Ашық рұқсат
Рұқсат берілді
Тек жазылушылар үшін
Том 44, № 3 (2023)
From the History of Science
Experimental Genetic and Breeding Research at the MSU Botanical Garden from the Second Third of the 20th Century to the Early 21st Century
Аннотация
From with the second third of the 20th century, studies in experimental morphogenesis, hybridization and breeding become one of the main strands in the research carried out at the MSU Botanical Garden. The article reviews the history of the development of these studies at the BG from the said period to the early 21st century in the context of changes in the BG’s institutional status. It shows the role of L. P. Breslavets-Krestovnikova, cytologist and cytogeneticist, N. A. Bazilevskaya, N. I. Vavilov’s pupil and organizing director of the territory of the MSU Botanical Garden on Lenin Hills (Vorobyovy Gory), and A. A. Sosnovets, ornamental plant breeder and cytogeneticist, in organizing and conducting practice-oriented studies of the effects of various types of radiation and chemical mutagens in different species of economically important and ornamental plants.
Voprosy istorii estestvoznaniia i tekhniki. 2023;44(3):423-436
423-436
Social History of Science
Formation of the Scientific Community at the Naval Department of the Russian Empire (1805–1827)
Аннотация
The article explores the composition of the learned assembly of the State Admiralty Department (SAD). The learned assembly was a special organization within SAD, which was established in 1805 to provide scientific support to the Russian Navy and existed till 1827. The author identifies the persons who comprised the learned assembly, their professions and institutional affiliation, and analyzes the variations in the SAD staff composition. The complete list of the learned assembly members is reconstructed based on the administrative records deposited in the Russian State Naval Archive and the published sources. The available historiographic works allowed elucidating the details of the learned assembly members’ biographies as well as the areas of their scientific interests. It is shown that, rather than a closed community of naval officers, the SAD learned assembly included the members of different professional groups, associated with the Academy of Sciences and other scientific institutions of the Russian Empire. The number of naval officers and the naval department officials in the learned assembly increased over time, suggesting a gradual formation of the corporate scientific community in the naval sphere who, however, maintained their ties with the representatives of the academic science.
Voprosy istorii estestvoznaniia i tekhniki. 2023;44(3):437-446
437-446
From the History of Technology
At the Beginnings of Turbojet Aviation
Аннотация
The article is devoted to the history of invention of turbojet engine that later became the main type of power plant in aviation. It describes the motivations for the inception of these works, the role of private business in their development, the history of the tests of the first jet aircrafts, and the influence of WWII on the emergence of jet aviation. The sources used in the preparation of this article include the memoirs of the pioneers in jet engine development Hans von Ohain, Frank Whittle, and Arkhip Lyulka, aircraft designer Ernst Heinkel, and test pilots Erich Warsitz and John Grirson. The analysis of relevant Russian archival documents allowed explaining the causes of turbojet aviation lagging behind in the USSR.
Voprosy istorii estestvoznaniia i tekhniki. 2023;44(3):447-465
447-465
Lessons from History
Yushchenko – Chernavkin Radio Method: A Milestone in the History of Scientific Institutionalization of Biotelemetry
Аннотация
A novel method of dynamic biotelemetry (“radio method”) was first developed in the USSR in the early 1930s. This method enabled studying physiological parameters of biological objects in their natural environment, and implied creating a technical complex consisting of a device placed on the biological object under study to capture a particular physiological parameter, radio equipment for wireless (only) transmission and reception the respective parameters, and the means for recording radio-transmitted data. The author of the idea of radio method was A. A. Yushchenko, head of the physiological department of the Communist Academy’s Institute of Higher Nervous Activity; its technical implementation was achieved by L. A. Chernavkin, junior researcher and engineer who worked at the Institute; and was used as a research method in the studies carried out by the Department members V. Ya. Kryazhev (1931) and S. A. Kharitonov (1932, 1937). In animal experiments radio method enabled obtaining radically new data about reflexes and higher nervous system activity. The attempts were made to use this method in human physiology research (inter alia, at the specially created laboratory at the I. V. Stalin First State Automobile Plant). Studies in the field of radio method were terminated because of Yushchenko’s untimely death and objective technical complexities. The next stage in the development of biotelemetry only began in the late 1940s.
Voprosy istorii estestvoznaniia i tekhniki. 2023;44(3):466-494
466-494
The Admiralty Plant on the Shirsha: A Road to Nowhere
Аннотация
The Admiralty plant on the river Shirsha, located 20 versts upstream of Arkhangelsk along the Northern Dvina, was the largest enterprise of the naval authority in the Russian North that filled the demands of the Arkhangelsk Admiralty, located in Solombala, in the foundry and metalwork productions as well as in timber. The number of the plant’s workmen used to be up to 250 people, with the total staff number of up to 370 officers and lower ranks. The main problem of the plant was the low capacity of its machines, as the main source of energy was the water from the local shallow rivers. In addition, there were no mechanical engineering facilities in Shirsha, which made it impossible to manufacture machinery for steam-powered vessels under construction. For propulsion systems to be installed, they had to travel around Scandinavia to the Kronstadt docks. The boilers, too, were often brought from St. Petersburg or from other factories. Another serious issue was the complicated logistics for delivering finished products directly to the Admiralty. To address this issue, the naval authority experts proposed to move the plant facilities directly to Solombala to drastically reduce transportation costs and use available and planned steam engines. During the preparation of the Arkhangelsk Admiralty for closing down it was originally planned to hand over the plant to a private owner but these projects were buried in 1862. The plant was closed down and the remaining assets were sold.
Voprosy istorii estestvoznaniia i tekhniki. 2023;44(3):495-508
495-508
Materials for the Biographies of Scientists and Engineers
E. A. Satel: Scientist, Engineer, Organizer of Industry
Аннотация
The article is devoted to E. A. Satel, an outstanding organizer of industry and scientist. Based on the memoirs of Satel’s colleagues and associates and on the analysis of his scientific works, the authors reconstruct the stages of the talented engineerʼs life journey: studying at the Imperial Technical School; working on the reconstruction of machine-building plants in and around Moscow in the 1920s; a key role in the launch of the Stalingrad Tractor Plant; selfless labor at the People’s Commissariat of Armaments on the eve of and during The Great Patriotic War; and scientific and pedagogical work in the post-war period.
Voprosy istorii estestvoznaniia i tekhniki. 2023;44(3):509-523
509-523
Sources for the History of Science and Technology
Luka Voronin’s Expedition Drawings in the Collection of Illustrations to Peter Simon Pallas’ Zoographia rosso-asiatica: Attribution and Descriptions
Аннотация
Twenty three drawings by Luka Voronin, artist to the J. I. Billings – G. A. Sarychev North-East Expedition (1785–1795), were discovered in the collection of illustrations for Academician P. S. Pallas’ Zoographia rosso-asiatica at the St. Petersburg Branch of the Archive the Russian Academy of Sciences. For Pallas, this expedition became an important source of information about the Russian fauna. The expedition’s materials were used by him in the preparation of Zoographia rosso-asiatica, which is why some of Voronin’s expedition drawings that had been selected by Pallas were preserved in the collection of illustrations. In this article, the process of attribution of Voronin’s zoological drawings is described and the descriptions of all drawings are published for the first time. The descriptions are given in the order of illustrations in Zoographia rosso-asiatica and contain modern names of the illustrated species, the Latin names given by Pallas, the date, size, transcript and translation of the marks, and descriptions of other distinctive features of the sheets. Introducing Voronin’s zoological drawings sheds new light on the pages from the expedition’s history and broadens the source base for the history of natural science illustration in Russia. Studying these drawings may become an important part of the visual reconstruction of natural-science collections of the Petersburg Kunstkamera of the late 18th – early 19th century.
Voprosy istorii estestvoznaniia i tekhniki. 2023;44(3):524-545
524-545
Institutions and Museums
Organization of Scientific Institutions of Narkompros: The Case of the Central Biological Station
Аннотация
The article deals with the making of Soviet science, in particular, the creation of new biological research institutions as exemplified by the case of the Central Biological Station (CBS). The author analyzes the activities of the People’s Commissariat of Education (“Narkompros”) and its divisions (Academic Center, Principal Scientific Council, “Glavnauka”, and Science Department) regarding their subordinate organizations. The history of the initial period in the creation of the K. A. Timiryazev Biological Institute – the work of the Central Biological Station of the Narkompros Academic Center – is reconstructed based on a broad range of archival sources from the Russian Academy of Sciences Archive, State Archive of the Russian Federation, Rare Books and Manuscripts Department of the MSU Scientific Library, and Department of Written Sources of the State Historical Museum, many of which are introduced for scientific use for the first time. Established during a difficult period of the early 1920s and having had existed for about a year, the Station united a host of prominent scientists including M. M. Novikov, D. P. Syreishchikov, V. D. Lepeshkin, V. M. Borovskii and many others, who despite the difficulties conducted extensive research, which included collecting and processing materials collected in the vicinity of the Lake Senezh where CBS was located. The article contains a relatively complete list of the Station’s scientific staff (making a complete list is impossible due to frequent staff changeover) and reviews the main strands of CBS’ scientific activities as well as its equipment and facilities. It is concluded thatthe creation of CBS was the government’s attempt to bring biological research under the administrative and scientific control while CBS itself was from the start a serious, well-equipped scientific research institution that became a foundation for the future K. A. Timiryazev Biological Institute.
Voprosy istorii estestvoznaniia i tekhniki. 2023;44(3):546-565
546-565
Recollections
Biography of a Scientist as a Surmounting of Time
Аннотация
The scientist as an individual is a contemporary of particular historical circumstances who perceives social conditions of his time. On the other hand, he or she is part of a scientific community and is involved in a particular scientific discipline. This duality creates a problem of adequacy of the description. To an extent, it generates an uncertainty relation. The more accurately and detailed the description of a scientist’s personal and social life is, the less accurately the essence of his discoveries and his scientific life is conveyed. A biographer’s task is to find the right balance of these two flows that would allow holding the reader’s attention. In practice, the author finds this balance intuitively. In so doing, the biographer surmounts time. Which andwhose time? This article answers this question.
Voprosy istorii estestvoznaniia i tekhniki. 2023;44(3):566-576
566-576
Brief Communications
The History of Calling and Holding the First Congress on the Studies of the Southern Ussuri Region Regarding Its Natural History
Аннотация
Southern Ussuri Branch of the Russian Geographical Society’s Amur (Priamurye) Regional Division (Nikolsk-Ussuriуsky) was a research organization that operated in the Primorsky region of Russia in the early 20th century. It was there that an idea to call the First Congress on the Studies of the Southern Ussuri Region Regarding Its Natural History, where local specialists in regional studies – both professional and amateur – could report the results of their studies, arose in November 1921. The steering committee chaired by I. P. Tolmachev, created together with the Society for the Studies of the Amur Region (Vladivostok), developed the framework for the Congress and sent out the invitations. The first forum of regional studies researchers was held in Nikolsk-Ussuriуsky on April 18–23, 1922. Its scope included introducing the research conducted by local organizations involved in regional studies and formulating the main tasks for these studies in the region. Among the Congress participants were the representatives of educational institutions, governmental and non-governmental organizations. The sessions were held at the women’s teachers’ training college and the exhibition of the items provided by the Congress participants was organized at the women’s gymnasium. There were six sections: physical geography, geology and mining; botany; zoology; ethnography and history; teaching, and general issues. A total of 90 presentations were delivered many of which were devoted to teaching. Among the participants were the researchers who later became the renowned naturalists and scientists: V. K. Arseniev, A. A. Yemelyanov, B. A. Ivashkevich, I. P. Tolmachev, I. K. Shishkin and others. This congress was the first attempt at uniting and coordinating regional research in the Primorye region. The implementation of this idea, however, only became possible after the Far-East Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences was created.
Voprosy istorii estestvoznaniia i tekhniki. 2023;44(3):577-585
577-585
Book Reviews
586-590
591-596
597-599
Academic Life
600-604
605-608
609-612
613-615
In Memoriam
616-623
624-626