Borodin, Dmitry Nikolaevich

Born in Uralsk in the family of a public figure, in the future a deputy of the I State Duma , the famous ichthyologist Nikolai Andreevich Borodin ^[2] . He came from a well-known family of the Ural Cossacks, who gave many atamans and military leaders. In 1899, the family moved to St. Petersburg, where his father received the position of senior fishery specialist in the Department of Agriculture. In 1906, Dmitry Borodin was a graduate of the Karl May gymnasium . In the same year he entered the natural department of the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of ISPbU. He studied on the same course with B.P. Uvarov and V.M. Shits. University graduate in 1910. In 1910, he trained in entomology with Professor Otto Buchley at the University of Heidelberg , probably at this time the entomology was of the greatest interest to Dmitry Borodin.

He occupied the post of junior specialist in the Department of Agriculture at the Poltava Agricultural Experimental Station in the department of agricultural entomology. In early 1914, he founded and became the head of the Entomological Bureau of the Poltava Provincial Zemstvo. The bureau published a report in 1914 and a survey of pests in the Poltava province in 1915, and for two years, from 1914 to 1915, issued "Entomological Bureau Sheets". The First World War interrupted thoroughly begun work.

Mobilized in the army. The ensign ( corral ) of the Ural Cossack Division, for participating in hostilities was awarded several orders and the St. George medal "For Courage" ^[3] . He was promoted to officer for military distinction 1915 ^[4] . On August 11, 1915, in a battle near Podbor (Poland), he was wounded in his left ankle ^[5] , after which he was transferred to a spare hundred. Borodin’s biographer, Sergei Fokin, suggests that after the wound he spent about a month and a half at the site of his old service in Poltava ^[6] , but D. N. himself’s recollections do not confirm this ^[5] . After being wounded, he returned to Uralsk ^[6] . After February 1917, the commissar of the Ural police. During the Civil War, Borodin in the white troops of the Eastern Front in the Ural separate army . Since January 1918, a member of the military government ^[4] . Since October 15, 1918 ^[4] an officer of the 15th cavalry regiment of the Ural Army. On December 2, 1918, commander, centurion, of the 1st cavalry Northern partisan regiment. According to some information, at the end of 1919 he fought on the Trans-Ural side, by the beginning of December, the personnel had almost tripled (from 400 sabers in October to 150 sabers). Sotnik D. N. Borodin, commanded the regiment together with the coronet M. D. Salnikov ^[7] . According to other sources, from July 31, 1919, the regiment commander of the 5th Ural Cossack Division ^{[4] [8]} .

According to A. A. Lyubishchev , who had known Borodin from his student years, he left Russia after being seriously wounded ^[9] . He was evacuated from Novorossiysk with his wife and two children in March 1920 on the ship "Bukovina", as an employee of the Ministry of Agriculture in the Denikin government. In May 1920 in Yugoslavia, later that year he was in Bulgaria ^[4] . November 21, 1920 on the ship "Saxony" , leaving Cherbourg, arrived in the United States ^[10] .

In 1921, he worked in entomology at the University of California ^[11] .

Having met in the autumn of 1921 in California with N. I. Vavilov, he suggested that he arrange for the shipment of seed samples interesting for selection from the USA to Russia. As a result, the Russian Agricultural Bureau was opened under the direction of Borodin, the New York branch of the Department of Applied Botany and Breeding of the State Institute of Experimental Agronomy ^[12] . In the first two years of its operation, the Bureau sent 8,000 samples of breeding seeds and more than 5,500 brochures and books to Petrograd ^[13] . Sometimes it was a matter of the most elementary: “Please send, if possible, 6-10 ordinary ink pens, which you bought before leaving. They are very necessary, as well as one bottle of ink for each pen, since ink is not available here ^[14], ”wrote N. I. Vavilov. Since 1924, the Bureau, under the direction of Borodin, began to publish a special journal, Review of American Agriculture ^[15] . Clouds constantly gathered over Borodin, but Vavilov defended him. Borodin was removed from the leadership of the Bureau, but then he was reinstated in this post at the request of N. I. Vavilov. In the summer of 1926, Borodin wrote to Vavilov that he had not received a salary for half a year ^[6] . April 6, 1927 Borodin was finally removed for the staff of the department ^[16] .

The supply of Soviet Russia with literature and the agricultural seed fund, organized by Borodin, in 1922-1923 passed through the organization ARA (American Relief Administration) ^[17] . In 1922, Borodin took part in the work of the American Commission to assist the starving in Russia ^[18] .

In the mid-1920s, Borodin helped N.K. Roerich establish contacts with officials in Russia and the USA. As noted by A. I. Andreev , the “Soviet-American agronomist” was increasingly included in Roerich’s global Asian project, primarily, he was interested in the Altai economic part of the enterprise, namely the Belukha Roerich corporation, which planned to receive a concession in South-West Altai ^{[ 19]} . In 1925, he organized a meeting in Paris with Russian Ambassador LB Krasin of representatives of the Roerich institutions ^[20] .

The last time Borodin and Vavilov met at the VI Genetic Congress in Ithaca (USA) in August 1932 ^[11] , their correspondence ceased in 1934 ^[6] .

He was an employee of Columbia University, wrote several works on agricultural engineering, at one time was fond of vernalization “according to Lysenko”, worked at the Marine Biological Station in Woodshol on experimental biology, was a guest in the laboratory of Professor T.H. Morgan in Pasadena , hoping to start “what- that’s genetic. ” For some time he was keen on collecting materials about Russian biologists and even wrote several notes about them.

Borodin was an active participant in the Russian United Society for Mutual Assistance in America (ROOVA) ^[21] . He is buried in the Cossack site of the Vladimir cemetery at the ROOVA farm in New Jersey. He died in New York on June 16, 1957 ^[22] .

• First wife - in March 1920 from N. Novorossiysk on the ship "Bukovina" D. N. Borodin left for emigration with his wife and two children ^[4]
  • Two children from their first marriage ^[4] .
• The second wife is Virginia W. Borodin (Virginia W. Borodin,? —2002), the surname is unknown in her name ^[5]
  • The son is Vladimir, one of the editors of his father's memoirs, published in 2016.
  • Son - Pavel D. Borodin, married to Charlis Borodin ^{[23] [5]}
  • Daughter - Helen Jean Borodin Kaufman ^[5] .
• Mother - Lidia Semenovna, in the girlhood of Donskova ^[24] , remained in Soviet Russia, in 1930 she lived in Leningrad ^{[11] [5]} .
• The younger brother ^[6] is the name ?, froze on February 11, 1920 ^[5] .
• Sister - Tatyana (1898-1937), an architect by profession ^[6] , according to an archival record: a native of Uralsk, Russian, non-partisan, at the time of her arrest without certain occupations, lived: Leningrad, Karl Liebknecht ave., 65 apt. 22. Arrested on September 20, 1937. On September 28, 1937, she was sentenced by Art. Art. 58-10-11 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR to capital punishment. Shot in the city of Leningrad on October 4, 1937. ^[25]

• Uvarov B.P., Borodin D.N. Essay on the flora of the middle Emba // Russian Botanical Journal. - 1909. - No 6. - S. 94-123.
• Borodin D.N. , 1909. Locust control in Jizzakh district. - Turkest. Courier, 150, 151. Tashkent.
• Borodin D. N. , 1913. Iron shields in locust control. Tiflis: 1-8.
• Borodin D. N. , 1914. The effect of bacteria e, Erell on migratory locusts. - Entomol. Herald, 2 (1): 54-87. Kiev.
• Borodin D. N. , 1914. Medvedka and the fight against it. // Farmer, 38.
• Borodin D. 1914. The effect of the bacteria D'Herrel on migratory locusts. Kiev, 31 c.
• Borodin D. N. , 1915. The question of the bacterial method of locust control. - Tr. 1st All-Russian. congress the butt. entomol. in Kiev in 1913 Kiev. from. 37-46.
• Borodin DN 1916. On the discovery of two egg parasites in the environs of Starovpol. Nature Lover, Petrograd 11 (5): 126-129. [in Russian].
• Borodin DN 1922. The present status of Entomology and Entomologists in Russia. Journal of Economic Entomology, Volume 15, Issue 2, 1 April 1922, p. 172–177, [18] , [19]
• Borodin DN Practice of Estimating losses caused by Insect Pests to the small giains in Russia. Ji. Eco Ent. XIX, 227-235; April 1926.
• Borodin DN 1929. Russian field crops in the United States. Pages 61–86 in BM Duggar, ed. Proc. Internat. Congress Plant Sci. 1926. Vol. 1. Ithaca, NY. Collegiate Press, George Banta Publishing Co., Menasha, WI.
• Borodin DN 1929. Vergleichende histologie der hautorgane bei den Chloraemiden (Polychaeta). // Zeitschrift für Morphologie und Ökologie der Tiere, 16, 26–48.
• Borodin DN Energy emanation during cell division processes (M-rays). // Plant Physiol. 1930 Jan; 5 (1) p. 119-129.
• Borodin DN Yarovization formulas for winter oats and barleys // Am. Jour. Bot, 1933 V 20, p. 677-678.
• Borodin D. Yarovization formulas for winter oats. New York, 16 pp.
• Borodin DN 1934. M-rays macro-effect and planimetric drop culture method // Internat. Congress of Electro-Radio-Biology, Venice 75
• Borodin DN 1935. M-rays macro-effect and planimetric drop culture method // Radiobiol Generalis 3: 802-816

Biographies of Russian scientists

• Borodin D., 1921; Mr. NV Kurdiumoff Russian Entomologist Died 1917: In Memoriam, Journal of Economic Entomology, Volume 14, Issue 4, 1 August 1921, Hist. Applied En t., Pp. 299,300,301,303, 1930.
• Borodin, DN, 1940. Doctor AK Mordwilko 1867-1938. Annals of the Entomological Society of America. 33 (3): 487-494
• Borodin DN Dr. Nikolai K. Koltzoff // Journal of Heredity. 1941. No. 10. P. 347—349, Russian. perev. Borodin D.N. Dr. Nikolai K. Koltsov: 1871-1940; trans. and comment. E.V. Ramensky // Nature. - 2012. - No. 10. - S. 74-76
• Borodin DN 1949. Nicholas J. Kusnezov (1873-1948) // The Lepidopterist's News, III (3): 29-31 [20]

Memoirs

• Dmitry N. Borodin . From the Ural Steppes: 1914-1920, Edited by VD Borodin. Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. 2016.23 p. [21]

The opinions of contemporaries (and not only them) about D.N. Borodin are very contradictory: for emigrants he is too "red", for Soviet ones he is too "turned over" and serves "not to God, but to Mamone" (Vavilov).

F. G. Dobrzhansky wrote to Yu. A. Filipchenko :

• Sergey Fokin. Inscrutable paths. // Russian tradition, Saturday, December 22, 2018

Recommended Sources

• Truskinov E.V. Russian Agricultural Representation in America (in the light of the correspondence of N.I. Vavilov and D.N. Borodin). SPb., VIR, 2012 .-- 92 s. ISBN 978-5-905954-03-0
• Ulyankina T. I. Personality of N. I. Vavilov in correspondence with emigrant scientists (D. N. Borodin, USA) // Scientific ideas of N. I. Vavilov in the historical context of the development of genetics of the XX century. M., 2013.S. 56-81.
• International correspondence of V.I. Vavilov. T. 1. M., 1994. S. 523; T. 4.M., 2001.S. 527.
• Pyzhenkov V. I. N. I. Vavilov and the New York branch of the Bureau of Applied Botany (VIR). St. Petersburg. 2007. 50 p.