the possibilities of improvement seemed great.

When he read the telegram, which was a rather long one, he hesitated a long time before deciding what to do. The gist of the wire was as follows:

There will be a state dinner in Washington on Friday, October 17 at which the Secretary of State and many leading American officials will be present. It is imperative that you be there.

About ten days later a similar dinner will be given in London at which the Prime Minister and other prominent statesmen will be in attendance. It is essential that you attend.

This was what he had dreaded. He was eager to complete his trip. The vision ahead of Vavilov can best he appreciated by the study of his subsequent paper, "Mexico and Central America as the Principal Center of Origin of Cultivated Plants of the New World:," Bulletin of Applied Botany, of Genetics and Plant Breeding. XXVI Volume, p.179, Leningrad, 1931.

We had been together some days and had many talks about the future of agriculture, of the desirability of knowing the natural resource of plant material to be drawn upon and of the necessity of providing food for the then starving people of Russia and other parts of the world. His whole desire was to improve agriculture and thereby raise the standard of nutrition for his people and those of the rest of the world. This trip into Mexico and Central America was of the greatest importance to the success of his plant work.

At last he said in essence-This wire is from a man who is not above me. If I were a Communist I would have to obey. In that case I could not use my own judgment. I am employed by the Communists to work for the welfare of the people of the USSR, but am still free to judge what is best. I will answer the wire and this is what he said-it is more important for the future of the people of the USSR that I visit the centers of origin of cultivated plants in Central America than that I attend any state dinner than can be arranged.

He left immediately for Pasadena to see Dr. Morgan and on the 24th of October wrote from Chico, California, that he was entering Mexico on the 30th of October.42

Vavilov’s last international expedition, to Central and South America, lasted the summer of 1932 until early in 1933. He traveled in many countries of the hemisphere: El Salvador, Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil. Next, he toured the islands of Trinidad and Cuba before turning homeward.43

But once back in the Soviet Union, the unfortunate Vavilov was no longer able to explore abroad. Political repression at home restricted travel by everyone, and Vavilov’s role in the Lysenko controversy made it doubly difficult for him to travel.

Vavilov hoped to make one more great expedition, this time into India, the only theoretical center of origin that he had not studied by his own exploration. In 1935 he even had a letter from the Soviet Ambassador at Kabul, Afghanistan, that if he would come there, a visa for India could be arranged. The ambassador, Leonid Nikolaevich Stark, had been a friend of Vavilov’s since 1924 when the latter had been in Afghanistan. Stark wrote that he only feared the difficulty that Vavilov would have in crossing the Khyber Pass, Vavilov had led caravans in more difficult places in Sinkiang, but as Mark Popovskii wrote, “A certain unknown force, stronger than the snow and ice of the Himalayan summits, keeps him at home.”44

There was plenty of work for Vavilov to do at home, for this tireless explorer had assembled the world’s largest collection of seeds. The collection by 1940 numbered some 200,000 specimens from both the Soviet Union and from abroad. The VIR (Institute of Plant Industry) by this time had completed detailed individual studies on some 75.000 plants, well over half of these being wheat samples. Vavilov in 1923 established a network of some 115 experimental stations in order to sow the collection over the widest possible geographical range.

As a personal gesture of friendship Professor Zhukovsky sent 17 specimens of wheat to Dr. Leppik at that time.50

Even as Zhukovsky was writing, the Soviet Union was busy rebuilding the World Collection. Although much material had been lost, after the fall of Lysenko in February 1965 a new director, Dr. D. D. Brezhnev, himself a veteran of the Leningrad siege, took over the VIR and the World Collection, which had never ceased to exist as at least a paper institution. Dr. Brezhnev could write that, as of 1 January 1969, there were some 175,000 accessions in the collection and these were again available as a resource for the creation of new varieties.51 Vavilov’s vision has not been allowed to perish.

All varieties of specimens accumulated by the All-Union Institute of Plant Breeding were sown over a number of years in various stations, some of them belonging to thc Jnstitulc jiscIf and others to other experimental research institutions-from the sub-Polar Station in (All-Union Institute of Plant Breeding, ca. 670 north latitude), on the Kolya peninsula, to Tashkent, Sukhumi and the Far East, inclusivelv.45

Vavilov had gathered a veritable treasure trove for all humanity. r give here just one example of the value of the world collection, although there are thousands of similar cases. In 1932 Vavilov was in West Texas and collected the plant Mel janihus /enliculatis Douglas. This variety of sunflower was tested and crossed for a period of some 30 years by the Soviet researcher Professor V. S. Pustovoit; at last, in 1962, Pustovoit achieved from it a stable hybrid with greatly increased sunflower seed-oil production. This hybrid was shown by Pustovoit’s daughter in 1972 to a delegation of American farmers touring the Icrasnodar Experimental Station. The delegation was so impressed that this variety was re-introduced for cultivation in West Texas. No more dramatic evidence can be given of the value of international scientific cooperation.46

After Vavilov’s arrest in August 1940, instigated by Lysenko’s partisans (perhaps even by Lysenko himself), the World Collection was no longer under the direction of authentic scientists. Nevertheless, Vavilov had built something of enduring value. During World War 11 the collection was in great danger, and heroic efforts were made to preserve it. Part of the collection at the Puskikin Experimental Station was taken behind enemy lines by the Russians. In a daring maneuver the collection was taken in a convoy of some 20 trucks to the University of Tartu Experimental Station in Estonia. As the Soviet party crossed the German lines, its members pretended to be peasants planning to sell grain to the Germans This portion of the World Collection in Tartu came under the care of Dr F. F. Leppik, a colleague of Vavilov. The collection remained there from mid-1942 until late 1944, when the German Army seized it and attempted to remove it to Lithuania.47 This collection was returned to the Soviet Union after the war.

Much of the World Collection, nevertheless, remained in Leningrad, where the VIR took a major role not only in preserving the collection, but in the defense of the city during the German blockade. Leningrad was organized into 16 agricultural districts and even the famous St. Isaac’s Square-the very center of Leningrad-became a cabbage field. The defense of the World Collection was also truly heroic, for despite the dire hunger of the population, neither the scientists nor the people took or asked one item from the World Collection for consumption. Their thought was toward the future, even in those catastrophic times.48

After the war the collection fell into neglect. Lysenko maintained that there were no pure lines, and so the collection tragically was allowed to deteriorate. Professor P. M. Zhukovsky, in a letter to Dr. Leppik dated 29 August 1968, explained that

being subjected long to cross-pollination, out-breeding and introgression, many accessions have lost their authenticity. During two World Wars, civil wars, and occupation, many samples have lost their germinability. Renowned wheat populations of the Russian steppes and forest area are also lost. Everything valuable left from World War II has been distributed among several botanical gardens and research institutions.49

EPILOGUE

Vavilov’s arrest on 6 August 1940 and his death in January 1943 were tragedies for world science made even darker by Lysenko’s ominous elevation to power by Stalin in August 1948. But Stalin’s bizarre amalgam of Marxism and science was to have an unexpected result-the creation of a united opposition determined to free genetics and restore Vavilov’s good name. In 1965 the great leaders of Soviet dissent, Sakharov, Solzhenitsyn, and the Medvedev brothers, combined to force Brezhnev to allow the partial rehabilitation of Vavilov and to put Lysenko into full eclipse. Now with glasnost the vision of a restored genetics and a respected Vavilov is a happy reality.

NOTES
Received I December 1988; accepted 2 April 1990. Extract from a Ph.D. dissertation, A;M)1ai Ivanot-ich Vaw/o"-lhL~ LUc and Itork, University of Texas at Austin. December 1980. Weslaco Public Library, Weslaco-. TX 78596.

1 D. C. Peattie, "Uncle Sam’s Valiant Plant-Hunters," Reader’s Digest (October 1944), 94-96.
2 As quoted by D. Joravsky, “The Vavilov Brothers,” Slavic Review 24 (September 1965), 385.
3 V. Orel, “Nauchnye sviazi Nikolaia Ivanovicha Vavilova s Chekhoslovakiei,” Genetika (#3, 1969), 179.
4 Reznik, N. Vavilov (Moscow 1968), 12. 
5 "Report of the Director [William Bateson] for the Year 1914," p. 2 of the John Innes Horticultural Institution. I am indebted to Professor Roy Markham, PRS., a former director of this institution, for a photocopy of this document.
6 M. Popovskii, Nado speshit’ (Moscow 1968), 35.
7 “Vospominania O Vavilovykh,” Priroda (#1, 1974), 110.
8 Reznik, N. vavdor (Moscow 1968), 328.
9 N. I. Vavilov, in Piat’ kontinentov  (Moscow 1962), 32.
10 Ibid., 33.
11 Ibid., 41.
12 D.C. Peattie, “Uncle Sam’s Valiant Plant-Hunters,” Reader’s Digest (October 1944), 95.
13 S. Resnik, N Vavilov, 328.
14 Letter of G. H. Coons to W. Gordon Whaley, 23 Oct 1952, p.1.
15 B. M. Cohen, Nikolai kanovzah Vavilov His Life and Work, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas at Austin, December 1980, chapter 7, pages 157-158.
16 As quoted by N. I. Vavilov in Piat’ kontinentov (Moscow 1962), 45.
17 Ibid.
18 B. M. Cohen, Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov His Life and Work, Ph.D. dissertation, university of Texas at Austin, December 1980, chapter 2, page 29.
19 As quoted by N.I. Vavilov in Piat’ kontinentov  (Moscow 1962), 77.
20 Ibid,, 50-51.
21 Ibid., 65.
22 See “Marshruty ekspeditsii glavnye torgovye puti v .Afganistane,” in N. I. Vavilov, Izb. trudy 1:366-390.

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