The institutionalization of applied biological research in Russia: biology at St. Petersburg

• Autores: Eduard I. Kolchinsky
• Localización: The Circulation of Science and Technology: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference of the European Society for the History of Science. Barcelona, 18-20 November 2010 / coord. por Antoni M. Roca Rosell, 2012, ISBN 978-84-9965-108-8, págs. 603-607
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Conventionally, the establishment of the V.I. Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences (the VASKhNIL) in 1929 has been considered as an outcome of rapid institutionalization of biological research in line with the Bolsheviks’ agenda. In reality, scholars themselves initiated and supported the process using Bolshevik authorities in order to implement their own vision of the advancement of science in Russia. The foundation of VASKhNIL was not the beginning but the result of almost a century-long process of institutionalization of applied research in biology that began in 1837 inside the Ministry of State Domains. The Ministry was active in promoting new methods of land cultivation and rational use of natural resources. Under the aegis of the Ministry various academic committees and commissions were established that included agronomists, cattle breeders, ichthyologists, soil scientists, entomologists on their boards. When in 1894 the Ministry of State Domains was reorganized into the Ministry of Agriculture and State Domains, its Academic Committee defined the research agenda, planned and supervised research in the fields of agriculture and management of biological and water resources. The Academic Committee set up agricultural laboratories and experimental stations, and outlined their research programs and instructions. There were even plans for establishing the Central Institute of Agronomy, however in practice its academic and administrative tasks were divided among various bureaus affiliated with the Academic Committee (for entomology, applied biology, zootechnology, soil science, zoology of fur-bearing animals and marketable fish, etc) and created in 1894-1899. In 1901 an Academic Commission was established at the Academic Committee, which was concerned with organizing agricultural research institutions, experimental studies in agriculture and seed-farming. It was these bodies (bureaus and the Academic Commission) that eventually became the foundation for the future institutes of the VASKhNIL with Nikolai I. Vavilov serving as its first president.