Nikolai Vladimirovich Timofeev-Resovsky - the most famous scientists of Russia.

Perhaps Timofeev-Resovsky would still have returned to Russia, but chance played a role. Right after Olympic Games conducted in Germany, leaving the country was practically closed. Paradoxically, even during the war years, the research institute in Bukh continued to be listed as German-Soviet, 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, parts of the Soviet army entered Berlin. Timofeev-Resovsky was arrested and sent to Karlag as an accomplice of the Nazis. From Karlag, where he was dying of pellagra, in 1947 he was pulled out by the Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, Colonel-General of the NKVD A. Zavenyagin. Cured, raised to his feet, Timofeev-Resovsky was sent to the Urals in a closed laboratory. Mostly Germans worked there, who also got there against their will.

“We selected the staff of laboratories, specialists, dosimetrists, radiologists, chemists, botanists,” wrote D. Granin. – Naturally, the Bison (nickname of Timofeev-Resovsky) knew the Germans better, those with whom he had to cooperate all these years, but Russian specialists also gathered, whom they managed to find, which was not easy in that post-war period. When a young graduate of Moscow State University Liza Sokurova arrived at the facility, she was unpleasantly struck by the German speech that sounded in the laboratories, in the corridors. No wonder 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 effect of various radiations. Neither we nor the Americans had any serious experience then. Gained mind-reason empirically, looking for means of protection from radioactivity, tried; no wonder that they themselves "grabbed doses" - despite all the precautions, they got sick. You also need to learn to be careful. The work they did in Buch - biological action ionizing radiation on living organisms - suddenly, after atomic explosions, they found a formidable need.

During these years, genetics in the USSR was finally defeated, but this did not affect the work of Timofeev-Resovsky. In a laboratory separated from outside world barbed wire, he was freely engaged in genetics officially rejected in the country.

All over the world, work with radioactive substances has begun. Created atomic bomb, nuclear reactors, nuclear power plants. Protection of the environment, protection of living organisms, protection of man - all this confronted science for the first time. It was necessary to ensure the safety of work, safe technology. Young nuclear technology and industry posed many problems. Even physicists did not really imagine the necessary protective measures when using radioactive substances.

No one knew if Timofeev-Resovsky was alive, but in the West they continued to refer to his pre-war works. 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 of the Institute of Biology.

In 1956, Timofeev-Resovsky created a unique biophysical laboratory in the Ilmensky Reserve, on Lake Bolshoye Miassovo, held seminars there (ironically called "trap") for young scientists from different cities of the country, laying the foundations of the radioecological scientific school.

“The Urals were lucky: fate brought a great and amazing person to our region. Hardly ever lived in the Urals, a thinker of such magnitude as Nikolai Vladimirovich Timofeev-Resovsky created and broadcast ... ”recalls one of his students, Professor Yu. I. Novozhenov (one of the authors of the memoirs collected in the book“ N. . Timofeev-Resovsky in the Urals).

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

1. Unexpectedly we find out: that the original name of Timofeev-Resovsky was Timofeev-Ryasovsky. When exactly and for what reasons "I" was replaced by "e" in the spelling of the surname is unknown, but N.V. Timofeev-Resovsky was the first in the family with such a spelling of the surname. They say it was made between 1918 and 1925. 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 Petrine nobles of the “8th class” Timofeev (according to Solzhenitsyn: “ from the seedy Kaluga nobles on the Resse River ”- this myth, by the way, was invented by Timofeev-Resovsky himself), on another line comes from the clergy. However, this "nobleman" and "priest" for some reason actively fought in the Red Army.

3. He received his education intermittently from 1916, first at the Moscow Free University. Shanyavsky, and then in 1917-1922. in the 1st Moscow state university However, he did not receive a university degree. Those. formally higher education didn't have.(Granin in "Zubr" : “Many then considered diplomas to be useless formalism, a relic of the past ...”). The Encyclopedia of Cyril and Methodius 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 physiognomy!). Case No. 8026 started on October 10, 1945, ended on July 8, 1946.

4. On September 13, 1945, Timofeev-Resovsky, on the proposal of Sudoplatov’s department, was detained by a task force in Berlin ( the order was issued on October 10, 1945.), transferred to Moscow and placed in the internal prison of the NKGB. From the arrested person's profile: “Timofeev-Resovsky Nikolai Vladimirovich. Growth is high. The figure is average. Shoulders are raised. The neck is short. Hair color - blond. 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 conclusion:
Excerpt from interrogation protocols:
a) From the transcript of the interrogation of Hans Born, institute assistant, member of the National Socialist Party (dated March 9, 1946)
Question:“Why didn’t Timofeev-Resovsky return to 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, but in conversations with me about the fascist system, he spoke negatively.

During interrogations, he surrendered everyone with whom he communicated, who came to him and wrote(including those already dead, N.I. Vavilov, N.K. Koltsov, G.D. Karpechenko, but also still alive 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 seeking to obtain) Timofeev-Resovsky's confessions (and corresponding testimony from witnesses) in participation in the activities of anti-Soviet white émigré organizations, changed the charge under Art. 58-1 a (treason) and 58-11 (aggravating) 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 a loss of political rights for a period of 5 years, with the confiscation of all property personally belonging to him ... However, he was only six months in Karlag (Karaganda labor camp) on general works . Then he was transferred to Moscow and sent "to further serve his sentence" in Chelyabinsk region researcher (!) (since 1948 already the head of the department of the biological laboratory), where he could, together with those who arrived from Germany "colleagues" at the Institute of the Brain 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 Government of the USSR, headed by 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 removed his criminal record.

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

7. Great scientist: The dispute between the ethnologist L.N. Gumilyov and "geneticist" N.V. Timofeev-Resovsky: “Leo 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 a Stalinist definition, repeating the well-known Stalinist thesis about nations, peoples, to which L.N. couldn't agree at all. According to the geneticist, a nation should be defined through social relations, and N.V. could not fully agree with the concept of passionarity and the natural certainty of this phenomenon. The geneticist and biologist did not give an intelligible answer to the subject of passionarity and passionarity 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, shot on February 28, 1938, at the same time in 1937 Viktor was arrested, until 1939 he was in exile ... ( all arrested by the NKVD for anti-Soviet activities).

E.A. Timofeeva (nee Fidler). 1926

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

9. Among the apologists of Timofeev-Resovsky, for some reason, mostly Jewish surnames flicker:Granin (Hermann), 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 Phone: E 6 Buch 8136.
By the leadership of the VIth International Congress of Radiologists, which will be held in Zurich and St. Moritz from July 24 to 31, I am invited to read a paper on radiation genetics. The cost of the trip, due to the high cost of living in Switzerland, 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 make this trip if the Headquarters would give me another 250-300 Reichsmarks. I ask you to allocate the above-mentioned sum of 250-300 Reichsmarks for my trip.
Heil Hitler! N. Timofeev-Resovsky»

(MPG - Archiv. I. Abt., 1A, No. 1581, Bl . 138. Original. Typescript on the form. The signature is an autograph. Translation from German by Ya.G. Rokityansky, http://www.ihst.ru/projects/sohist/document/rgn02vr.htm).

11. Eventually: Timofeev-Resovsky since 1925 worked in Germany, at the Institute of the Brain (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 genetics). In 1937, when relations between the USSR and Nazi Germany sharply aggravated, the Soviet embassy refused him another visa extension, which meant a demand 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 Nazi regime. During the war between Germany and the USSR, the department, which was headed by Timofeev-Resovsky, unequivocally 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 experiments were even carried out in the laboratories of the institute on people - they were injected with a mixture of radium isotopes into their blood, for scientific purposes, to clarify a number of medical and radiobiological issues ... There is evidence that the leadership of the institute repeatedly offered Timofeev-Resovsky to lead the program help of radiation. When approaching Soviet army Timofeev-Resovsky personally ordered the destruction of secret documents that were kept 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, have 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 war of the Third Reich against the USSR, was convicted for this in 1948 to 10 years in prison, was rehabilitated " democratic" authorities as a "victim of Stalin's political repressions".

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

Here it is: the fat-assed and proud "bison" of Soviet biological science.

Personal: Physiognomically, as a person - see his numerous photographs - he looks disgusting, on them he pretends to be a sort of master ... According to the memoirs of contemporaries in Everyday life was rude, tactless and arrogant, apparently affected by the aura of "genius and infallibility" created around him by rogues from science former USSR and biology in particular. 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 came up with and attributed to him the scientific directions allegedly created by him about “microevolution, phenogenetics and biophysics” ...

Finally, Timofeev-Resovskiy did not consider it necessary to tell 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 you work on in Berlin in 1941-1945, when Germany was at war with the USSR? Apparently, there was something to hide ...

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Nikolai Vladimirovich Timofeev-Resovsky(September 7, 1900, Moscow - March 28, 1981, Obninsk) - Russian Soviet biologist, geneticist. Main areas of research: radiation genetics, population genetics, problems of microevolution.

Origin and early years

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

Studies

• 1911-1913 - in the Kyiv I Imperial Alexander Gymnasium
• 1914-1917 - at the Moscow Flerovskaya gymnasium
• 1916-1917 - at the Moscow Free University. A. L. Shanyavsky
• 1917-1922 - at the 1st Moscow State University. Didn't get a university degree.

The beginning of an 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. Lecturer in zoology at the biotechnical faculty of the Practical Institute in Moscow.
• 1924-1925 - assistant at the Department of Zoology under 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 the work of an informal seminar organized by the group of S. S. Chetverikov at the institute of N. K. Koltsov (“Drozsoor”, or “joint yelling about Drosophila”), from which many Soviet geneticists came out.

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

As a talented and promising researcher, in 1925 he was recommended by N.K. Koltsov and N.A. Semashko to Oscar Vogt to 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. At first he 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 laureate Nobel Prize Max Delbrück Timofeev-Resovsky, developing the ideas of his teacher Koltsov, created the first biophysical model of the gene structure and proposed possible ways his changes. In the late 1930s, he took part in the seminars of the Niels Bohr group and, together with B. S. Ephrussi (supported by the Rockefeller Foundation), gathered 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 were held wherever he worked.

In the spring of 1937, the Soviet consulate refused once again to renew Timofeev-Resovsky's passports - thereby urging them to return to the USSR. However, according to Timofeev-Resovsky, N.K. Koltsov warned him that "big trouble" would most likely await them upon their return. 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 Viktor was arrested in 1937, until 1939 he was in exile. Timofeev-Resovsky refused to return to the Soviet Union and continued to live and work in Nazi Germany, for which, after the Second World War, he was convicted in the Stalinist USSR for treason as a defector.

In the mid-1930s, a theory was formulated describing the kinetic dependences of the activating and mutagenic effects. ionizing radiation- the so-called "target theory". The most important experiments, which 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 suggested 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 translated the mutation process for the first time into molecular level understanding.

Nikolai Vladimirovich is also considered one of the founders of radiobiology. He managed to establish how the radiation dose affects the intensity of the mutation process. He discovered the phenomenon of radiostimulation with small doses 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 consequences of exposure to ionizing radiation (i.e., malignant neoplasms, burns, radiation sickness), there is a serious danger of harmful mutations arising and accumulating in populations.

One of the most important constituent parts The quantitative theory of the mutational process was the study 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, which showed for the first time that the 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 have made it possible to fully understand evolutionary significance phenomena of recessiveness and dominance.

Together with M. Delbrück (later a Nobel Prize winner), Nikolai Vladimirovich Timofeev-Resovsky carried out work on modeling the structure of genes. In the same period, in collaboration with the physicist R. Rompe, he discovered and described the "amplifier principle" in biology, which has become 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 set in motion forces that are several orders of magnitude greater in terms of the energy expended.

Biologist, geneticist.

There were many famous personalities in the Timofeev-Resovsky family. Relatives, for example, accounted for the future biologist three Russian admirals at once - Senyavin, Golovnin and Nevelskoy.

The early years of Timofeev-Resovsky coincided with the revolution, with civil war. He managed to fight, almost died of typhus, was captured by the anarchists and the greens, nevertheless, either getting to the front or returning, he graduated from Moscow University in a 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, enthusiastic person, was actively involved in the logico-philosophical circle led by G. G. Shpet and N. N. Luzin, often attended performances by famous poets, art exhibitions. It seemed that he himself would soon leave for the arts, but the university teachers were stronger. However, Timofeev-Resovsky did not go to take state exams at the end of the university: diplomas at that time were not considered something mandatory.

In the same year, 1925, a knowledgeable biologist was needed for a joint German-Soviet research institute established in the town of Buch near Berlin.

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

Still, Koltsov persuaded Timofeev-Resovsky to go to Germany, which undoubtedly saved him from repression, which 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 many works on population genetics, actively engaged in phenogenetics, involved in biological research famous physicists M. Delbrück (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 understand that soon this topic could become one of the most burning ones - at the end of the thirties, experiments with the splitting of the atomic nucleus had already begun. Timofeev-Resovsky remembered the words of Koltsov, addressed to the Viennese experimental zoologist P. Kammerer: persistent species changes. After all, all these factors occur in the life of an animal, and if they have not yet caused any changes, they will not cause them in the future ... The most reliable way to solve 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, only a biologist who was well versed in physics could deduce. The consequence was that a single quantum jump leading to mutations can significantly change the properties and structure of both an individual organism and the entire population, which can lead to global events.

“This principle,” wrote the biologist B. M. Mednikov, “called by N. V. Timofeev-Resovsky the “principle of amplification,” can be demonstrated using this example. As a result of the mutation, a new strain of the influenza virus appears, against which protective systems human body. An epidemic arises, sweeping through cities and villages, countries and continents. Local doctors, like postmen, go into every apartment without having time to write out bulletins, the production of the national product falls, 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 that time. He created a scientific seminar, which from the very beginning became stellar in composition and in the ideas developed in it. The geneticist Delbrück, the cytologist Kasperson, the biologists Baur, Stubbe, Ephrussi, Darlington, the physicists Heisenberg, Jordan, Dirac, Bernal, Lee, Auger, Aston met at the seminar and discussed the news. They were all young at the time. Their heads were not always occupied only with questions of science.

“... On these bio-trap,” wrote one of the biographers of Timofeev-Resovsky, writer D. Granin, “they decided to draw isolines. Weiskopf and Gamow developed the so-called isocals, curves female beauty, like isotherms, temperature curves. Draw them on the map of Europe. Every researcher, wherever he went, had to give marks to local beauties. The task was to identify how Europe is distributed beautiful women where they are more, where they are less. The collection of information went everywhere. Rosetti sent them from Italy, Chadwick from England, Auger from France. For the most part observations were made on the streets. Counter women were given marks on a five-point system. The observer was walking with friends who helped keep the tally and maintain objectivity. The mark "four" was given to those to whom the observer drew the attention of friends; mark "five" - ​​to those to whom he not drew the attention of friends; mark "three" - to those women who paid attention to them. Data were collected, say, on a thousand women met, processed statistically and applied isocals. The maximum of beauties fell on Dalmatia, Serbia, in Italy - on Bologna, Tuscany. AT Central Europe there were no major peaks. Rosetti had a large map on which the isocals were drawn over several years of energetic observations.

In 1933, Hitler came to power in Germany.

But Timofeev-Resovsky at that time was much more worried about the news coming from Russia. He already knew that since 1929, cruel oppression of geneticists began there. Chetverikov's laboratory was destroyed, Chetverikov himself was exiled to Sverdlovsk and never returned to work with Drosophila. There were attacks on the best geneticists, many were arrested. Some, however, are lucky. Dobzhansky, for example, was able to escape from the country and went to America, where he soon became one of the most famous geneticists in the world. Koltsov, who knew how to find a language with the authorities, held out for some time, but even in the late thirties he was deprived of the opportunity to work. Scattered around the country, miraculously not falling into the camps of geneticists, they were engaged in agronomy, ornithology, botany, - anything, but not scientific work. By the way, Koltsov dissuaded him from returning to Moscow, which Timofeev-Resovsky was thinking about at that time, sending warning letters through the Swede Kühn and the physiologist Max Hartman, who had previously visited the USSR.

Perhaps Timofeev-Resovsky would still have returned to Russia, but chance played a role. Immediately after the Olympic Games held in Germany, leaving the country was practically closed. Paradoxically, even during the war years, the research institute in Bukh continued to be listed as German-Soviet, 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 pulled out by the Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, Colonel-General of the NKVD A. Zavenyagin, who knew well from specialists what such a scientist could cost. Cured, raised to his feet, Timofeev-Resovsky was sent to the Urals in a closed laboratory. Mostly Germans worked there, who also got there against their will.

“... They selected the staff of laboratories, specialists, dosimetrists, radiologists, chemists, botanists,” wrote D. Granin. – Naturally, the Bison (nickname of Timofeev-Resovsky) knew the Germans better, those with whom he had to cooperate all these years, but Russian specialists also gathered, whom they managed to find, which was not easy in that post-war period. When a young graduate of Moscow State University Liza Sokurova arrived at the facility, she was unpleasantly struck by the German speech that sounded in the laboratories, in the corridors. No wonder 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 effect of various radiations. Neither we nor the Americans had any serious experience then. Gained mind-reason empirically, looking for means of protection against radioactivity, tried; no wonder that they themselves “smeared”, “grabbed doses” - despite all the precautions, they got sick. You also need to learn to be careful. The work they were doing in Buch - the biological effect of ionizing radiation on living organisms - suddenly, after atomic explosions, became a formidable necessity.

Just during these years, genetics in the USSR was finally defeated, but this did not affect the work of Timofeev-Resovsky. In the laboratory, separated from the outside world by barbed wire, he was freely engaged in genetics officially rejected in the country, however, no one in the world or in the USSR knew if he was alive? Officially, outside the walls of the Timofeev-Resovsky laboratory did not exist. 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 him from the academic, institute scientific environment, but what happened? - wrote D. Granin. – After the VASKhNIL session, Lysenko and his supporters smash genetics, major biologists who do not want to renounce genetics, deprive laboratories, departments, and at this time the Zubr in his unknown nature reserve calmly continues genetic work on fruit flies. The very word "Drosophila" sounded like a crime in those years. Fruit flyers are almost pests, fascists - something like that, terrible, hostile to Soviet life. In Ogonyok they publish the article “Fly-lovers are misanthropes”. Drosophila was, as it were, outlawed. The anti-Lysenkoites were portrayed in Ku Klux Klan robes. If the Bison had returned to Moscow in those years, then, due to the irrepressible ardor of his character, he would, of course, have got involved in the struggle, 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 for his existence. Luck also consisted in the fact that he had to deal with the most burning, most urgent problem for many years. All over the world, work with radioactive substances has begun. Created an atomic bomb, nuclear reactors, nuclear power plants. Protection of the environment, protection of living organisms, protection of man - all this confronted science for the first time. It was necessary to ensure the safety of work, safe technology. Young nuclear technology and industry posed many problems. Even physicists did not really imagine the necessary protective measures when using radioactive substances. An elderly woman worked for E. N. Sokurova as a preparator. Before letting the radioactive cups be washed, Elizaveta Nikolaevna instructed her in detail: put on double gloves, then wash them, check them on the counter, and so on. Looks once, and she washes the cups with her bare hands. “What are you doing?” - “And I,” she answers, “already washed like that, without gloves, and nothing happened to me, so you’re screaming in vain ...”

No one knew if Timofeev-Resovsky was alive, but in the West they continued to refer to his pre-war works. Physicist E. Schrodinger in the famous book “What is life. From the point of view of physics" wrote:

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

Nowadays, there are many opportunities for a person to be exposed to x-rays. The danger of their action is well known to all. 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 with the successful reflection of this inevitable danger that threatens the individual, there is an indirect danger of causing small detrimental mutations in germ cells, mutations such 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 marriage between cousin and sister 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 a gradual infection of the human race with unwanted latent 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 of 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, cautious, although decisive in his conclusions. But outside the laboratory, he gives his nature unlimited scope. Accustomed to thinking broadly, he knows no leniency towards those scientists who suffer from the fear of "space". At the same time, he likes to repeat the saying of one mathematician he respects very much: “There are people whose horizon radius is equal to zero, and they call this their point of view.” Indeed, a brilliant mathematical definition of human limitations, invariant, as physicists say, that is, suitable for all frames of reference, or as non-physicists say, is true from all points of view. If we try to characterize mathematically the norm of Nikolai Vladimirovich's reaction, we can say that his assessments, being expressed aloud, sometimes look raised to a power. However, if you extract the root from them, the number still turns out to be an integer and only with a plus sign. So, Nikolai Vladimirovich says that there are no theories in science at all. There are ideas. And already depending on literary ability the author, who wraps the idea in the form of a theory, and history decides the question: who created the theory. And if Darwin was lucky in the eyes of humanity as a “theorist”, it was only because the brilliant idea of ​​the existence natural selection he formalized it 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 the evolution of individual species of 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. In addition, formally, Timofeev-Resovsky was a nobody: he had no academic degree.

An attempt was made to change this situation, but to no avail. The candidacy of Timofeev-Resovsky - "an accomplice of the Nazis" - was not even allowed before 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 Geneticists and Breeders named after. N. I. Vavilov, in 1969 - a member of the Academy "Leopoldina" (GDR), in 1973 - a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences of the USA. In the GDR, Timofeev-Resovsky's contribution to science was awarded the Darwin Medal, in the USA - the Kimber Prize in Genetics and the Gold Medal "For Outstanding Scientific Contribution to Genetics". Finally, in Czechoslovakia, the work of Timofeev-Resovsky was awarded the Mendel 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 Biomedical Problems of the USSR Ministry of Health. It was not an official sinecure - at his own peril and risk, academician O. G. Gazenko invited the scientist.

The main works of Timofeev-Resovsky are devoted to the problems of genetics, radiobiology, biogeocenology, and evolutionary theory. He is one of the founders of quantitative radiation genetics and the author of capital studies on the genetic action of radiation. Together with the physicist M. Delbrück, Timofeev-Resovsky created the first biophysical model of the gene structure and proposed possible ways to change it. studying initial stages intraspecific differentiation, formulated and developed the doctrine of microevolution.

The scientist died in 1981.

He never tired of repeating to his students: "You are equal to the one 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-Ressovsky, and he always understood them (just like they did him).