Grigory Andreyevich Levitsky (November 7 (19), 1878, s. Belki, Skvirsky district, Kiev province - May 20, 1942, prison in the city of Zlatoust, Chelyabinsk region) - Russian and Soviet scientist, cytologist, plant morphologist, geneticist. Corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences since 1932. He introduced the term “ karyotype ” in its modern sense (Levitsky, 1924). [one]
| Grigory Andreevich Levitsky | ||
|---|---|---|
 | ||
| Date of Birth | November 7 (19), 1878 | |
| Place of Birth | with. Squirrels, Skvirsky uyezd , Kiev province , Russian empire | |
| Date of death | May 20, 1942 (63 years old) | |
| Place of death | Zlatoust , Chelyabinsk Region , RSFSR , USSR | |
| A country |  Russian Empire →  the USSR | |
| Scientific field | cytology , cytogenetics | |
| Alma mater | Kiev University | |
| supervisor | S. G. Navashin | |
| Famous students | F. G. Dobrzhansky | |
| Known as | author of works in the field of plant cytology and cytogenetics | |
| Awards and prizes |
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Content
Biography
He was born in 1878 in the village of Belki of the Skvirsky district of the Kiev province in the family of a priest [2] .
He studied at the College of Paul Galagan . In 1902 he graduated from Kiev University (1902), a student of S. G. Navashin . He worked as a laboratory assistant in the botany cabinet of the Kiev Polytechnic Institute , then as a teacher at the KPI (1904–08 and 1911–22), professor at the Kiev Institute of National Economy (1920–25), and head of the laboratory at the Kiev Institute of Selection (1922–1925).
In 1907, he was arrested for participating in the All-Russian Peasant Congress, spent 8 months in Butyrka prison, and then was expelled from Russia. At that time he worked in the libraries of London and Paris, at the Russian biological station in Villa Franca near Naples, in the botanical garden of the University of Bonn. In Bonn, he worked under the guidance of the German cytologist Eduard Strasburger , researching neurochromosomal heredity.
Since 1911 he returned to Kiev and again taught the morphology and systematics of plants at the KPI. At this time, he investigated the microscopic structure of a plant cell. In 1914 he was mobilized in the army, from where a year later he returned to the rank of ensign. In 1915, Levitsky passed the exam at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the KPI and received a master's degree.
In 1917-1920, Levitsky taught the course "Structure and Organization of Protoplasm" at the People's University. In 1920, he organized the Department of Plant Morphology and Systematics at the Kiev Institute of National Economy , which he managed until 1925. Also in 1920, he organized higher education courses on agricultural plant breeding at the Saharotrest, and in 1922 he became one of the founders of the Kiev Scientific Institute of Selection, where he headed the laboratory of plant morphology and systematics.
In 1925, a daughter Nadezhda was born into the Levitian family, and on May 31, 1927, the son Ivan.
In 1925, at the invitation of Nikolai Vavilov, Grigory Levitsky moved to Leningrad , where he studied the structure of chromosomes. Head of the VIR Cytology Laboratory in Detsky Selo, professor at the Agricultural Institute in the same place; taught at LSU .
Companion of Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov . Among his students, Grigory Andreyevich singled out two: a student in Kiev , subsequently the creator of the synthetic theory of evolution F. G. Dobrzhansky and a student in the Children’s Village N. P. Avdulova , as well as a teacher who died in Stalin’s dungeons [3] .
In 1927, he participated in the International Genetic Congress in Berlin . In 1932 he was elected a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
In February 1933, he was arrested on trumped-up charges of creating the never-existing " Socialist-Revolutionary Terrorist Group." Sentenced by the Troika PP OGPU in the Leningrad Military District on April 21, 1933 to a three-year exile to the city of Achinsk, Krasnoyarsk Territory . G. Levitsky advocated G. J. Möller , N. I. Vavilov , D. Kostov , G. K. Meister .
By their efforts, he was released at the end of 1933 and restored to his former place of work. At the beginning of 1934 he returned to Detskoe Selo and took his former place in VIR, becoming a doctor of biological sciences. In 1934-1937, at the invitation of the head of the Department of Genetics, Georgy Karpechenko, was a professor at Leningrad University . In 1937, on trumped-up charges, he was arrested in Pushkin, questioned in Leningrad and released the next day. In 1938-1941 he taught at the Department of Genetics of the Pushkin Agricultural Institute.
On June 26, 1941, he was arrested for the third time together with other VIR employees on a trumped-up case of the never-existing “anti-Soviet wrecking organization led by Vavilov” [4] . Levitsky fell ill during the investigation, was transferred to a prison hospital and died on May 20, 1942. The case against him was dismissed "due to insufficient collected evidence" [4] .
Levitsky was completely rehabilitated by the Leningrad Prosecutor's Office on December 17, 1955 (in the case of 1941) and the Presidium of the Lengorsud on December 28, 1956 (in the case of 1933).
Restored at the Academy of Sciences by order of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences on December 7, 1956 in connection with rehabilitation.
Rewards
- Order of the Red Banner of Labor (06/10/1945, posthumous) [5]
Major works
- Levitsky G. A. Material basis of heredity. - Kiev: State University of Ukraine, 1924.
- Levitsky G.A. Morphology of chromosomes. Story. Methodology Data. Theory // Tr. by prikl. botany, genetics and selection. - L .: VIR Publishing House, 1931. - T. 27 , No. 1 . - S. 19–174 .
- Levitsky G.A. Plant cytology. - M .: Nauka, 1976 .-- 346 p.
Notes
- ↑ Karyotype // Great Soviet Encyclopedia : [in 30 vol.] / Ch. ed. A.M. Prokhorov . - 3rd ed. - M .: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1969-1978.
- ↑ Rodionov A.V. Grigory Andreevich Levitsky (1878 - 1940) // Genetics. - 2009. - T. 45 , No. 11 . - S. 1429-1435 .
- ↑ Companions of N.I. Vavilov.
- ↑ 1 2 . The Case of the Anti-Soviet Wrecking Organization in VIR, 1940-41
- ↑ Levitsky Grigory Andreevich // Great Soviet Encyclopedia : [in 30 vol.] / Ch. ed. A.M. Prokhorov . - 3rd ed. - M .: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1969-1978.
Source
Links
- Rodionov A. V. Grigory Andreevich Levitsky and the formation of evolutionary cytogenetics in Soviet Russia // Materials of the symposium in memory of G. A. Levitsky “Chromosomes and Evolution”. St. Petersburg. 2008.S. 5-11.
- Mention