Russian editions of E. Haeckel's works and the evolution of their perception.

The article aims to clarify the dynamics of the publication of E. Haeckel's works in Russia, and the evolution of their perception by the authorities, various social groups and scientists in a rapidly changing sociocultural context and in relation to the various stages of the evolutionary synthesis. It is shown that his works were reprinted nearly 50 times. Until the beginning of twentieth century, the translations of his works to some extent reflected the evolution of Haeckel's interests. His scientific ideas and concepts freely spread in the Russian-speaking world and predetermined phylogenetic studies. They define many specific features of the evolutionary synthesis in the Russian-speaking world. At the same time, Russian translations of Haeckel's philosophical and paradigmatic works, many of which were used by radicals in their ideological and political struggle and in anti-religious propaganda, were banned by the tsarist authorities and criticized by conservatives. After the 1917 revolution, numerous attempts were made in Russia to use Haeckel's monism for the dialectization of natural science, to defend the principle of inheritance of acquired characteristics and to substantiate Lysenkoism. Nevertheless, his works in Russian have not been published and have never been a subject of any serious historical or scientific research for almost 80 years.

The reception of Haeckel in pre-revolutionary Russia and his impact on evolutionary theory.

The "German Darwin" Ernst Haeckel was influential not only in Germany, but in non-German-speaking countries as well. Due to the widespread use of German as a language of science in the Russian Empire along with growing Russian-German links in various scientific fields, Haeckel directly and indirectly influenced Russian intellectual landscape. The objective of the present paper is to investigate Haeckel's impact on Russian biology before the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. We outline the transfer of Haeckelian ideas to Russia and its adaptation to a national research tradition. Haeckel's ideas influenced the most crucial Russian evolutionists such as brothers Alexander and Vladimir Kovalevsky, Ilya (Elias) Metschnikoff, Mikhail Menzbier (Menzbir), Karl Kessler, Andrei Famintzyn, and Konstantin Mereschkowsky. At the same time, Haeckel's speculative hypotheses and his attempts to convert Darwinism into a universal worldview by promoting monism found little support in biological circles of Russia. Russian biology grew as an empirical science having weak connections to "romantic philosophy" as German biology did. This, among others, explains the acceptance of Haeckel as a biologist and the rejection of Haeckel as a philosopher by crucial Russian evolutionists.

Lysenkoism Against Genetics: The Meeting of the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences of August 1948, Its Background, Causes, and Aftermath.

Progress in genetics and evolutionary biology in the young Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was hindered in the 1930s by the agronomist Trofim Lysenko, who believed that acquired traits are inherited, claimed that heredity can be changed by "educating" plants, and denied the existence of genes. Lysenko was supported by Communist Party elites. Lysenko termed his set of ideas and agricultural techniques "Michurinism," after the name of the plant breeder Ivan Michurin, but they are currently known as Lysenkoism. Although Michurinism opposed biological science, Lysenko took up one academic position after another. In 1929, Nikolai Vavilov founded the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences and became its head; it directed the development of sciences underpinning plant and animal breeding in the Soviet Union. Vavilov was dismissed in 1935 and later died in prison, while Lysenko occupied his position. The triumph of Lysenkoism became complete and genetics was fully defeated in August 1948 at a session of the academy headed by Lysenko. The session was personally directed by Joseph Stalin and marked the USSR's commitment to developing a national science, separated from the global scientific community. As a result, substantial losses occurred in Soviet agriculture, genetics, evolutionary theory, and molecular biology, and the transmission of scientific values and traditions between generations was interrupted. This article reviews the ideological, political, economic, social, cultural, personal, moral, and ethical factors that influenced the August 1948 session, and its immediate and later consequences. We also outline current attempts to revise the role of the August session and whitewash Lysenko.

Laying the foundation for wartime research: a comparative overview of science mobilization in National Socialist Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union.

This chapter surveys wartime science mobilization within National Socialist Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union to understand how each nation mobilized science resources for the war, how their approaches to mobilization differed, and how these approaches might be evaluated historically. Science mobilization in National Socialist Germany, in particular, has heretofore been characterized as a failure; however, such a view appears too simplistic and cannot account for the numerous advanced weapons and technological artifacts produced by the nation during the war. Both Germany and Japan operated under decentralized systems for science mobilization, whereas the Soviet Union imposed a highly-centralized authoritarian structure. These differed significantly from the organizational model of the United States, which has often been touted as the most "successful" of the belligerents. This essay attempts to evaluate the science mobilization efforts in these nations on their own terms, rather than comparing them directly with the American system.