Grave, Grigory Leonidovich

Grigory Leonidovich Grave (1872-1957) - Russian Soviet zoologist.

Grigory Leonidovich Grave
Date of Birth	May 5 (17), 1872 ( 1872-05-17 )
Place of Birth	Nizhny Novgorod , Russian Empire
Date of death	January 3, 1957 ( 1957-01-03 ) (84 years old)
A country	Russian Empire → the USSR
Scientific field	Ornithology

His father, Leonid Grigorievich Grave , a well-known poet at one time, officially served as a sworn solicitor in Nizhny Novgorod ^[1] .

In 1882-1891 he studied at the Alexander noble institute of Nizhny Novgorod ^[2] . In 1891, his father died and, due to lack of funds, continued his education at a drawing school. After undergoing two years of military service, Grigory Leonidovich Grave married Natalya Alexandrovna Kuznetsova, the daughter of the landowner of Nizhny Novgorod, who received a dowry in the Vyazemsky district of Smolensk province. At various times until 1914, he served as the controller of the Vyazma excise office, the agent (then - the inspector) of the insurance department of the Smolensk provincial zemstvo.

In 1902, he participated in a large expedition led by B. M. Zhitkov , as a zoologist ^[3] . Later, the Moscow Society of Lovers of Natural History, Anthropology and Ethnography G.L. Grave was sent to Lapland and the Ainu Islands to study avifauna; from the expedition he brought a collection of 52 carcasses of local birds. Soon in the Proceedings of the Society for the Study of the Smolensk Province, articles by Grave appeared on the avifauna of the Smolensk Territory.

In World War I , until November 1917, he was in the army on the German front, then served in the Red Army.

From 1921, began teaching G.L. Grave in Smolensk, which lasted until the end of his life. He started as a laboratory assistant, then was an assistant, assistant professor and, finally, a professor, head of the department at Smolensk University and at the Smolensk Agricultural Institute . At different times and in different educational institutions, he read the zoology of vertebrates and invertebrates, anatomy and physiology, Darwinism, taught classes in histology and embryology, the optional course "Geography of animals" and "Fauna of the Western region." Along with university studies, he read zoology at the Polytechnic Institute and the Smolensk Forest College, general zoology at the Western Komvuz, the anatomy and physiology of domestic animals at the Higher Communist Agricultural School, and biology at the Institute of Marxism-Leninism.

Grave was a member of the Moscow Society of Lovers of Natural History , the Moscow Society of Acclimatization of Plants and Animals, the Smolensk branch of the All-Russian Society of Naturalists; collaborated in the regional museum named after N.M. Przhevalsky, headed the Vonlyarovsky station of the Smolensk University.

In 1926, the nature conservation department of the Glavnauka of the People's Commissariat of the RSFSR instructed Grave to conduct surveys in the Belsky district with the aim of creating a Central Russian reserve there. Only in 1931 it was possible to organize the Central Forest Reserve , located in the southwestern part of the Valdai Upland , 40 km north of the Nelidovo station ; its middle part was occupied by a large moss swamp - “ Katin Moss ”. G.L. Grave became the first director of the reserve. However, Grave was able to successfully combine work in the reserve with the continuation of teaching activities.

During the war years, Grave headed the Department of Zoology, first in the Chuvash, and then in the Yaroslavl Pedagogical Institutes. In 1949 he returned to Smolensk. Deprived of his huge library, which died during the war, he nonetheless compiled the book "Birds of Prey in the Smolensk Region", which was published in 1954.