Voprosy istorii estestvoznaniia i tekhniki

The helminthofauna of the European bison, the iconic species for nature protection in Europe, is the object of close attention for zoologists because of the threatening changes occurring in this fauna in recent decades. Nowadays, researchers are more or less familiar with the works conducted in the early 20^ʰᵗ century, i. e. before the European bison went extinct in the wild (1919), and the specialists involved in the European bison restitution in the Białowieża Primeval Forest and other nature reserves have been also aware of these studies. In addition to the published works on the European bison parasites, however, there exists a wide range of archival documents relating to the helminthoses of the Białowieża bison, including reliable information about parasitic worms as an important cause of death in the European bison, in particular, the trematode Fasciola hepatica. Apart from the literature analysis, our research focuses on the archival documents relating to helminthological studies conducted between the 1880s, when the European bison mortality caused by fascioliasis was reliably documented in the Białowieża Forest for the first time, and the 1910s, when an attending veterinarian was hired by the Białowieża administration to hold a permanent position for the first time. The most significant event in the history of the studies of the European bison helminthofauna before 1919 was the expedition to the Białowieża Primeval Forest, led by professor Nikolay Kulagin (1906–1908). The expedition’s permanent members were the entomologist Alexander Mordvilko and the veterinarian Konrad Wróblewski. They amassed an impressive amount of material that formed the basis for two monographs about the Białowieża bison (1919 and 1927, respectively). This expedition established that the main cause of the bison’s high mortality were the external factors including helminthoses rather than the degeneration of the species caused by the “laws of nature” (as was assumed for most of the 19^ʰᵗ century).

 Several hypotheses concerning technology development patterns were tested on the dataset, prepared by the author. This dataset includes the data regarding dynamics of changes in airplane power plants used both in airplane production in the 20^ʰᵗ century and in the development of new airplane models, the design features of 20,250 20^th-century airplane models, and 39,000 records describing the production of these models. Five classes of airplanes were selected for analysis: two civil (passenger and general-purpose aircrafts) and three military (fighters, bombers, and attack aircrafts) classes.

According to the first hypothesis, the development of civil technologies goes through two different phases. During the first phase, a succession of technical solutions (in our case, the types of most widely used airplane engines) occurs, indicating a displacing competition. At a certain moment, however, this competition gives way to coexistence, in which each solution that has “survived” up to this moment retains its share in production for a long time. In the military sector, the technological arms race never stops and the stage of coexistence does not occur, which comprises the second hypothesis.

According to the third hypothesis, the development of designs using outdated methodology continues even after the new generation practically displaces the previous one from production. This behavior is typical for the engineering community and repeats time after time in both the civil and military sectors.

Finally, the fourth hypothesis states that, as technology develops, a product usually undergoes two periods: complication, which is accompanied by a rapid increase in quantitative characteristics and followed by simplification of operation and maintenance. This trend manifests, among other things, as a reduction in the number of main units in the product. In our case, this means a reduction in the number of engines installed on heavy airplanes.

It is shown that the collected data confirm the previously stated hypotheses.

A solar eclipse is a rare and spectacular celestial event that has a powerful emotional impact on people and is often reflected in their writings and communications. The reports of eclipse observations are contained in the 10^th–17^ʰᵗ century Russian chronicles. Modern observation reports, starting wiʰᵗ the 1887 eclipse, have also been well studied. In the intermediate period, starting from 1706, however, only three eclipses (1748, 1842 and 1851) have been described in publicly available sources despite the fact that 30 total and annular eclipses passed through Russia during this period. Using a computer program, the regions and time intervals were identified to search for the mentions of such eclipses. Possible sources include memoirs, reports and other documents written by educated people – participants in all kinds of campaigns, voyages, and expeditions, not necessarily the astronomical ones. As a result of studying diverse sources, a number of valuable reports of eclipse observations were discovered. Most often, these are the observations of eyewitnesses who had accidentally happened to be in the eclipse path. The firstly discovered materials shed light on the level of astronomical knowledge among various groups of the Russian population as well as equipment available to them, and touch upon the issues of local peoples’ superstitions and prejudices. A periodization of solar eclipse observations is also proposed.

Based on the topical and chronological analysis of archival sources and publications of a prominent Russian geologist, Academician F. N. Chernyshev (1856–1914), his scientific and organizational activities associated with the exploration of little-known territories of the North and the Arctic in the late 19^ʰᵗ – early 20^ʰᵗ century are reviewed. In particular, the article analyzes the documents regarding the role of F. N. Chernyshev in the organization of the Russian-Swedish Grade Measurement Expedition in the Svalbard Archipelago in 1899–1901. Chernyshev’s contribution to the preparation and implementation of this international scientific project is pictured, based on the documents from his personal fonds and those of the Academy of Sciences’ Commission for Grade Measurement in the Islands of Svalbard, stored in the St. Petersburg Branch of the RAS Archive. The study focuses on Chernyshev’s expeditionary diaries that are introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. Based on these documents, the Expedition’s route and the course of its scientific research are analyzed and the scientists’ working conditions during the trips to the archipelago are shown. The published works by F. N. Chernyshev and his companions were used as additional sources. It is concluded that Chernyshev’s scientific legacy is an important part of the history of the Russian-Swedish Expedition to the Svalbard Archipelago as well as a valuable source for the studies of Russian exploration of the Arctic territories at the turn of the 20^ʰᵗ century.

The article is devoted to the history of the State Institute of Public Health of the People’s Commissariat of Health (“GINZ”) in the early years of its work (1919–1920). The author reconstructs an episode associated with the organization of work environment at the GINZ institutions during the period under study, based on the materials deposited in the Archive of Russian Academy of Sciences and State Archive of the Russian Federation. The article introduces for scientific use the internal reports, written by the GINZ staff members, engineer G. A. Ostapovich and facilities manager N. A. Kharitonov in 1920. These documents were discovered in the fonds of GINZ director L. A. Tarasevich (RAS Archive, f. 1538) and in the fonds of the Institute of Experimental Biology (f. 570) that was a part of GINZ in the 1920s. Both documents illustrate one of the key issues in the organization of work environment and are valuable sources for history of professional everyday life of the GINZ institutions in 1919–1920.

The early 1930s were marked by the organization of regional branches of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The Far Eastern Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences was established in 1932 and V. L. Komarov, a prominent botanist and future president of the USSR Academy of Sciences, had an important role in its creation. The first Academy’s institution in Russia’s Far East, however, was the Gornotayozhnaya Station that was founded under the auspices of the South Ussuri Branch of the Far Eastern Regional Research Institute in 1931 and became part of the Far Eastern Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1932. The article focuses on the first, the most difficult years of existence (1932–1936) of the Station. Despite poor living conditions and research facilities, the scientists had performed a number of studies, primarily on the flora and fauna of the newly established Ussuri Nature Reserve and its phytocenoses, clarified the taxonomy of some arboreal and shrubby species, and conducted phenological observations of the arboreal and herbaceous plants. An important part of their work was associated with botanical resource studies. The researchers studied medicinal plants (including the “root of life”, ginseng) as well as fodder, edible plants (primarily fruit and berries), ornamental plants and weeds. Zoological research focused on the pests of forest plants and crops, mainly Lepidoptera and Coleoptera. The results of scientific work carried out in 1932–1935 are reflected in the first volume of the “Proceedings of the Gornotayozhnaya Station”, published in 1936. A number of the Station’s researchers became prominent representatives of the national science. These include A. I. Kurentsov, G. E. Kurentsova, E. N. Klobukova-Alisova, Z. I. Gutnikova, Z. I. Luchnik and others.