Avdulov, Nikolai Pavlovich

Father engineer of communications Pavel Vladimirovich Avdulov, from an impoverished old noble family. Mother - Anna Lvovna (nee Malishevskaya), taught Nikolai languages ​​and music. From childhood, he played the piano wonderfully, composed music, and painted. In his early youth, lenses were removed from both eyes, and he could only see with special glasses, without which he was almost blind.

In 1909 he entered a real school in Astrakhan, in connection with his father's moves, then studied in Odessa, and graduated from a real school in Petrograd in 1917. Then he entered the agricultural faculty of the Polytechnic Institute in Kiev . Already in 1918-1919 he began to engage in research under the guidance of G. A. Levitsky, who lectured on the morphology and systematics of plants. He completed the study “ Heterostylus in a cockle .” As a student, he worked part-time at a sawmill. After finishing the second year, he left the institute and left for Gudauty in Abkhazia, in the former estate of the family, where his parents moved. He was a worker in the First Gudauta labor agricultural cooperative, after which he served as the head of the library of the revolutionary committee, was the clerk of the criminal investigation department and the like. In 1923, in the direction of the People's Commissariat of Economics, he entered the forestry department of the Moscow Forestry Institute. There, under the leadership of N. F. Sludsky, he became so carried away by lichen research that, as he later wrote in his autobiography, “he paid little attention to his studies and was expelled a year later for poor progress.” At this time, his father fell seriously ill, and in 1923-1925, Nikolai joined the statistician in the Central Statistical Office, and then as an accountant in the production bureau of the Institute of National Economy.

In November 1925, Levitsky invited Avdulov to work in the Department of Applied Botany of the State Institute of Experimental Agronomy (later the All-Union Institute of Applied Botany and New Cultures).

• In the years 1925-1927. - laboratory assistant.
• Since 1927 - Assistant
• In 1928, he was a senior assistant.
• In 1929, he moved to the post of senior assistant at the All-Union Institute of Applied Botany and New Cultures, where G. A. Levitsky led the cytological work.

In the years 1926-1931, at the proposal of G. A. Levitsky, Avdulov completed a study of the karyosystematics of the cereal family, which later became a classic. For this monograph Avdulov received the first prize at the Glavnauka competition, later it was translated into Spanish (1945) and English (1975). Other scientific works are devoted to the cytology of maize, African millet, wheatgrass and rye-wheat hybrids. Since 1931, he combined work at VIR with reading a course on plant morphology and systematics at the Leningrad Agricultural Institute.

In March 1932 he was arrested in Moscow, worked for three years on the construction of the Belomorkanal, was released on credit in May 1935. Then he worked at the Saratov breeding station as a scientific specialist and since September 1935 taught at the Saratov State University at the Faculty of Biology. Candidate of Biological and Agricultural Sciences (without defending a dissertation, 1936), Doctor of Biological Sciences (1936) - the dissertation was defended at the Botanical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences under opponents G. A. Levitsky and R. Yu. Rozhevice . In April 1937, Avdulov switched from the Saratov breeding experimental station to permanent work at the University of Saratov , where he became the head of the department of plant morphology and systematics organized specially for him. He continued his work on the cytology of maize, African millet, chickpeas, and began the study of hybrids with close and distant crosses.

He was arrested on December 28, 1937, on May 20, 1938 and was sentenced to death (1938) on charges of sabotage, participation in a counter-revolutionary organization and preparation of terrorist acts. Shot on May 22, 1938 [(Arch. Criminal Case No. OF-12592)].

Rehabilitated November 14, 1957

Wife - Ekaterina Mechislavovna (nee Yarninskaya) (1897-1975 ^[2] ) was arrested in 1932, served time in the Novosibirsk region ^[3] , again on June 23, 1938, sentenced as CSIR for 5 years in camps, rehabilitated on August 27, 1957 ^[4]

Son - Andrei (1930-2008), after the arrest of his parents, he was brought up by his grandmother A. L. Avdulova ^[5] , candidate of technical sciences, head of the head of the Ministry of Machine-Tool and Tool Industry of the USSR , laureate of state. Prizes (1975), later the chief scientific associate of the Department of Science of Science, INION RAS, Doctor of Philosophy (1994).

Grandson - Nikolai, pharmacologist, doctor of biological sciences, lives in the USA.

Grandson - Alexander, a Japanese specialist in tea ceremony, lives in Canada.

• 1937 - Saratov, st. 3rd Sadovaya, 9, apt. one.

Book and its translations

• Avdulov N.P. Karyosystematic study of the cereal family // Transactions on Prikl. bot., gene. and sat down. 1931. App. 44.428 p.
• Avdulov NP Estudio cario-sistemático de la familia de la Gramíneas; S Grigórʹiev; Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Biblioteca de la Facultad de Agronomia. La Plata: Biblioteca de la Facultad de Agronomia, [1945?]
• Avdulov NP Kario-systematic studies in the family Gramineae. Indian National Scientific Documentation Center .; Smithsonian Institution .; National Science Foundation (US) New Delhi: Published for the Smithsonian Institution and the National Science Foundation by the Indian National Scientific Documentation Centrer, 1975.

Featured Articles

• Avdulov N.P. Systematic karyology of the Gramineae family // Journal of the All-Union. congress of nerds. L., 1928. Issue. 1, p. 65-67.
• Avdulov N.P., Titova N.N. Supercomplete chromosomes in Pospalum stoloniferum Bosco, Transactions in applied botany, genetics and selection, ser. 2, L., 1933, No. 2.
• Avdulov N. P. Additional karyological data for the taxonomy of cereals, Proceedings in applied botany, genetics and selection, ser. 2, L., 1933, No. 2.
• Avdulov N.P. Irregularity of mitosis in wheatgrass hybrids. // Work on the cytology of cultivated plants: Proceedings of the Saratov breeding experimental station. M. —L., 1937 .-- S. 99-109.
• Avdulov N.P. Behavior of rye-wheat amphidiploids in crossing. Work on the cytology of cultivated plants. - Proceedings of the Saratov breeding station.- M .; L .: VASKHNSH1, 1937, p. 22-27.
• Avdulov NP Chromosome Morphology and their Variability in Zea mays : the Karyotype of Cicer arietinum L. // Abhandlungen der Tschernyschewsky Staatsuniversität, Saratow, Bd. 1, (XIV), Nr. 1. S. l., 1937.

• Companions N.I. Vavilova.
• Ostrovskaya I. “Genetics from God.” NIPC Memorial - M.: Novaya Gazeta. 2016, No. 9. P. 15.