Nikolay Timofeev-Resovsky. Nikolai Vladimirovich Timofeev-Resovsky

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Origin and early life

Born in Moscow in 1900. Father - Vladimir Viktorovich Timofeev-R I Sovsky (1850-1913), railway engineer. Mother - Nadezhda Nikolaevna, née Vsevolozhskaya (1868-1928). The Timofeev-Ryasovsky family on one line goes back to the “8th class” Timofeev nobles of Peter the Great, on the other line - the Ryasovsky (Resovsky) - comes from the clergy. When exactly and for what reasons the replacement of “I” with “e” in the spelling of the surname took place is unknown, but N.V. Timofeev-Resovsky was the first member of the family with such a spelling of the surname.

Studies

Start of independent life

During the Civil War, he studied irregularly because he fought in the Red Army and suffered from typhus.

1920-1925 - teacher of biology at the Prechistensky workers' faculty in Moscow.
1922-1925 - researcher at the Institute of Experimental Biology under the direction of N.K. Koltsov. Teacher of zoology at the biotechnical faculty of the Practical Institute in Moscow.
1924-1925 - assistant at the Department of Zoology with prof. N.K. Koltsova at the Moscow Medical-Pedagogical Institute.
1921-1925 - researcher at the Institute of Experimental Biology as part of the State Scientific Institute under the People's Commissariat of Agriculture (GINZ).

From the beginning of the 1920s, he participated in an informal seminar, organized by a group S.S. Chetverikov at the N.K. Koltsov Institute (“Drozsoor”, or “joint yelling about Drosophila”), from which many Soviet geneticists came.

After a year of work in the genetic laboratory of the Institute of Experimental Biology, Nikolai Vladimirovich received interesting scientific results: while studying the mechanisms of gene manifestation, he came to the conclusion that a single mutation can cause multiple changes in appearance body.

As a talented and promising researcher, in 1925 he was recommended by N.K. Koltsov and N.A. Semashko to Oskar Vogt for work in the brain research laboratory he created in Berlin.

Work in Europe

In 1925, at the invitation of the German Kaiser Wilhelm Society and the insistence of People's Commissar Semashko, Timofeev-Resovsky and his wife moved to work in Berlin. He initially worked as a research assistant, but soon became head of the department of genetics and biophysics at the Institute for Brain Research in the Berlin suburb of Buch.

In the 1930s, together with the future Nobel Prize winner Max Delbrück, Timofeev-Resovsky, developing the ideas of his teacher Koltsov, created the first biophysical model of gene structure and proposed possible ways its changes. In the late 1930s, he took part in the seminars of Niels Bohr's group and, together with B. S. Ephrussi (with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation), assembled a small international seminar of physicists, chemists, cytologists, geneticists, biologists and mathematicians who discussed fundamental problems genetics and theoretical biology. Later, informal schools on genetics took place wherever he worked.

In the spring of 1937, the Soviet consulate once again refused to renew Timofeev-Resovsky's passports - thereby urgently inviting them to return to the USSR. However, according to Timofeev-Resovsky, N.K. Koltsov warned him that upon their return they would most likely be expected “ big trouble" In the 1930s, three of the four Timofeev-Resovsky brothers were arrested. In 1934, Boris was arrested, the cause and date of his death are unknown, Vladimir was arrested on May 1, 1937, shot on February 28, 1938, then Victor was arrested in 1937, until 1939 he was in exile. Timofeev-Resovsky refused to return to Soviet Union and continued to live and work in Nazi Germany, for which after World War II he was convicted in the Stalinist USSR of treason as a defector.

Timofeev-Resovsky's research activities in pre-war Germany made fundamental contributions to a number of areas of modern biology. Here he discovered and substantiated the fundamental principles of modern developmental genetics and population genetics. He also took part in creating the foundations of modern radiation genetics.

In the early 1950s, the scientist was nominated for a Nobel Prize for his research on mutation, but Soviet authorities did not respond to Sweden's request to know whether he was alive.

In 1955-1964 he headed the department of biophysics in Sverdlovsk. At the same time, he read several series of lectures on the effect of radiation on organisms and on radiobiology at the Faculty of Physics of the Ural University and worked at the biological station he founded on Lake Bolshoye Miassovo in the Ilmensky Nature Reserve.

In December 1957, he defended his doctoral dissertation for the first time at the Botanical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Leningrad, but it was not approved by the Higher Attestation Commission. In 1963, he defended his doctoral dissertation for the second time on a body of work in Sverdlovsk; his doctoral diploma was received in 1964 after the removal of Khrushchev and the rehabilitation of genetics.

In 1964-1969, he headed the department of radiobiology and genetics at the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences in Obninsk (Kaluga region).

Since 1969 he worked as a consultant in Moscow.

Nikolai Vladimirovich Timofeev-Resovsky died in 1981 and was buried at the Konchalovsky cemetery.

His biography was used as the basis documentary novel Daniil Granin "Bison". The story of the Berlin Buch laboratory is based on a novel by Elly Welt. Berlin Wild, where all the participants, although quite recognizable, are brought under fictitious names. The music library in the city of Pushchino-on-Oka contains a collection of tape recordings with oral stories N.V. Timofeev-Resovsky, some of which were published in the form of memoirs.

A memorial plaque was installed on the house of the regional executive committee in Chelyabinsk.

Rehabilitation

In 1987, after the publication of Daniil Granin’s novel younger son Timofeev-Resovsky Andrey and representatives of the scientific community demanded the rehabilitation of the outstanding geneticist. But the Main Military Prosecutor's Office, after conducting an additional investigation, instead of rehabilitating the scientist, brought forward a new charge, which was not charged against him either by the investigation or by the Military Collegium in 1946 - defection to the side of the enemy - and in July 1989 issued a decision to terminate the proceedings due to the lack of grounds for rehabilitation of Timofeev-Resovsky. The resolution stated that Timofeev-Resovsky personally and together with his employees was actively engaged in research related to improving military power fascist Germany, thereby committing treason to the Motherland in the form of going over to the side of the enemy.

On February 4, 1991, the USSR Prosecutor's Office canceled this decision of the Main Military Prosecutor's Office on the grounds that the conclusion that Timofeev-Resovsky had carried out scientific research having military significance, was not sufficiently reasoned and instructed the Investigation Department of the KGB of the USSR to conduct another additional investigation. As follows from the certificate of the KGB Investigation Department dated October 16, 1991, based on its results, “no additional information was received regarding the crime charged against Timofeev-Resovsky.”

On October 16, 1991, the Prosecutor General of the USSR submitted a protest regarding the case to the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the USSR with a view to terminating the case due to the absence of a crime in Timofeev-Resovsky’s actions. However, the protest was not considered due to the liquidation of the Supreme Court of the USSR. Timofeev-Resovsky was rehabilitated only in June 1992 by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation.

Membership in scientific societies and scientific awards

Named after Timofeev-Resovsky

Medal “Biosphere” and “Humanity” named after N. V. Timofeev-Resovsky
The minor planet (asteroid) 3238 Timresovia (1975 VB9), discovered by Soviet astronomer N. S. Chernykh on November 8, 1975, was named “Timresovia” in honor of Nikolai Vladimirovich.
The year 2000, at the initiative of UNESCO, was declared the year of Timofeev-Resovsky.

Bibliography

Major works

N.V. Timofeev-Resovsky is the author of dozens of scientific articles (many of which were published on foreign languages in leading international journals of the 1920-1930s), chapters in collective monographs and books. His first articles were published in 1925. For a complete bibliography of his works, see the website dedicated to him. Listed below are only books known to a wide range of Russian readers.

Timofeeff-Ressovsky N.W., Zimmer K.G. Biophysics. I. Das Trefferprinzip in der Biologie. - Leipzig, Hirzel Verlag, 1947. - 317 s.
Timofeev-Resovsky N.V., Vorontsov N.N., Yablokov A.V. Brief essay theories of evolution. - M.: Nauka, 1969. 408 p. / 2nd ed. - M.: Nauka, 1978.
Timofeev-Resovsky N.V., Ivanov Vl. I., Korogodin V.I. Application of the hit principle in radiobiology. - M.: Atomizdat, 1968.
Timofeev-Resovsky N.V., Yablokov A.V., Glotov N.V. Essay on the doctrine of population. - M.: Nauka, 1973.
Timofeev-Resovsky N.V., Savich A.V., Shalnov M.I.. Introduction to molecular radiobiology.” - M.: Medicine, 1981.
N.V. Timofeev-Resovsky. Memories. - M.: JSC Publishing Group "Progress", Pangea, 1995.

Publications about N.V. Timofeev-Resovsky

Auerbach S. Problems of mutagenesis. / Per. from English edited by N. I. Shapiro. - M.: Mir, 1978. - P. 13.
Babkov V. V., Sakanyan E. S. Nikolai Timofeev-Resovsky / Rep. ed. acad. B. S. Sokolov. -M.: Monuments of historical thought, 2002. - 672 p.
Boyko V. Grandfather // Young Leninist: newspaper. - March 25, 1989.
Granin D. A. Bison - 1987 ( biographical novel about N.V. Timofeev-Resovsky).
Nikolai Vladimirovich Timofeev-Resovsky. Essays. Memories. Materials. / Rep. ed. N. N. Vorontsov. - M.: Nauka, 1993.
Declassified Bison. Investigative case of N.V. Timofeev-Resovsky. / Y. Rokityansky, V. Goncharov, V. Nekhotin - M.: Academia, 2003.
Chernykh N. Obninsky “Ivan the Terrible” // City. - 1998. - No. 3.
Shnol S. E. Physico-chemical factors of biological evolution. - M.: Nauka, 1979.
Shnol S. E. N. V. Timofeev-Resovsky // Heroes and Villains Russian science. - M.: KRON-PRESS, 1997. P. 103-126.
Berg R. L. In Defense of Timofeeff-Ressovsky, Nikolai Vladimirivich / Quarterly Review of Biology. - Vol. 65. - No. 4. - December 1990. - P. 457-479.
Haldane J.B.C. A physicist looks at genetics / Nature. - 1945. - Vol. 155. - No. 3935. - P. 375, 3103.
Paul D. B., Krimbas C. B. Nikolai V. Timofeeff-Ressovsky / Scientific American. - February 1992. - P. 86-92.

Publications about the story “Bison”

Bondarenko V. Essays on literary morals // Moscow, 1987, No. 12
Grekova I. Legendary image // October, 1987, No. 5
“Bison” - distant and near echo // Literary newspaper, 1988, July 6
Ivanova N. Is it easy to be? // Friendship of Peoples, 1987, No. 5
Kazintsev A. Face to history... (Continuers or consumers) // Our contemporary, 1987, No. 11
Kuzmin A. To which temple are we looking for the way // Our Contemporary, 1988, No. 3
Moldavsky D. Education of Thought // Smena (Leningrad), 1987, May 6
Moldavsky D. Science of overcoming // Ural, 1987, No. 10
Scientific heritage of the Bison // Science and Life, 1988, No. 2
Popov G. System and Bisons // Science and Life, 1988, No. 3
Sidorov E. The Tale of a Rare Man // Znamya, 1987, No. 6
Turkov A. Not needing a pedestal // Literary newspaper, 1987, March 11
Ulyashov P. Remain yourself // Labor, 1987, December 20
Urban A. Affairs and people: yesterday and today // Zvezda, 1987, No. 7
Sense of the way // Literary Russia, 1987, February 13
Shklovsky E. The most important thing // Literary Review, 1987, No. 11

Notes

http://sdei.senckenberg.de/biographies/information.php?id=49001 - .

The twenties were followed by the infamous 30s, when not only people, but also some areas of science were subjected to repression. Genetics was then considered the most provocative and ideologically unrestrained. And paired with it is cybernetics. What kind of sciences are these whose laws do not obey the decrees of the party? However, as scientists are, so is science, the fathers of the nation reasoned and began to re-educate the obstinate know-it-alls. What are they worth without their laboratories, for example? But more often they resorted to more reliable methods of influence: exile, hard labor. And, as the most reliable - execution.

Many were scattered by fate then. But there is an amazing example of when knowledge really became a force that was too much for even such monsters of that time as Stalin and Hitler. In 2010, this incredible man would have turned 110 years old. Compatriots first learned about him from the novel by Daniil Granin, written immediately after the start of perestroika. The title of the novel accurately characterizes the personality of the hero. The novel is called "Bison", the name of the hero is Nikolai Vladimirovich Timofeev-Resovsky. He entered the history of science as one of the founders of such areas as molecular biology, radiation genetics, and radiobiology. He was an extraordinary personality, titanic, bright and free! No iron “curtains” existed for him and could not exist.

When the novel was published, and thousands and thousands of people learned about Timofeev-Resovsky, many thought that the hero of the novel was a collective image. Although, of course, this was not at all the case.

Legends were made about Timofeev-Resovsky. In 1925, as one of the world's leading geneticists, he was invited to Germany to “advance science” together with his German colleagues. Meanwhile, “dark days” began in Russia: Nikolai’s two brothers also became victims of repression

Vladimirovich, who were shot. Realizing that he was facing the same fate, he chose science over death. And - stayed in Germany.

During the war years until 1945, the scientist continued his scientific research, remaining a citizen of the USSR, which he publicly liked to remind others of. They say that when Berlin turned to dust under the rain of Soviet bombs, Timofeev-Resovsky went out into this very “rain” and bawled Russian songs. And no one dared to stop him. They also say that not only the house where this frantic Russian lived, but also the institute where he worked, bombs flew around as if under a spell.

It was in 1945, immediately after the war, that Timofeev-Resovsky decided to return to Russia, although it was clearer than clear what a tasty prey he would become for the “authorities.”

Soviet rulers solved the problem of selection in a fundamentally different way than the Germans: they filled the gas chambers, in their opinion, with inferior human material so as not to spoil the offspring. Our geneticists from power destroyed the best.

It is clear that in the scientist’s homeland the wide open gates of Butyrka were waiting for him, where he arrived in what he was wearing.

Having not lived in Russia for a long time, Timofeev-Resovsky did not even know how to behave during interrogation, and tried to turn him around

as a joke. From the outside, his conversation with the investigator looked more like an interview of a certain gentleman with an annoying journalist. He thrust a piece of paper at the gentleman and demanded an “autograph,” which, in the context of this conversation, would mean that the “interviewee” was an English spy. Timofeev-Resovsky was not a spy. However, having entered the position of an investigator, he graciously agreed to a compromise: he would write his autograph in exchange for recognition of him as a Chilean spy. He doesn't care what people say about him after his death.

In order not to waste time in prison, Timofeev-Resovsky proposed creating an institute right there.

But the real work took place in a laboratory hidden in the Ilmen Nature Reserve in the Urals. Soon information leaked to the people about who runs this secret laboratory, and walkers flocked to the involuntary hermit. To get to the teacher, they had to cross a mountain pass on foot. Only at the Timofeev-Resovsky station, and nowhere else, could one hear lectures on genetics and the theory of microevolution.

in science. In his laboratory “on chicken legs” he worked on the issue of decontamination of water and soil. Thirty years later, it was these developments that were used to clean up soil and water in the area of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident.

When in the 50s there was a huge leak of radioactive waste at one of the enterprises near Chelyabinsk, Timofeev-Resovsky proposed organizing a radiological center in this region to study the problems of radioactive contamination. Moreover (how unpatriotic!) - to make this radioactive reserve available for study by specialists from all over the world. Well, the academician of six academies around the world did not understand that radiation has specific features for a given region: it is “limited” by political principles.

Doctor of Biological Sciences Bogdanov, who knew Timofeev-Resovsky well and had the chance to work at the scientist’s famous Ural biological station, says that Timofeev-Resovsky was unique precisely because he was not only a great scientist. At a distant Ural station he told young talents not only about genetics, but gave lectures about Levitan, the Impressionists, music and the Wanderers. Real science is a privilege only for people who are very healthy in spirit and body, he would

l am convinced of this.

It was precisely his colossal erudition that allowed him, long before visible reasons talk about environmental problems associated with human economic activity. Whether humanity wants it or not, the scientist said, it will have to deal with the problems of the biosphere related to the need general increase bioproductivity of the land.

It is common to think that science explains something, and that science is knowledge, he told his students. - But science and knowledge are different things. In the history of mankind there have been many truly great scientists who argued that science does not provide any real knowledge. It just helps organize our information about the world,

Timofeev-Resovsky died in 1981. Unforgiven. Unrehabilitated. This is what it is, Soviet-style genetics.

Decoding genetic code human chromosomes can lead to unpredictable results. Unpredictability lies in the people who will receive this knowledge. Just think - to read the genome of a single person, as they say, it will take 100 years! Who knows what all this “complex” and “complex” public is capable of? Now, if Timofeev-Resovsky’s genes were “connected” to the genes of Ivan Ivanovich...

Biologist, geneticist.

There were many famous personalities in the Timofeev-Resovsky family. For example, the future biologist had three relatives: Russian admiral– Senyavin, Golovnin and Nevelskoy.

The youthful years of Timofeev-Resovsky coincided with the revolution, with civil war. He managed to fight, almost died from a rash, was captured by anarchists and the Greens, nevertheless, going to the front and then returning, he graduated from Moscow University in the year, where his teachers were the wonderful geneticists S.S. Chetverikov and.

Moscow in those years was generally full of wonderful people.

Timofeev-Resovsky, a temperamental and enthusiastic person, was actively involved in the logical and philosophical circle led by G. G. Shpet and N. N. Luzin, and often attended performances by famous poets and art exhibitions. It seemed that he himself would soon go into the field of arts, but university teachers turned out to be stronger. However, Timofeev-Resovsky did not take the state exams after graduating from the university: diplomas at that time were not considered something obligatory.

Also in 1925, the joint German-Soviet research institute, created in the town of Buch near Berlin, needed a knowledgeable biologist.

But Timofeev-Resovsky refused to go to Bukh. He was sure that the most interesting things were happening in Russia. He did not want to leave Moscow, where many prominent scientists worked at that time. And not only Russians. In 1922, for example, the American geneticist Herman Möller came to Moscow. He brought with him twenty laboratory lines of Drosophila, which greatly supported the remarkable research of S. S. Chetverikov.

Still, Koltsov persuaded Timofeev-Resovsky to go to Germany, which undoubtedly saved him from the repressions that soon swept across the country. And Timofeev-Resovsky’s missing university diploma was completely replaced by Koltsov’s recommendation.

From 1925 to 1945 Timofeev-Resovsky worked in Germany.

Here he did a lot of work on population genetics, was actively involved in phenogenetics, and attracted famous physicists M. Delbrück (the future Nobel laureate) and K. Zimmer. Developing the ideas of S.S. Chetverikov, he took up radiation genetics - the study of mutations caused by radiation. He was the first to realize that this topic could soon become one of the most pressing - in the late thirties, experiments with fission atomic nucleus have already begun. Timofeev-Resovsky remembered Koltsov’s words addressed to the Viennese experimental zoologist P. Kammerer: “I think that his experimental method - influencing animals with such ordinary factors as heat, light and humidity, is unlikely to lead to the goal, is unlikely to cause persistent species changes. After all, all these factors occur in the life of an animal, and if they have not caused any changes so far, they will not cause any changes in the future... The most reliable path to solving the problem is outlined, in my opinion, by the mutation theory.”

Timofeev-Resovsky was the first to point out an important consequence, which, of course, could only be deduced by a biologist well versed in physics. This corollary stated: a single quantum leap leading to mutations can significantly change the properties and structure of both an individual organism and an entire population, which can lead to events on a global scale.

“This principle,” wrote biologist B. M. Mednikov, “called the “amplification principle” by N. V. Timofeev-Resovsky, can be demonstrated with the following example. As a result of mutation, a new strain of influenza virus appears, against which the defense systems are powerless human body. An epidemic arises, sweeping through cities and villages, countries and continents. Local doctors, like postmen, enter every apartment without having time to write out ballots, the production of the national product drops, many plans are canceled, the efficiency of the economy decreases - and all this is just a consequence of a mutation caused, for example, by a single quantum of ultraviolet radiation from the Sun.”

Working in Germany gave Timofeev-Resovsky a wonderful opportunity to communicate with the best minds of the time. He created a scientific seminar, which, in terms of its composition and the ideas developed in it, became stellar from the very beginning. Geneticist Delbrück, cytologist Kasperson, biologists Baur, Stubbe, Ephrussi, Darlington, physicists Heisenberg, Jordan, Dirac, Bernal, Lee, Auger, Aston met at the seminar and discussed the news. They were all young at that time. Their heads were not always occupied only with questions of science.

“...On these bio-talk,” wrote one of Timofeev-Resovsky’s biographers, writer D. Granin, “they decided to draw isolines. Weiskopf and Gamow developed so-called isocals, curves of female beauty, similar to isotherms, temperature curves. They were drawn on the map of Europe. Every researcher, wherever he visited, had to mark local beauties. The task was to identify how they are distributed across Europe beautiful women where there are more of them, where there are less. Information was being collected everywhere. Rosetti sent them from Italy, Chadwick from England, Auger from France. Most of the observations were carried out on the streets. The women they met were given marks on a five-point system. The observer was walking with friends who helped keep the numbers and maintain objectivity. The mark “four” was given to those to whom the observer drew the attention of his friends; mark “five” - to those for whom it Not attracted the attention of friends; mark “three” - to those women who paid attention to them. Data were collected on, say, a thousand women encountered, processed statistically, and isocals were plotted. The maximum number of beauties was in Dalmatia, Serbia, and in Italy - Bologna and Tuscany. There were no special peaks in Central Europe. Rosetti hung large map, on which isocals were drawn over several years of vigorous observations.”

In 1933, Hitler came to power in Germany.

But Timofeev-Resovsky at this time was much more worried about the news coming from Russia. He already knew that since 1929, brutal oppression of geneticists began there. Chetverikov's laboratory was destroyed, Chetverikov himself was exiled to Sverdlovsk and never returned to work with Drosophila. The best geneticists were attacked, and many were arrested. Some, however, are lucky. Dobzhansky, for example, was able to escape the country and went to America, where he soon became one of the most famous geneticists in the world. Koltsov, who knew how to get along with the authorities, held out for some time, but in the late thirties he, too, was deprived of the opportunity to work. Scattered throughout the country, who miraculously did not end up in camps, geneticists were engaged in agronomy, ornithology, botany - everything you want, just not scientific work. By the way, Koltsov dissuaded him from returning to Moscow, which Timofeev-Resovsky was thinking about at that time, by sending warning letters through the Swede Kühn and the physiologist Max Hartmann, who had previously visited the USSR.

Perhaps Timofeev-Resovsky would have returned to Russia, but chance played a role. Right after Olympic Games conducted in Germany, exit from the country was practically closed. Paradoxically, even during the war years, the research institute in Bukha continued to be listed as a German-Soviet one, and Timofeev-Resovsky lived there with a Soviet passport in his pocket. Several times Timofeev-Resovsky was offered to accept German citizenship, but he refused. He was only interested in work.

In 1945, units of the Soviet army entered Berlin.

Timofeev-Resovsky was immediately arrested and sent to Karlag as an accomplice of the Nazis. From Karlag, where he was dying of pellagra, in 1947 he was rescued by the Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, NKVD Colonel General A. Zavenyagin, who knew well from experts what such a scientist could be worth. Having been cured and raised to his feet, Timofeev-Resovsky was sent to the Urals to a closed laboratory. The people who worked there were mostly Germans, who also ended up there against their own free will.

“...They selected a staff of laboratories, specialists, dosimetrists, radiologists, chemists, botanists,” wrote D. Granin. – Naturally, Zubr (Timofeev-Resovsky’s nickname) knew more the Germans, those with whom he had to collaborate all these years, but Russian specialists also gathered, whom they managed to find, which was far from easy in that post-war period. When a young graduate of Moscow State University, Liza Sokurova, arrived at the site, she was unpleasantly struck by the German speech that was heard in the laboratories and in the corridors. It’s no wonder that she reached out to Nikolai Vladimirovich. If he spoke German, it was still Russian. He invited everyone to his lectures. He forced me to study radiobiology, the biological effects of various radiations. Neither we nor the Americans had any serious experience at that time. We gained wisdom through experience, looked for means of protection against radioactivity, tried it; It’s no wonder that they themselves “smeared themselves”, “grabbed doses” - despite all the precautions, they got sick. One also had to learn to be careful. The work they were doing in Bukha—the biological effect of ionizing radiation on living organisms—suddenly, after the atomic explosions, became of dire necessity.”

It was during these years that genetics in the USSR was completely destroyed, but this did not in any way affect the work of Timofeev-Resovsky. In a laboratory separated from outside world barbed wire, he freely studied genetics, which was officially rejected in the country, however, no one in the world or in the USSR knew whether he was alive? Officially, Timofeev-Resovsky did not exist outside the walls of the laboratory. It was as if he simply did not exist in the world, so he was not afraid of the attacks of the Lysenkoites.

“...It would seem that after the camp they imprisoned him in exile, in the wilderness, isolated from the academic, institute scientific environment, but what happened? – wrote D. Granin. – After the session of the All-Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Lysenko and his supporters are smashing genetics, major biologists who do not want to renounce genetics are deprived of laboratories and departments, and at this time Bison in his unknown reserve calmly continues genetic work on fruit flies. The very word “drosophila” sounded like a crime in those years. Fruit flies are almost pests, fascists - something like that, terrible, hostile to Soviet life. Ogonyok publishes the article “Fly lovers are misanthropes.” Drosophila was, as it were, outlawed. Anti-Lysenko supporters were depicted in Ku Klux Klan robes. If Zubr had returned to Moscow in those years, then, due to the uncontrollable ardor of his character, he, of course, would have gotten involved in the fight, and it would have ended irreparably badly for him, as for some other scientists. Fate hid him in a place where he could remain himself - perhaps the most indispensable condition of his existence. Luck also lay in the fact that he had to deal with the most burning, most pressing problem for many years. Work with radioactive substances has begun all over the world. Created atomic bomb, nuclear reactors, nuclear power plants. Protection of the environment, protection of living organisms, protection of humans - all of this arose before science for the first time. It was necessary to ensure the safety of work, safe technology. The young nuclear technology and industry posed many problems. Even physicists did not really understand the necessary protective measures when using radioactive substances. An elderly woman worked as a preparator for E.N. Sokurova. Before allowing the cups containing radioactive substances to be washed, Elizaveta Nikolaevna instructed her in detail: she needed to put on double gloves, then wash them, check them on the meter, and so on. He looks one day and she is washing cups with her bare hands. “What are you doing?” - “And I,” she replies, “have already washed like this, without gloves, and nothing happened to me, so you’re screaming in vain...”

No one knew whether Timofeev-Resovsky was alive, but in the West they continued to refer to his pre-war works. Physicist E. Schrödinger in famous book"What is life. From a physicist’s point of view” wrote:

“...The work of N.V. Timofeev-Resovsky contains a practical hint.

These days there are many opportunities for a person to be exposed to X-rays. The danger of their action is well known to everyone. Nurses and radiologists who constantly deal with X-rays are provided with special protection in the form of lead screens, aprons, etc. The point, however, is that even if this inevitable danger to the individual is successfully repelled, there is an indirect danger the occurrence of small harmful mutations in the germ cells, mutations the same as those we encountered when it came to the unfavorable results of inbreeding. To put it more clearly, although it may sound a little naive, the danger of a first cousin marriage can be greatly increased by the fact that their grandmother worked for a long time as a nurse in an x-ray room. This should not be a cause for concern for an individual. But any possibility of gradual infection of the human race with unwanted hidden mutations should be of interest to society.”

When the laboratory was disbanded and the Germans were released to their homeland, Timofeev-Resovsky was given the right to recruit his own scientific group and transferred to the Ural branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences. There, from 1955 to 1963, he headed a department at the Institute of Biology.

In 1956, Timofeev-Resovsky was allowed to return to Moscow.

“Nikolai Vladimirovich Timofeev-Resovsky is a man with a volcanic reaction rate,” wrote V. M. Polynin. – In the experiment, there he is correct, careful, although decisive in his conclusions. But outside the laboratory, he gives his nature unlimited scope. Accustomed to thinking broadly, he has no mercy for those scientists who suffer from a fear of “space.” At the same time, he likes to repeat the saying of one mathematician he greatly respects: “There are people whose horizon radius is zero, and they call this their point of view.” Indeed, a brilliant mathematical definition human limitations, invariant, as physicists will say, that is, suitable for all reference systems, or as non-physicists will say, true from all points of view. If we try to characterize Nikolai Vladimirovich’s reaction norm mathematically, we can say that his assessments, when expressed out loud, sometimes look raised to a power. However, if you take the root from them, the number still turns out to be an integer and only with a plus sign. So, Nikolai Vladimirovich says that in science there are no theories at all. There are ideas. And depending on the literary abilities of the author, who puts the idea into the form of a theory, the question of who created the theory is decided by history. And if Darwin was lucky in the eyes of mankind as a “theorist,” it was only because he formalized the brilliant idea of the existence of natural selection in the form of a theory, literally torturing his poor health with titanic labor, when he consistently showed how his idea was embodied in numerous examples of evolution individual species plants and animals."

There was a thaw, new winds blew.

On the platform in Moscow, Timofeev-Resovsky was met by people who highly valued him as a scientist and were extremely amazed that he was alive. Moreover, formally, Timofeev-Resovsky was a nobody: he did not have any academic degree.

An attempt was made to change this situation, but did not bring any results. The candidacy of Timofeev-Resovsky, a “collaborator of the fascists,” was not even allowed to participate in the elections to the USSR Academy of Sciences.

True, in 1966 Timofeev-Resovsky was elected a member of the presidium of the All-Union Society of Genetics and Breeders named after. N. I. Vavilova, in 1969 - a member of the Leopoldina Academy (GDR), in 1973 - a member of the US Academy of Arts and Sciences. In the GDR, Timofeev-Resovsky's contribution to science was recognized with the Darwin Medal, in the USA - with the Kimber Prize in Genetics and the Gold Medal for Outstanding Scientific Contribution to Genetics. Finally, in Czechoslovakia, Timofeev-Resovsky's work was awarded the Mendelian Medal.

From 1964 to 1969, Timofeev-Resovsky worked at the Institute of Medical Radiology of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences in Obninsk. Since 1969, he was listed as a consultant at the Institute of Medical and Biological Problems of the USSR Ministry of Health. This was not an official sinecure - academician O. G. Gazenko invited the scientist at his own peril and risk.

Timofeev-Resovsky's main works are devoted to problems of genetics, radiobiology, biogeocenology, and evolutionary theory. He is one of the founders of quantitative radiation genetics and the author of major studies on the genetic effects of radiation. Together with the physicist M. Delbrück, Timofeev-Resovsky created the first biophysical model of gene structure and proposed possible ways its changes. Studying the initial stages of intraspecific differentiation, he formulated and developed the doctrine of microevolution.

The scientist died in 1981.

He never tired of repeating to his students: “You are equal to those you understand.” The students nodded in agreement. They, like no one else, knew that Koltsov, Chetverikov, Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrödinger, and many other great scientists were friends of Timofeev-Resovsky and he always understood them (just like they did him).

N.V. Timofeev-Resovsky. Berlin(?). Photo from the 1930s

1. We suddenly find out: what original surname Timofeev-Resovsky was Timofeev-Ryasovsky. It is unknown when exactly and for what reasons the replacement of “I” with “e” in the spelling of the surname took place, but N.V. Timofeev-Resovsky was the first in the family with this spelling of the surname. They say this was done between 1918 and 1925. in order to please the Bolsheviks. In Germany it became N.W.Timofeeff-Ressovsky.

2. It is believed that the Timofeev-Ryasovsky family goes back in one line to the “8th class” Timofeev nobles of Peter the Great (according to Solzhenitsyn: “ from the seedy Kaluga nobles on the Ressa River " - this myth, by the way, was invented by Timofeev-Resovsky himself), on another line comes from the clergy. However, for some reason this “nobleman” and “popovich” actively fought as part of the Red Army.

3. He received his education intermittently since 1916, first at the Moscow Free University. Shanyavsky, and then in 1917-1922. in 1st Moscow state university, but did not receive a university diploma. Those. formally higher education didn't have.(Granin in “Zubr” : “Many then considered diplomas to be a useless formalism, a relic of the past...”). The Cyril and Methodius Encyclopedia states that in 1963 Timofeev-Resovsky successfully defended his doctoral dissertation on the topic “Some problems of radiation biogeocenology” (an interesting title for a dissertation...).

N.V. Timofeev-Resovsky in Berlin-Buch. 1940

Arrest warrant for N.V. Timofeev-Resovsky (ironically signed by Vavilov)

Prisoner N.V. Timofeev-Resovsky. 1945 (what a Slavic face!). Case No. 8026 began on October 10, 1945, ended on July 8, 1946.

4. On September 13, 1945, Timofeev-Resovsky, on the recommendation of Sudoplatov’s department, was detained by an operational group in Berlin ( The order was issued on October 10, 1945.), transported to Moscow and placed in the internal prison of the NKGB. From the arrestee's profile: “Timofeev-Resovsky Nikolai Vladimirovich. Height is high. The figure is average. Shoulders are raised. The neck is short. Hair color - light brown. Oval face. The forehead is straight. Eyebrows are arched. Hoc- small (!?). Mouth- small(!?). Lips are thin. Chin- forked(!?). Ears are small. There are no special signs.” ( see photo above).

5. Investigation, trial and imprisonment:
Excerpt from interrogation reports:
a) From the interrogation protocol of Hans Born, an assistant at the institute, a member of the National Socialist Party (dated March 9, 1946)
Question:“Why didn’t Timofeev-Resovsky return to the Soviet Union?”
Answer:“Timofeev-Resovsky did not return to the Soviet Union because he held a good position in Germany and was satisfied with his work. Besides, Timofeev-Resovsky was loyal to the fascist regime, but this is official, in conversations with me he spoke negatively about the fascist system.”

During interrogations, he turned over everyone with whom he communicated, who came to him and wrote to him(including the already dead, N.I. Vavilov, N.K. Koltsov, G.D. Karpechenko, but also the still living A.S. Serebrovsky, N.P. Dubinin, etc.) (http:/ /www.ihst.ru/projects/sohist/document/rgn01vr.htm) .

The investigation, for a number of reasons, having not received (perhaps no longer trying to obtain) Timofeev-Resovsky’s confession (and corresponding testimony from witnesses) of participation in the activities of anti-Soviet White emigrant organizations, changed the charge brought under Art. 58-1 a (treason) and 58-11 (aggravated) for charges only under Art. 58-1 a.

A closed meeting of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR took place on July 4, 1946, Timofeev-Resovsky was sentenced under Art. 58-1a of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR to imprisonment in a correctional labor camp for a period of 10 years with loss of political rights for a period of 5 years, with confiscation of all property personally belonging to him... However, he was only six months in Karlag (Karaganda forced labor camp) at general works . Then he was transferred to Moscow and sent “to further serve his sentence” in Chelyabinsk region researcher (!) (since 1948 already head of the biological laboratory department), where he could, together with those who arrived from Germany "colleagues" at the Brain Institute by Zimmer, Born and Kach, to continue research in the field of biophysics... (it is known that this was facilitated not by “outstanding Soviet geneticists and biologists”, but by the 1st Main Directorate under the USSR government under the direction of A.P. Zavenyagin, which was involved in the creation nuclear weapons).

And already in 1951 Timofeev-Resovsky “for great success in research work” was released, and after 4 years the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR cleared his criminal record.

6. Works of Timofeev-Resovsky continued to go abroad and after his arrest by the NKGB, namely: one each in 1946, 1947 and 1948.

7. Great scientist: Dispute between ethnologist L.N. Gumilev and “geneticist” N.V. Timofeev-Resovsky: “Lev came to Obninsk to Timofeev-Resovsky, discussed the topic of the article, talked and argued on topics that are visible from the published letter. However, everything turned out to be more complicated. When clarifying the attitude to the concept of “ethnos” N.V. gave Stalin's definition, repeating the famous Stalinist thesis about nations, peoples, to which L.N. I couldn't agree. According to the geneticist, a nation should be defined through public relations, and N.V. could not fully agree with the concept of passionarity and natural certainty of this phenomenon. The geneticist and biologist did not give an intelligible answer to the subject of passionarity and the passionate charge of human nature, saying that everything needs to be checked.

8. Relatives: Brothers: Boris was arrested in 1934, the cause and date of his death are unknown, Vladimir was arrested on May 1, 1937, executed on February 28, 1938, then Victor was arrested in 1937, until 1939 he was in exile...( all were arrested by the NKVD for anti-Soviet activities).

E.A. Timofeeva (née Fiedler). 1926

Wife: Elena Aleksandrovna Timofeeva ( why not Resovskaya yet?), born Fiedler(father: Fidler Alexander Alexandrovich, mother Schultz Sofya Egorovna) - German?

9. Among the apologists of Timofeev-Resovsky, for some reason, mostly Jewish names appear:Granin (Herman), Blumenfeld, Wolkenstein, Rokityansky, Warsaw.Shnol, Sakanyan, Sverdlov, Levina, Pienis and others.

10. From the epistolary heritage:
“Institute for Brain Research, N.V. Timofeev-Resovsky. Berlin Buch, 16.6.34. Lindenberger Weg Telephone: E 6 Bukh 8136.
By the leadership of the VI International Congress of Radiologists, which will be held in Zurich and San Moritz from July 24 to 31, I have been invited to give a presentation on radiation genetics. Due to the particularly high cost of living in Switzerland, the cost of the trip would be approximately 450 Reichsmarks. It is possible that I will have 100-200 Reichsmarks at my disposal for literary works (submission of the text of the report). I could carry out this trip if the Main Office provides me with another 250-300 Reichsmarks. I ask you to allocate the above-mentioned amount of 250-300 Reichsmarks for my trip.
Heil Hitler! N. Timofeev-Resovsky»

(MPG - Archiv. I. Abt., 1 A, No. 1581, Bl . 138. Original. Typescript on letterhead. Signature - autograph. Translation from German by Y.G. Rokityansky, http://www.ihst.ru/projects/sohist/document/rgn02vr.htm).

11. Eventually: Timofeev-Resovsky since 1925 worked in Germany, at the Brain Institute (Kaiser Wilhelm Institute: in 1925-29 - researcher; in 1929-36 head of the department of genetics, in 1937-45 head of an independent department Institute of Genetics). In 1937, when relations between the USSR and Nazi Germany sharply deteriorated, the Soviet embassy refused to extend his visa again, which meant he was required to return to the USSR. However, Timofeev-Resovsky and his wife received German passports for foreigners in Berlin and continued their work at the institute. According to a number of testimonies and other documents, Timofeev-Resovsky was loyal to the Hitler regime. During the war between Germany and the USSR, the department headed by Timofeev-Resovsky clearly took part in the implementation of the military programs of the Nazi regime, including the study of the effect of radiation on the human body. According to the conclusion of radiobiologists, from the materials of the Timofeev-Resovsky case and from his publications of 1942-43. it follows that in the laboratories of the institute experiments were carried out even on people - they were injected into their blood with a mixture of radium isotopes, for scientific purposes, to clarify a number of medical and radiobiological issues... There is evidence that the management of the institute repeatedly offered Timofeev-Resovsky to head the management of the program for the sterilization of the Slavs under help of radiation. As the Soviet Army approached, Timofeev-Resovsky personally ordered the destruction of secret documents that were stored at the institute.

Of course, most of the liberal-cosmopolitan intelligentsia, who fiercely hated T.D. Lysenko, used Timofeev-Resovsky to fight him.

After 1991, however, ideas about crime and legality, as well as about betrayal and heroism in the Russian Federation, changed significantly. And in June 1992, Timofeev-Resovsky, who remained in Germany during the extreme aggravation of its relations with Russia, worked for Hitler’s military machine during the Third Reich’s war against the USSR, and was sentenced for this in 1948 to 10 years in prison, was rehabilitated “ democratic" authorities as a "victim of Stalinist political repression."

The Timofeev-Resovsky case, in the 1930s. on the advice of N. Vavilov, who refused to return to the USSR and remained in Germany, is partly similar to the case of Vavilov himself. Timofeev-Resovsky was also a “geneticist”, was also convicted by a Soviet court, and also enjoyed great sympathy from the “democratic intelligentsia,” who considered him “a victim of unjustified political repression.” True, unlike N.I. Vavilov, Timofeev-Resovsky was rehabilitated only in 1992, after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Here he is: the fat-assed and proud “bison” of Soviet biological science.

Personal: Physiognomically, as a person - see his numerous photographs - he looks disgusting, in them he poses as a kind of master... According to the recollections of contemporaries in Everyday life he was rude, tactless and arrogant, apparently affected by the aura of “genius and infallibility” created around him by scoundrels from science former USSR and biology in particular. An outspoken conformist. His contribution to science is numerous publications describing the results of experiments and experiments with the effects of radiation on living organisms, but he did not inseminate science with outstanding discoveries. In hindsight they invented and attributed to him the supposedly created scientific directions about “microevolution, phenogenetics and biophysics”...

Finally, Timofeev-Resovsky did not consider it necessary to talk about why he did not leave Germany after Hitler came to power, although he had the opportunity to go to other European countries and even to America. What did he work on in Berlin in 1941-1945, when Germany was at war against the USSR? Apparently, there was something to hide...

Website materials used.

In the mid-30s, a theory was formulated that described the kinetic dependences of the activating and mutagenic effects of ionizing radiation - the so-called “target theory”. The most important experiments that became the basis of this theory were carried out in the period 1931 - 1937. several researchers, among whom was Nikolai Vladimirovich Timofeev-Resovsky, who became one of the founders of the quantitative biophysics of ionizing radiation.

Timofeev-Resovsky developed the ideas of N. Koltsov, who assumed that molecular hereditary structures are formed through matrix synthesis. He conducted research on the biophysical analysis of the mutation process, which subsequently led to the formation of molecular biology as a new synthetic discipline. Timofeev-Resovsky showed that mutational changes affect a relatively limited group of atoms in the chromosome. This discovery brought the mutation process to the molecular level of understanding for the first time.

Nikolai Vladimirovich is also considered one of the founders of radiobiology. He was able to establish how the radiation dose affects the intensity of the mutation process. He discovered the phenomenon of low-dose radiostimulation and analyzed the primary triggers for the occurrence of mutations under the influence of radiation.

This researcher was the first to point out that in addition to the direct effects of exposure ionizing radiation(i.e. malignant neoplasms, burns, radiation sickness) there is a serious danger of the occurrence of harmful mutations and their accumulation in populations.

One of the most important components The quantitative theory of the mutation process began with the research of the Russian scientist on the probabilities of the occurrence of direct and reverse mutations.

In 1934, Timofeev-Resovsky conducted a series of brilliant experiments that showed for the first time that a combination of several recessive mutations, each of which individually reduces viability, can lead to an increase in the viability of individuals - carriers of these combinations. These studies made it possible to fully understand the evolutionary significance of the phenomena of recessivity and dominance.

Together with M. Delbrück (later laureate Nobel Prize) Nikolai Vladimirovich Timofeev-Resovsky carried out work on modeling the structure of genes. During the same period, in collaboration with the physicist R. Rompe, he discovered and described the “amplifier principle” in biology, which became one of the most important general principles of modern theoretical biology. According to this principle, a single change can change the properties of an entire individual and activate forces that are several orders of magnitude greater in terms of the energy expended.