Petrovsky Agricultural Academy

Clock tower

In 1857, the Imperial Moscow Agricultural Society recognized the need to establish an agricultural institute in Moscow ^{[Comm 1]} . The company rented in Petrovsko-Razumovsky territory and manor buildings, which in January 1861, at the highest command, were redeemed into the treasury for 250 thousand rubles specifically “for the purpose of establishing an agronomic institute, farm and other agricultural institutions” ^{[Comm 2]} .

In 1862, forestry scientist A. R. Vargas de Bedemar was invited to arrange the Forest Experimental Cottage, which was to serve as a training ground for students and conduct experimental work, and architect N. L. Benois was invited to reconstruct the estate from St. Petersburg, who built (1863-1865) on the site of a dilapidated manor palace the main educational building with a clock tower and unique convex glass ^[1] - the “auditorium building”. In the upper floor there is an assembly hall, two classrooms and classrooms: physical, geodesic, building art and mineralogical; in the lower floor there were, in addition to the classroom, library, professors' room and the Council hall - zoological, technological and forest rooms. A one-story stone outhouse with a stable was built on the second floor and adapted to accommodate a chemical laboratory with a special audience. Another outbuilding was also built up and it housed 48 rooms for students ^[2] . An agricultural museum is located on the site of the stone main greenhouse, and apartments are built on the second floor above the middle part and outbuildings ^[3] .

On October 27, 1865, the Charter of the Academy was established, in the development of which the future first director of the Academy, doctor of botany N. I. Zheleznov and professor of chemistry P. A. Ilyenkov, took part. According to paragraph No. 1 of the charter, the Petrovsky Agricultural and Forestry Academy had the goal of disseminating information on agriculture and forestry. According to the Charter, the Academy is an all-inclusive and open higher educational institution with the possibility of free admission to students (without educational qualifications), the choice of subjects of study, without entrance and transfer exams. By rights, the academy was placed above the already existing Mountain-Goretsky Agricultural Institute , because it was granted the right to award not only the degree of a candidate, but also the master of agriculture. The management of the Academy was organized under the supervision of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Industry, the management was entrusted to the director, council and economic committee. The training course was focused on practical work in zemstvo institutions, estate management. The educational process combined academic studies, experimental and selection work, and agricultural practices. In the early years, the Academy had only two departments - agricultural and forestry, which trained about 400 students. V. G. Korolenko , who studied at the academy for some time, wrote: “All the hopes that revived the intelligentsia of that time were reflected in the charter of the academy and were reflected in it” ^[6] .

The foundation day of the academy is considered to be December 3, 1865, when a government order was announced to open it. On January 25, 1866, the opening of lectures took place; in the large hall of the auditorium building (now the administrative building), the director of the academy, N. I. Zheleznov, delivered a speech addressed to the first students. Among the first professors are N. N. Kaufman , Ya. D. Golovin , I. N. Chernopyatov , V. E. Graff , V. T. Sobichevsky , I. A. Stebut , A. P. Stepanov , A. P. Zakharov , M.P. Shchepkin , I.K. Kossov , V.K. Della-Vos , E.M. Sokolovsky , P.A. Ilyenkov , N.E. Lyaskovsky , Y. Ya. Tsvetkov , I. B. Auerbach .

In 1869, S. G. Nechaev and his comrades killed S. Ivanov, a student of the Academy, in the grotto of the park; several students appeared in the “ non-Chaev process ”, which served as a reason for changing the charter of the educational institution.

In 1870, a dendrological garden was opened for visiting, founded by R. I. Schroeder as early as 1862 - three years before the establishment of the Academy ^{[Comm 3]} .

Since 1871, teaching began at the Academy of Gardening and Horticulture.

In 1872, under the new director - F. P. Korolyov , through the efforts of K. A. Timiryazev and I. A. Stebut, the first vegetation house (an exemplary greenhouse) appeared in Russia - “an experimental station of a physiological type”.

Since January 31, 1872, according to the new rules, only persons who submitted a certificate of completion of the full course of the gymnasium were accepted into students, and mandatory annual tests were introduced for all students. Over the seven years of the previous admission rule, out of 1111 students, only 139 had a certificate of a secondary educational institution ^[6] . The full course of study lasted 4 years; a fee of 25 rubles per year was charged for listening to lectures, and 5 rubles for one subject. These rules were included in the new charter of June 16, 1873 - since that time the academy has become a state university.

In 1876, F.K. Arnold became director; when it was developed the program of an experimental station for testing agricultural machinery and implements.

In 1878-1879, a forestry museum was organized at the academy, a forest nursery was established, and a meteorological station was opened on the experimental field.

Weather Observatory

Already at the time of the creation of the Petrovsky Agricultural Academy in 1865, the necessity of conducting regular weather observations was recognized, funds were allocated annually for the “physical office and meteorological observatory,” but only on January 1, 1879, regular meteorological observations began when the professor of the Department of Agriculture A. A. Fadeev ^{[Comm 4]} took the first counts, thereby opening up a continuous long-term series of observations of the weather in Moscow.

All the necessary tools for making observations were obtained from the Main Physical Observatory (St. Petersburg) . In the immediate vicinity of the observatory building was also a meteorological site. In addition to standard weather observations (temperature, humidity, precipitation, wind, cloud cover, etc.), additional observations were made: on solar radiation , evaporation, duration of sunshine, soil temperature.

A special place in the development of the observatory belongs to Professor V. A. Mikhelson , who headed it in the period 1894-1927. He expanded research on solar radiation, constructed a series of actinometers (mica, bimetallic, absolute universal) ^[7] . On January 1, 1912, the observatory moved to a new building, the project of which was developed on the instructions of Michelson, according to the project of the professor of the institute P. S. Strakhov under the supervision of architect N. N. Chernetsov . The three-story building of the observatory with a metal tower was specially adapted for meteorological observations and scientific research. For anemometric and actinometric observations, a tower 11 meters high (26 meters above ground level) was built, and on the south side there was an open actinometric platform above the second floor of the building.

In 1889, during the leadership of E. A. Junge (1883-1890), a new Charter was adopted, according to which the forest branch was liquidated, in connection with which the name Petrovsky Agricultural Academy changed. A.P. Zakharov was appointed Director.

On February 1, 1894, due to the revolutionary mood in the student community, the academy was closed and turned into the Petrovsky-Razumovsky estate. It was supposed to arrange a women's institute, as well as transfer a cavalry military school to it from Tver ^[8] . However, on June 6, 1894, the Moscow Agricultural Institute was established in Petrovsko-Razumovsky, the purpose of which is "to provide students with higher education in agriculture and agricultural engineering"; On September 26, its discovery was announced. Former professors and students of the Academy were forbidden to accept. Two departments were opened: agricultural and agricultural engineering. Common subjects for both departments were: geodesy, physics and meteorology, mineralogy and geology, soil science, botany, zoology, entomology, general and private farming, general animal husbandry, the basics of political economy and statistics, agricultural economics, law, the doctrine of agricultural machines and implements , theology. According to the new charter, the institute was a closed institution, in the hostel of which students were obliged to live. The size of the hostel limited the number of students, there were no more than 200. Scholarships were established for previously graduated universities, and the time spent in the institute was credited as a full-fledged civil service - this should have contributed to the training of a sufficient number of agricultural specialists.

The first director of the institute was appointed K. A. Rachinsky , his assistant - professors N. M. Kulagin , and the members of the board - V. R. Williams and A. V. Martynov . In 1904-1907, the director was A.P. Shimkov , from 1909 - I.A. Iveronov , in 1916-1917 - D.N. Pryanishnikov .

Botanical Garden

In the period 1895-1898, Professor S.I. Rostovtsev laid the Botanical Garden. Speaking at a meeting of the Institute’s Council, Rostovtsev emphasized that “... the construction of the botanical garden should begin from the very beginning: removal of weeds, earthworks, breakdown, etc. It is necessary to conduct water, make devices for water, marsh, steppe, alpine and other plants ... "; On December 12, 1895, the Council issued a decree on the creation of a botanical garden and the allocation of 1,200 rubles for this, as well as for maintenance in 1896. To create a botanical garden, a place was allocated for greenhouses with an area of ​​1030 square meters. fathoms, not far from the botanical office, where once, in the early years of the Peter's Academy, there was already a botanical garden. The head of the garden was Professor S.I. Rostovtsev himself.

In the garden, three departments were organized: systematic, biological and experimental. Representatives of families were gathered on the territory of the systematic department, whose knowledge was considered necessary for agronomists; a biological department was created for the cultivation of species that require specific growing conditions - aquatic , alpine , marsh, steppe, etc. A pond and rocky hill were created; their location, although the general layout of the garden has changed more than once, has remained unchanged. The purpose of the experimental department was to study the growth and development of plants, to conduct observations of plants, as well as on the territory of the experimental department, still undefined species or species recently introduced into central Russia were planted.

After the death of S.I. Rostovtsev, the botanical garden (1916-1918) was headed by professor of plant physiology N. N. Khudyakov .

Breeding Station

By the end of the 19th century, the birth of a breeding station dates back. In 1903, the assistant at the Department of General Agriculture and Soil Science D.L. Rudzinsky, with the assistance of V.R. Williams, began the first systematic work on the selection of wheat, oats and potatoes on the plots of the experimental field, and since 1905, peas. These works laid the foundation for the institute's breeding station. In 1906, the first promising varieties were sown, and already in 1908, D. L. Rudzinsky was awarded the Big Gold Medal at the All-Russian Exhibition in St. Petersburg.

Since 1907, practical exercises were begun at the breeding station with the students of the academy; in 1912, N.N. Chernetsov built a two-story building with a basement for storing food.

In 1909, a land allot was allocated to the breeding station, money began to be released, a separate material and financial balance appeared, and the schedule of duties was approved. D. L. Rudzinsky took the most authoritative at that time Svalefsky breeding station in Sweden as a model organization. On January 1, 1913, the breeding station was officially registered and accepted into the state account, and D. L. Rudzinsky was appointed its head. During the First World War until 1917 he was replaced by S. I. Zhegalov; then, until March 1922, when Rudzinsky left for the Baltic states, the duties of the head were performed by L. I. Govorov (1885-1941), who was his deputy in 1915-1921 ^[9] .

For 20 years at the station D. L. Rudzinsky bred 13 varieties of winter wheat, 11 - oats, 11 - peas, 18 - potatoes, 1 - flax. To develop the theoretical foundations of selection and evaluation of breeding samples, he organized cytological, chemical and flour-grinding baking laboratories ^[10] .

In 1932, the breeding station became part of the Moscow breeding center (now it is the Moscow Research Institute of Agriculture Nemchinovka of the Russian Agricultural Academy ). In 1948, the breeding station was restored in the structure of the Timiryaz Agricultural Academy, but already as its training unit ^[9] .

After 1917, a new stage in the history of the academy began: its name was restored - the Petrovsky Agricultural Academy, the charter and organizational structure of the academy were changed, new curricula and programs were created. In December 1923, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR decided: "Rename the Petrovsky Agricultural Academy to the Agricultural Academy named after K. A. Timiryazev ."

Famous Teachers

• botany: K.A. Timiryazev (1870-1894), S.I. Rostovtsev (1894-1916);
• plant physiology: N. I. Zheleznov , N. N. Kaufman , K. A. Timiryazev (1870-1894), N. N. Khudyakov (since 1894) ^{[Comm 5]} ;
• geodesy and astronomy: A.P. Zakharov (1865-1894); I. A. Iveronov (1891-1915) ^[11]
• general agriculture: I. A. Stebut (since 1865), V. R. Williams , A. G. Doyarenko (since 1910);
• soil science: I. A. Stebut (1866–1875), A. A. Fadeev (1876–1887), V. R. Williams (1894–1912);
• private agriculture (crop production): I. A. Stebut (since 1876), D. N. Pryanishnikov (since 1895);
• gardening and horticulture: R. I. Schroeder (1865-1903), E. A. Meyer (1903-1914) ^[12] , V. I. Edelstein (since 1915);
• Forestry: V.E. Graff (1866-1867), N.E. Popov (1868-1870), V.T.Sobichevsky (1865-1881), M.K. Tursky (1876-1899), N.S. Nesterov (since 1899);
• Agricultural chemistry: D.N. Pryanishnikov (since 1895);
• crop production mechanization: V.K. Della-Vos (1865-1872), A.K. Ashleyman (1873-1893), K. G. Schindler (since 1893), V. P. Goryachkin (since 1896) ^[13] ;
• Zoology: K.E. Lindeman , N.M. Kulagin (since 1894);
• general animal husbandry: N.P. Chirvinsky (1882-1894), E. A. Bogdanov ;
• animal physiology and biochemistry: A. I. Babukhin (since 1868), L. Z. Morokhovets (since 1882), A. V. Leontovich ^{[Comm 6]} (since 1913) ^[14] ;
• horse breeding: M. I. Pridorogin ^[15] (since 1895);
• cattle: I.N. Chernopyatov (1865-1879);
• Private livestock: P. N. Kuleshov (1882–1894), M. I. Pridorogin (1895–1914);
• political economy and agricultural statistics: M.P. Shchepkin (1865-1870), I.I. Ivanyukov (since 1873), A.P. Lyudogovsky (until 1882), A.F. Fortunatov (1882-1894), N. A. Karyshev (1896-1904), K. A. Werner (since 1895);
• chemistry: N.E. Lyaskovsky , P.A. Ilyenkov ^{[Comm 7]} , E. B. Chenet (1869–1896), G. G. Gustavson (1875–1890), N. Ya. Demyanov (since 1887), M.I. Konovalov (1896-1899), I.A. Kablukov (since 1899);
• agricultural law: I.N. Miklashevsky (since 1896), M. Ya. Herzenstein (since 1904);
• physics: I. Ya. Tsvetkov (since 1866), R. A. Collie (1886-1891), V. A. Mikhelson (since 1894), A. P. Shimkov (1904-1907);
• mathematics: S. S. Byushgens (since 1913?);
• Agricultural technology: I.K. Kossov , V.M. Rudnev (1882-1893), Ya. Ya. Nikitinsky (1894-1915).

In addition, we taught:

• G. G. Appelroth (theoretical mechanics, since 1895)
• F.A. Batalin (1859-1860)
• N. I. Mertsalov
• S. G. Woyslav (building art)
• I.P. Prokofiev

Famous Alumni

Learned

Since the opening of the Petrovsky Agricultural and Forestry Academy on December 3, 1865, according to its Charter, a library has also appeared. Its opening was preceded by a number of organizational measures, and above all the formation of the fund. The fund was mainly donated by institutions and individuals; of private individuals, the largest donation was made by the first director, N. I. Zheleznov; major donors include the library of the Academy of Sciences, the Imperial Public Library , the Imperial Free Economic Society , and the St. Petersburg Forest Institute . The first librarian was appointed professor V.N. Andreev; a library commission of three professors was elected under the chairmanship of Professor E. B. Chenet ; On April 9, 1866, one more employee appeared on the staff of the library — a student at the Academy, G. Hoffmann.

Since 1877, by decision of the Academy Council, a training library began to operate; the main library became known as the fundamental, and the educational library as the library of textbooks. 238 textbooks and teaching aids were transferred to it from the main library and one reading room was allocated. Only in 1895 did the library of textbooks receive funds for self-acquisition. However, over the years, a significant source of replenishment of book funds was the donations of professors and students of the Academy; at different times, the library received the most valuable gifts: in 1867, almost 800 volumes were received by the will of Professor I. D. Auerbach; from professor M. I. Pridorogin 830 volumes on livestock farming; according to the will of Professor VF Boldarev, a large collection of books on agricultural entomology; from professors of Moscow University A.P. Bogdanov and N. Yu. Zograf - more than 6000 volumes of books on biology and zoology.

In 1894-1919, the director of the library was Karl Fedorovich Arnold ^{[Comm 8]} .

At the beginning of January 1915, there were 62986 volumes of scientific books in the fundamental library, including more than 20 thousand titles, 52% in Russian; the library had several catalogs: alphabetical books, systematic books, alphabetical periodicals in Russian and foreign (English, German) ^{[Comm 9]} .

By 1917, the library occupied almost the entire first floor of the main building and a significant part of the basement. At the same time, at a number of departments, cathedral libraries began to spontaneously arise from donations from teachers and students of the departments, consisting of manuscript lectures, reports, books, periodicals.

In the first years of its existence, library attendance did not exceed 800 people per year. This was largely due to the harsh regime established in the rules for using library books. Only in 1905 the triple deposit was canceled, which students had to pay when receiving books. The ban on students from receiving periodicals at home was also lifted. The library began to work daily and for a longer time, and did not close during the holidays ^[16] .

• Moscow Agricultural Academy named after K. A. Timiryazev
• Church of the Apostles Peter and Paul in Petrovsky-Razumovsky

• Petrovskaya Agricultural Academy // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
• Moscow Agricultural Institute // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
• Memorial book of the Petrovsky Agricultural and Forestry Academy. - M., 1867. - 24 p. (Compiled on March 15, 1867)
• Chayanov A. V. Favorites: Articles about Moscow .... - M .: TONCHU Publishing House, 2008 .-- 464 p. - 2000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-91215-032-6.

Bibliography

• A collection of information about the Petrovsky Agricultural and Forestry Academy - M., 1887. - 314 p.
• Meshchersky I.I. Higher agricultural education in Russia and abroad - St. Petersburg, 1893. - 464 p.
• Moscow Agricultural Institute and its scientists and educational institutions by 1915. - T. 2. - Part 1 / Fifty years of the Higher Agricultural School in Petrovsky-Razumovsky - M., 1917. - 414 p.
• Moscow Agricultural Academy named after K.A. Timiryazev. To the centenary of foundation. 1865-1965 - Moscow: Kolos, 1969 .-- 535 p.

• History of Timiryazevka.