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Timiryazev Kliment Arkadevich
T Imiryazev (Kliment Arkadyevich) - professor at Moscow University, was born in St. Petersburg in 1843. He received his primary education at home. In 1861 he entered St. Petersburg University at the cameral department, then transferred to the physics and mathematics department, the course of which he graduated in 1866 with a candidate's degree and was awarded a gold medal for the essay “On Liver Mosses” (not published). In 1868, his first scientific work, “A Device for Studying the Decomposition of Carbon Dioxide,” appeared in print, and in the same year Timiryazev was sent abroad to prepare for a professorship. He worked for Hofmeister, Bunsen, Kirchhoff, Berthelot and listened to lectures by Helmholtz, Claude Bernard and others. Returning to Russia, Timiryazev defended his master's thesis ("Spectral analysis of chlorophyll", 1871) and was appointed professor at the Petrovsky Agricultural Academy in Moscow. Here he lectured in all departments of botany until he was left on staff due to the closure of the academy (in 1892). In 1875 Timiryazev became a Doctor of Botany for his essay “On the Assimilation of Light by Plants,” and in 1877 he was invited to Moscow University to the Department of Anatomy and Physiology of Plants, which he continues to occupy to this day. He also gave lectures at women's “collective courses” in Moscow. In addition, Timiryazev is the chairman of the botanical department of the Society of Natural History Lovers at Moscow University. Timiryazev's scientific works, distinguished by their unity of plan, strict consistency, accuracy of methods and elegance of experimental technology, are devoted to the question of the decomposition of atmospheric carbon dioxide by green plants under the influence of solar energy and contributed greatly to the understanding of this most important and interesting chapter of plant physiology. The study of the composition and optical properties of the green pigment of plants (chlorophyll), its genesis, the physical and chemical conditions for the decomposition of carbon dioxide, the determination of the components of the solar ray that take part in this phenomenon, the clarification of the fate of these rays in the plant and, finally, the study of the quantitative relationship between the absorbed energy and the work produced - these are the tasks outlined in Timiryazev’s first works and largely resolved in his subsequent works. To this it should be added that Timiryazev was the first to introduce experiments with plant cultivation in artificial soils in Russia. The first greenhouse for this purpose was built by him at the Petrovsky Academy back in the early 70s, i.e., soon after the appearance of this type of device in Germany. Later, he built the same greenhouse at the Petrovsky Academy back in the early 70s, i.e., shortly after the appearance of this type of device in Germany. Later, the same greenhouse was set up by Timiryazev at the All-Russian exhibition in Nizhny Novgorod. Timiryazev's outstanding scientific achievements earned him the title of corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences, honorary member of Kharkov and St. Petersburg universities, the free economic society and many other scientific societies and institutions. Timiryazev is widely known among educated Russian society as a popularizer of natural science. His popular scientific lectures and articles, included in the collections "Public Lectures and Speeches" (Moscow, 1888), "Some Basic Problems of Modern Natural Science" (Moscow, 1895), "Agriculture and Plant Physiology" (Moscow, 1893), "Charles Darwin and his teaching" (4th ed., Moscow, 1898) are a happy combination of strict scientificity, clarity of presentation, and brilliant style. His “Life of a Plant” (5th ed., Moscow, 1898; translated into foreign languages) is an example of a publicly accessible course in plant physiology. In his popular scientific works, Timiryazev is a staunch and consistent supporter of the mechanical view of the nature of physiological phenomena and an ardent defender and popularizer of Darwinism. A list of 27 scientific works by Timiryazev that appeared before 1884 is included in the appendix to his speech “L” etat actuel de nos connaissances sur la fonction chlorophyllienne” (“Bulletin du Congres internation. de Botanique a St. Petersburg”, 1884). After 1884, the following appeared: "L"effet chimique et l"effet physiologique de la lumiere sur la chlorophylle" ("Comptes Rendus", 1885), "Chemische und physiologische Wirkung des Lichtes auf das Chlorophyll" ("Chemisch. Centralblatt", 1885, No. 17), "La protophylline dans les plantes etiolees" ("Compt. Rendus", 1889), "Enregistrement photographique de la fonction chlorophyllienne par la plante vivante" ("Compt. Rendus", CX, 1890), "Photochemical the action of the extreme rays of the visible spectrum" ("Proceedings of the Department of Physical Sciences of the Society of Lovers of Natural History", vol. V, 1893), "La protophylline naturelle et la protophylline artificielle" ("Comptes R.", 1895), etc. In addition, Timiryazev owns study of gas exchange in the root nodules of leguminous plants (Proceedings of the St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists, vol. XXIII). Under the editorship of Timiryazev, the Collected Works of Charles Darwin and other books were published in Russian translation.
Other interesting biographies.
Timiryazev Kliment Arkadyevich - scientist, Darwinian naturalist, one of the founders of the Russian school of plant physiology (discovered the phenomenon of light saturation - photosynthesis.
Timiryazev Kliment Arkadyevich was born on May 22 (June 3), 1843 in St. Petersburg. He received his primary education at home. In 1861 he entered St. Petersburg University at the cameral department, then transferred to the physics and mathematics department, the course of which he graduated in 1866 with a candidate's degree. In 1868 Timiryazev K.A. was sent by St. Petersburg University to prepare for professorship for two years abroad (Germany, France), where he worked in the laboratories of prominent scientists. Upon returning home in 1871, Timiryazev K. A. successfully defended his thesis “Spectral analysis of chlorophyll” for a master’s degree and became a professor at the Petrovsky Agricultural and Forestry Academy in Moscow (currently it is called the Moscow Agricultural Academy named after K. A. Timiryazev) . In 1875, after defending his doctoral dissertation (“On the absorption of light by plants”), he became an ordinary professor. In 1877, Timiryazev was invited to Moscow University to the department of anatomy and physiology of plants. He also gave lectures at women's “collective courses” in Moscow. In addition, Timiryazev was the chairman of the botanical department of the Society of Natural History Lovers at Moscow University. In 1911 he left the university in protest against the actions of the reactionary Minister of Education Casso. In 1917, after the Great October Socialist Revolution, Timiryazev was reinstated as a professor at Moscow University, but due to illness he could not work at the department. For the last 10 years of his life he was also engaged in literary and journalistic activities.
Timiryazev's main research on plant physiology is devoted to the study of the process of photosynthesis, for which he developed special techniques and equipment. Timiryazev found that the assimilation of carbon by plants from carbon dioxide in the air occurs due to the energy of sunlight, mainly in red and blue rays, which are most completely absorbed by chlorophyll. Timiryazev was the first to express the opinion that chlorophyll is not only physically but also chemically involved in the process of photosynthesis, thereby anticipating modern ideas. He proved that the intensity of photosynthesis is proportional to the absorbed energy at relatively low light intensities, but when they increase, it gradually reaches stable values and does not change further, that is, he discovered the phenomena of light saturation of photosynthesis.
For the first time in Russia, Timiryazev introduced experiments with plants on artificial soils, for which in 1872 at the Petrovsky Academy he built a growing house for cultivating plants in vessels (the first scientifically equipped greenhouse), literally immediately after the appearance of similar structures in Germany. A little later, Timiryazev installed a similar greenhouse in Nizhny Novgorod at the All-Russian Exhibition.
Timiryazev is one of the first propagandists of Darwinism in Russia. He considered Darwin's evolutionary doctrine as the greatest achievement of science of the 19th century, establishing a materialistic worldview in biology. Timiryazev repeatedly emphasized that modern forms of organisms are the result of long-term adaptive evolution.
Thanks to his outstanding scientific achievements in the field of botany, Timiryazev was awarded a number of resonant titles: corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences since 1890, honorary member of Kharkov University, honorary member of St. Petersburg University, honorary member of the Free Economic Society, as well as many other scientific communities and organizations . Timiryazev K. A. is known all over the world. For his services in the field of science, he was elected a member of the Royal Society of London, the Edinburgh and Manchester Botanical Societies, as well as an honorary doctor of a number of European universities - in Cambridge, Glasgow, Geneva.
TIMIRYAZEV Kliment Arkadevich (1843-1920). It was the end of June 1909. The streets of Cambridge, the ancient university city, were filled with festive excitement. Famous biologists came here from all parts of the world to take part in the celebrations on the occasion of Charles's centenary. Among those gathered was a sixty-six-year-old professor at Moscow University, Kliment Arkadyevich Timiryazev.
Scientists from many countries knew well this thin man with a high forehead and a sharp beard. His works on natural science enjoyed worldwide fame, and his famous book “The Life of a Plant” was read with enthusiasm not only in Russia, but also abroad. Timiryazev was especially revered by the British. He has long been known as one of the most ardent defenders and propagandists of the teachings of Darwin, their great compatriot. Even after his death, Darwin still had many opponents. They, as before, tried to prove that all life on Earth remains unchanged, the way God created it. It was necessary, like Timiryazev, to have perseverance and courage to fight them: after all, behind them stood the CHURCH and everyone who was afraid of the truth in science.
Even in his youth, Timiryazev became interested in the influence of sunlight on plants. He came to the idea that plants not only absorb Light, but also serve as solar storehouses. He understood: when it hits the earth, the energy of the sun does not disappear. It is deposited in plants, helping to produce substances necessary for life from carbon dioxide and water. Together with plant foods, the energy of the sun enters the body of animals and humans, maintaining its strength. Without plants there would be no life on Earth.
At the age of 28, Timiryazev became a professor at the Petrovsky Agricultural Academy, and then at Moscow University. The students immediately fell in love with the young professor. Slender, graceful, with a noble bearing, Timiryazev conquered listeners with his appearance alone. He spoke quietly, but with such fervor and enthusiasm, he presented the material so vividly that it was impossible not to get carried away.
Timiryazev was loved not only for this. When one day, arriving at the academy, he learned that three of his students had been arrested by the police, he immediately demanded a meeting with those arrested and then boldly and passionately defended them at a meeting of the academic council.
Since childhood, Timiryazev hated arbitrariness and violence. He remembered his father’s stories about the bloody massacre, and saw how the remarkable freedom fighter Chernyshevsky was taken to hard labor. Finally, he himself was expelled from the university for participating in a student strike. It got to the point that the police opened a special case against Professor Timiryazev, and his house was under surveillance.
The authorities tried their best to get rid of the seditious professor. First, he was fired from the Petrovsky Academy, and ten years later he was suspended from lecturing at Moscow University. But nothing could break the revolutionary scientist. He believed that soon the royal tyranny would end. And when the October Revolution occurred in 1917, Timiryazev, without hesitation, sided with the Bolsheviks. Timiryazev believed that he had to give all his experience and knowledge to the victorious people, and was ready for anything. Therefore, he was proud when he learned that the revolutionary workers had elected him as their deputy to the Moscow Soviet! He dreamed of serving the revolution, because the revolution brought light and reason to humanity. And it was worth fighting for. It was not for nothing that when Timiryazev died, the words were carved on his monument: “...a fighter and a thinker.”
Kliment Arkadyevich Timiryazev (1843-1920)
Among Russian scientists there are few who would be as popular and revered among the people as Kliment Arkadyevich Timiryazev, who immortalized his name with classical studies of the process of photosynthesis, with which the existence of the entire animal world is associated.
In Moscow, a monument to K. A. Timiryazev was erected in the immediate vicinity of the monument to the greatest poet A. S. Pushkin. The country's scientific, educational and educational institutions bear his name: the oldest Agricultural Academy, the former Petrovskaya Academy, in Moscow; a number of Houses of Education in cities and villages. The image of K. A. Timiryazev inspired the famous writer V. G. Korolenko, who in the 80s brought him under the name of Professor Izborsky in the story “On Both Sides.” K. A. Timiryazev is portrayed by Professor Polezhaev in the modern feature film "Baltic Deputy".
K. A. Timiryazev is a scientist who has left an exceptionally deep mark on science and has earned the eternal grateful memory of the most diverse layers of the Russian people.
Kliment Arkadyevich Timiryazev was born in St. Petersburg on June 3, 1843. His father, Arkady Semyonovich Timiryazev, came from an old serving noble family, but was a republican with pronounced revolutionary sentiments. He was proud of the fact that he was born in the year when the French Revolution began, and he loved Robespierre. When he was once asked what career he was preparing for his sons, he replied: “What career? But this is what: I’ll sew five blue blouses, like the French workers, buy five guns and let’s go with the others to the Winter Palace.”
The free-thinking of A. S. Timiryazev also extended to issues of religion. With admiration, Kliment Arkadyevich recalled that when Arkady Semyonovich read the book “Charles Darwin and His Teachings” written in 1865 by Timiryazev’s son, he said: “Very good, very interesting, but why do you keep writing about different pigeons and not a word about a person?” . You are afraid that Moses, in his book of Genesis, forbade you to speak about this." Darwin's book The Descent of Man was published six years later.
His mother Adelaida Klimentyevna also had a significant influence on the upbringing of K. A. Timiryazev. Thanks to her, already in childhood he knew several European languages and studied fiction well. This developed in him a taste for artistic expression and subsequently provided an inexhaustible supply for successful images and apt comparisons, which abound in his speeches and articles.
Keeping a warm feeling of gratitude and love for his parents, K. A. Timiryazev, already in his declining years, dedicated his book “Science and Democracy” to them. In this dedication, he wrote: “...you instilled in me, by word and example, boundless love for truth and seething hatred of any, especially social, untruth.”
Even as a child, K. A. Timiryazev loved to observe natural phenomena. He considered his brother, who set up a small chemical laboratory at home, to be his first natural science teacher. K. A. Timiryazev prepared to enter the university at home and therefore did not experience the oppressive regime of the old classical gymnasium. However, even before K. A. Timiryazev entered the university, his father, as “politically unreliable,” was forced to leave the service, and a large family of 8 people had to live on a paltry pension. Therefore, from the age of fifteen, Kliment Arkadyevich had to earn his living by translating foreign writers, and, according to him, more than one linear fathom of volumes passed through his hands.
Much later, addressing students of the first working faculty, he wrote: “The path of acquiring scientific knowledge for a working person is a difficult path; I say this on the basis of a lifetime of hard experience. Since the age of fifteen, my left hand has not spent a single penny that it had not earned.” right. Earning a livelihood, as always happens under such conditions, was in the foreground, and doing science was a matter of passion, in leisure hours, free from activities caused by need. But I could console myself with the thought that I was doing this at my own risk, "And I'm not sitting on the backs of dark, toilers, like the children of landowners and merchants' sons. Only over time, science itself, which I took in battle, became for me a source of satisfying not only the mental, but also the material needs of life - first my own, and then my family." .
In 1861, eighteen-year-old K. A. Timiryazev entered St. Petersburg University at the cameral department, from which he soon switched to natural sciences. This year, major student unrest broke out at the university. K. A. Timiryazev took an active part in them and was expelled from the university. He switched to the position of a volunteer. This did not deprive him of the opportunity to listen to lectures, work in laboratories, and even participate in a competition for a gold medal, which he received for his first scientific work, “On the structure of liver mosses.”
Of the professors, he remembers with gratitude the botanist-systematist A. N. Beketov and the brilliant chemist D. I. Mendeleev. After graduating from the university, K. A. Timiryazev chose plant physiology as his specialty. Apparently, this happened under the influence of participation in field studies of the effect of mineral fertilizers on crop yields in the Simbirsk province (now the Ulyanovsk region), organized and led by D. I. Mendeleev. K. A. Timiryazev, participating in this work, carried out his first experiments on aerial nutrition of plants, which he reported on at the First Congress of Naturalists in St. Petersburg in 1868. In this report, he already then gave a broad plan for the study of photosynthesis (air nutrition of plants), on which work is largely underway at the present time.
In the same 1868, K. A. Timiryazev, at the suggestion of Professor Beketov, received a business trip abroad, where he worked first in Heidelberg with Kirchhoff and Bunsen, and then in Paris with the founder of scientific agronomy, Boussingault, and the famous chemist Berthelot. The Franco-Prussian War that broke out in 1870 interrupted his work, and he returned to Russia.
In the spring of 1871, K. A. Timiryazev defended his magical dissertation “Spectral Analysis of Chlorophyll” at St. Petersburg University and took the department of botany at the Petrovsko-Razumovskaya (now Timiryazevskaya) Agricultural Academy in Moscow. In 1877, he was elected by Moscow University to the department of anatomy and physiology of plants. K. A. Timiryazev enjoyed enormous popularity among students. “Timiryazev,” recalls his student writer Korolenko, had special sympathetic threads that connected him with his students, although very often his conversations outside the lecture turned into disputes on subjects outside his specialty. We felt that the questions that interested us also interested him. Moreover, in his nervous speech one could hear a true, ardent faith. It related to science and culture, which he defended against the wave of “forgiveness” that swept us, and in this faith there was a lot of sublime sincerity. Young people appreciated this. The tsarist government knew the influence of K.A. Timiryazev on the students and, not without reason, considered this influence harmful to himself.
In 1892, the Petrovsko-Razumovskaya Agricultural Academy, as a “troublesome” educational institution, was closed and all staff were fired. When it was reopened some time later, K. A. Timiryazev was not among those professors who were invited to occupy the chair.
In 1911, he was forced to leave Moscow University along with 125 professors and associate professors in protest against the dismissal of the rector and two assistants by the reactionary Minister Casso, who fought against the arbitrariness of the police within the walls of the university.
He left the university as a sick old man. Two years earlier, he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, which left his left arm and leg paralyzed, so that he could not move without assistance. But his mental performance was fully preserved, and he did not stop his scientific and journalistic activities.
Since the beginning of the 1914 war, K. A. Timiryazev was the first among scientists to speak out against chauvinistic sentiments in M. Gorky’s internationalist journal “Chronicle”. He met the February Revolution with tears of joy in his eyes, but soon experienced deep disappointment in the Provisional Government, which continued the war and suppressed the revolution. In the fall of 1917, K. A. Timiryazev wrote to M. Gorky: “Again and again I repeat the words of Nekrasov: “there were worse times, but there were no meaner ones.”
With great joy he welcomed the Great October Socialist Revolution, which put power in the hands of the workers and peasants. The 2 1/2 years he lived under Soviet power were years of exceptional growth in his life. Despite his illness, he took an active part in the work of the Moscow Council as its deputy.
On April 20, 1920, returning home after a meeting, K. A. Timiryazev caught a cold and died of pneumonia on the night of April 28 of this year.
K. A. Timiryazev, as a scientist, represents a rare type of researcher who has worked experimentally all his life to solve one problem. But the significance of this problem - the problem of air nutrition of plants, or photosynthesis - goes far beyond the physiology of plants, since the existence of not only plants, but also the entire animal world is associated with this process. Moreover, in photosynthesis, the plant takes and assimilates not only the substance, namely carbon dioxide from the air, but also the energy of the sun's rays. This gave K. A. Timiryazev the right to talk about the cosmic role of the plant as a transmitter of solar energy to our planet.
What did K. A. Timiryazev do to solve this enormous problem of general biological significance?
He answered this question himself, summing up his research in his last dying article: “The main content of my half-century scientific activity was a comprehensive experimental response to the requests presented to science by two thinkers - Helmholtz and Robert Mayer - the founders of the law of conservation of energy. The main incentive that guided them in their desire to substantiate this law, by their own admission, it was to put an end to the contemporary teaching “about vital force”, which, according to Mayer, blocks the path to further research and makes it impossible to apply the laws of exact science to the study of life.”
In order to substantiate the law of conservation of energy as applied to organisms, Mayer considered it necessary to experimentally resolve the question “whether the light that falls on a living plant really receives a different consumption than the light that falls on dead bodies.” Helmholtz also came to this question, who considered it necessary to show experimentally “whether the living force of the sun’s rays disappearing when they are absorbed by a leaf corresponds to the accumulating reserve of chemical forces of the plant.” “To carry out this experiment,” says K. A. Timiryazev, “to transform the brilliant thought of two great scientists into an undoubted truth, to prove the solar source of life - such was the task that I set from the very first steps of scientific activity and persistently and comprehensively carried out for half a century ".
At the end of the 60s of the 19th century, when K. A. Timiryazev began to solve this problem, plant physiology associated the decomposition of carbon dioxide not with the energy of the beam, but with its brightness for our eyes. Proof of this connection was the classical experiments of Dreper, who believed that the plant most strongly decomposes carbon dioxide in the yellow rays that are brightest to the eye, and German physiologists confirmed this. K. A. Timiryazev, based on the fact that the decomposition reaction of carbon dioxide requires a large expenditure of energy, looked for a connection between this process not with brightness, but with the energy of the rays absorbed by the leaf. From this point of view, the most severe decomposition should be expected in red rays, which have more energy and are better absorbed by chlorophyll than yellow rays. Having repeated Draper's experiments with all care, he proved that this author obtained the maximum decomposition of carbon dioxide in yellow rays due to the fact that the spectrum in his experiments was not pure enough. With the wide slit of the spectroscope that he used, a significant amount of red rays are always mixed into the yellow part of the spectrum. In pure, monochromatic (one-color) spectral rays, decomposition occurs most strongly in that part of the red rays, which is especially strongly absorbed by chlorophyll. On the contrary, the weakest decomposition of carbon dioxide occurs in the green and extreme red rays, which are almost not absorbed by chlorophyll. Thus, the connection between photosynthesis and chlorophyll and the energy of the rays absorbed by it was proven.
It should be said that the implementation of these experiments presented enormous difficulties. To obtain a pure spectrum, it was necessary to pass the beam through a very narrow slit of the spectroscope, and therefore weaken the beams so much that in order to detect the decomposition of carbon dioxide in them, it was necessary to develop a special method of gas analysis, which made it possible to analyze small quantities of gas with an accuracy of a thousandth of a cubic centimeter.
Even now, the implementation of these classical experiments in the pure spectrum presents such experimental difficulties that so far they have not been repeated by anyone and remain the only ones so far. At the same time, they were carried out so thoroughly, and the confidence in the connection between the decomposition of carbon dioxide and the energy of the ray is so great that K. A. Timiryazev, having obtained the maximum of photosynthesis in red rays, was convinced that red rays not only carry more energy than the rays are yellow, but that they contain the maximum energy of the entire solar spectrum, which physicists of that time placed in infrared rays. Indeed, several years later, the research of the physicist Langley confirmed the instructions of K. A. Timiryazev. Langley found the maximum energy of the midday sun in the red rays, precisely in that part of them that is most strongly absorbed by chlorophyll. True, subsequent measurements by astrophysicist Abbott moved this maximum to yellow-green rays, but this did not shake K. A. Timiryazev’s statements. The new quantum theory of light has convincingly proven that the most favorable energy conditions for the decomposition of carbon dioxide were in red rather than yellow-green rays.
Not content with experiments in the spectrum, where sections of leaves were in tubes with a high concentration of carbon dioxide, K. A. Timiryazev also conducted experiments with a natural, low carbon dioxide content. To do this, he cast a spectrum onto a leaf, marking the places where chlorophyll was absorbed. After prolonged exposure to the sun, he exposed the starch in the leaf with iodine and obtained blackening just in the absorption band of chlorophyll in red rays. This experiment especially clearly showed that the decomposition of carbon dioxide actually occurs predominantly in the red rays of the solar spectrum, which are most absorbed by chlorophyll and at the same time, in terms of their energy, most suitable for this reaction. Thus, chlorophyll turned out to be not only an energy absorber, but also the most perfect absorber, which, according to Darwin's theory, should have been formed in the evolution of plants through selection.
K. A. Timiryazev came to this result on the basis, on the one hand, of the physical law of conservation of energy, on the other, of Darwin’s biological teachings.
In order to fully appreciate the connection he found between chlorophyll and photosynthesis, it should be noted that at that time the meaning of the green color of plants was completely unclear. It was believed that the color of chlorophyll was purely an accident and had no significance. K. And Timiryazev was the first to prove that the green color of chlorophyll is specially adapted to absorb solar energy necessary for the decomposition of carbon dioxide.
Having proved the participation of chlorophyll in photosynthesis, K. A. Timiryazev went further. If he did not explain, he pointed the way to an explanation of how solar energy absorbed by chlorophyll participates in the decomposition of carbon dioxide. He showed that this pigment can be considered a sensitizer (sensitizer), similar to photographic sensitizers. Just as colorless silver salts, which do not absorb yellow and red rays, are decomposed by these rays in the presence of yellow and red pigments, so colorless carbon dioxide can be decomposed by light only where the plasma is colored by chlorophyll, i.e. in chloroplasts. In explaining the mechanism of sensitizers lies the explanation of the action of chlorophyll.
Further works of K. A. Timiryazev were devoted to the development of his doctrine of chlorophyll as an energy absorber for photosynthesis and the study of the properties and formation of this pigment. Usually these were short messages, distinguished by the originality of the questions, wit and elegance of their solutions. Kliment Arkadyevich gave a summary of all his works over 35 years in a brilliant Crunian lecture ( The Cronian lectures, named after Cron, are organized with funds bequeathed by him to the Royal Society of London almost 2 centuries ago.), entitled "The Cosmic Role of Plants". K. A. Timiryazev gave this lecture at the invitation of the Royal Society of London.
The scientific activity of K. A. Timiryazev was highly appreciated abroad. In addition to the Royal Society of London, the universities of Cambridge, Glasgow and Geneva elected him as an honorary member. However, German scientists, with whom he waged fierce polemics, suppressed his work.
K. A. Timiryazev did not limit himself to research work. He was at the same time a popular writer who widely disseminated the achievements of biological science, and a writer-publicist who passionately defended the ideas of materialism and the democratization of science.
K. A. Timiryazev showed a penchant for this type of activity very early, while still at the university. As a student, he published journalistic articles “Garibaldi on Caprera” and “Famine in Landcashire” in the progressive journal Otechestvennye Zapiski, where he outlined Darwin’s newly emerging theory and, moreover, expounded it so masterfully that to this day this exposition remains the best popular presentation of the doctrine Darwin.
“From the very first steps of my mental activity,” says K. A. Timiryazev, “I set myself two parallel tasks - to work for science and to write for the people, that is, popularly.” From these words it is clear that he put the popularization of science among the people on a par with scientific activity. In his understanding, science is impossible without popularization. “The state of science is hopeless,” he says, “when it is located in the midst of a boundless desert of general indifference. Only by making the entire society a participant in its interests, calling on it to share its joys and sorrows, does science acquire an ally in it, a reliable support for further development.” He saw popularization as “one of the most powerful weapons in the fight against the harmful consequences of the extreme division of labor and savagery in the midst of a flourishing civilization.” In addition, popularization, in his opinion, implements the idea of democratization of science, which K. A. Timiryazev brought out from the spring of his life - the era of the 60s. “Science has no right,” he said, “to enter its sanctuary and hide from the crowd, demanding that its usefulness be taken at its word. Representatives of science, if they want it to enjoy the support and sympathy of society, must not forget that they are servants this society, that they must from time to time appear before it, as before a trustee to whom they owe an account.”
In accordance with such a high understanding of popularization, K. A. Timiryazev devoted so much creative energy and talent to it that what he did in this regard does not at all compare with ordinary popularization and really stands on the same level with scientific activity.
Thanks to his artistic, imaginative presentation, alien to any vulgarization, such popular books of his as “The Life of Plants”, “Charles Darwin and His Teachings”, “Historical Method in Biology” and others are reprinted and are still read with exciting interest. Even translated into English, “The Life of Plants,” 30 years after its appearance, turned out, according to the English critic, “a whole head and shoulders above its companions.” The reason for such long-term success lies not only in the exceptional quality of the presentation. K. A. Timiryazev in his popular articles acts as a thinker who critically analyzes what is being reported. Successful comparisons and original thoughts, passionate defense of what he considered right, and no less passionate destructive criticism of everything he considered wrong, give his work exceptional interest. In particular, in his articles in defense of Darwin, he gave extremely much for the development, strengthening and critical illumination of the doctrine of selection, variability and heredity. How relevant everything that he wrote on these issues still is is proven by constant references to K. A. Timiryazev in modern debates about variability and heredity.
K. A. Timiryazev acts as one of the largest theorists and creative successors of Darwin's work. In this regard, his book “Historical Method in Biology” is one of the classic works in the field of the study of life, which, however, differs sharply from other similar books in its pronounced materialistic and philosophical understanding of issues of the biological sciences. He devotes all his creative mind and exceptional erudition to the further development of the doctrine of the causes and patterns of development of the organic world. First of all, he specifically identifies and methodologically substantiates the unity of living and nonliving things, and after that affirms the unity of the forces of movement and development in both kingdoms of nature. Hence his passionate struggle against vitalism as a “reaction in science.”
A brilliant achievement of theoretical biology is K. A. Timiryazev’s interpretation of the basic concept in biology, the concept of species. In this interpretation, he overthrows the old metaphysical idea of species. “Species as a category, strictly defined, always equal and unchangeable, does not exist in nature: to assert the opposite would mean, indeed, to repeat the old mistake of the scholastic “realists”.” At the same time, K. A. Timiryazev believes “that species - at the moment we observe - have a real existence, and this is a fact awaiting explanation,” which K. A. Timiryazev finds in Darwin’s concept of species.
As a logical consequence of the problem of species, K. A. Timiryazev approaches the solution of the main problems of the doctrine of self-development of the organic world - the problem of organic expediency, as well as the analysis of the forms and nature of the action of natural selection. In this matter, he relies not only on descriptive works, but also on data from the first experimental works confirming the creative role of selection (and in particular, on the extremely valuable work of the Russian botanist Zinger), as well as on data from agricultural practices. At the same time, he deeply solves the problem of the relationship between heredity and variability, the problem of divergence (divergence) of species and a number of other basic issues of life science.
And everywhere he considers it his civic duty to fight reaction in the form of various anti-Darwinian - anti-scientific tendencies and currents. In this he saw “the urgent task of modern natural science” - this is how he called his collection of militant articles directed against obscurantism in science.
K. A. Timiryazev did not limit himself to defending only the biological side of Darwin’s teachings; he defended it as the basis of a modern materialistic worldview, eliminating everything supernatural, which before Darwin permeated the explanation of the adaptation of living organisms to their environment. Thus, in his articles he speaks out against vitalism as an idealistic, reactionary doctrine, against vitalists in Russia (Korzhinsky, Borodin) and abroad (Driesch, Reinke, Bergson, Lodge, etc.).
K. A. Timiryazev was one of the largest historiographers of life science. He is the author of a number of beautiful and outstanding works. These are “The main features of the history of the development of biology in the 19th century” (1908), “The Awakening of Natural Science in the Third Quarter of the Century” (1907), “Science. An Essay on the Development of Natural Sciences over 3 Centuries (1620-1920)” (1920), “The Major Advances of Botany at the beginning of the 20th century" (1920), "Development of natural science in Russia in the era of the 60s" (1908), not counting a large number of small characteristic articles devoted to a number of individual major scientists (Pasteur, Berthelot, Stoletov, Lebedev, Boussingault , Burbank and many others).
K. A. Timiryazev definitely had a negative attitude towards those scientists who neglect knowledge of the history of their science. He primarily applied the “historical method” to the development of sciences, and primarily biological ones. He gave a causal periodization of the development of these sciences in a certain sequence. “The first in turn was a relatively simple question - a morphological one, resolved without connection with other disciplines of knowledge, using the comparative method that is characteristic of biology and has achieved the most brilliant development in it. Later, the physiological question appeared, and even later - the historical one. Therefore, the broadest characteristic feature The success of biology in the past century is, on the one hand, the subordination of its tasks to the strict determinism of the experimental method, borrowed from the science of the physical cycle and eliminating forever the useless and harmful hypothesis of a willful vital force, and on the other hand, the extension of the historical method to it, instead of idle teleological guesses ", seeking an explanation not only in the experimentally studied present of these phenomena, but also in their entire long past."
As a true citizen scientist, K. A. Timiryazev harmoniously combined the unity of theory and practice in his work.
In articles under the general title "Agriculture and Plant Physiology" he showed an example of the connection between theoretical science and practice. In them, he promoted certain agronomic measures, based on the idea that “agriculture became what it is only thanks to agronomic chemistry and plant physiology.” In the article “The Origin of Plant Nitrogen,” he warmly supports the first steps of Moscow agronomists to introduce clover into crop rotation, promotes the use of mineral fertilizers, artificial irrigation and deep plowing in the fight against drought, etc.
In the 1900s, he also spoke out on issues of academic life, castigating individual manifestations of careerism, violations of the dignity of science and the decline in its level. With the onset of the 1914 war, he began to fight the chauvinistic sentiments that had penetrated the academic environment around him, and with the advent of Soviet power, he devoted all his brilliant journalistic talent to criticizing the bourgeoisie, to strengthening the new government, in which he saw the guarantee of realizing his aspirations for future domination science and democracy. The collection of these articles entitled “Science and Democracy” was highly appreciated by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, who wrote in a letter on April 27, 1920: “Thank you very much for your book and kind words. I was absolutely delighted when reading your remarks against the bourgeoisie and for Soviet power."
Brilliant and fascinating in form, the popularization and journalistic articles of K. A. Timiryazev have still retained their relevance. This part of his heritage deserves special dissemination, being an excellent weapon in the fight against the enemies of science, democracy and peace among nations.
“Only science and democracy,” he says, “are by their very essence hostile to war, for both science and work equally need a calm environment. Science based on democracy and democracy strong in science is what will bring peace with it.” peoples."
The most important works of K. A. Timiryazev: Works (10 volumes), M., 1937-1940. Separate editions of the most important popular works: Charles Darwin and his teaching, M., 1940; Plant life, M., 1940; Historical method in biology, M.-L., 1943; Agriculture and plant physiology, M.-L., 1941; Science and Democracy, M., 1920, L., 1926).
About K. A. Timiryazev: Kliment Arkadyevich Timiryazev (Collection), ed. Moscow Order of Lenin S.-kh. Academy named after K. A. Timiryazeva, M., 1940; Great scientist, fighter and thinker (on the centenary of his birth), ed. Academy of Sciences of the USSR, M.-L., 1943; Vasetsky G. S. Socio-political and philosophical views of K. A. Timiryazev; Korchagin A. I., K. A. Timiryazev. Life and creativity, M., 1943; Yugov A.K., K.A. Timiryazev. Life and activity, M., 1936; Safonov V., Kliment Arkadyevich Timiryazev, M., 1943; Novikov S. A., Biography of K. A. Timiryazev, Collected Works of Timiryazev, vol. I, 1937; Novikov S. A., Timiryazev, M.-L., 1946; Tsetlin L. S., Timiryazev, M.-L., 1945; Komarov V.L., Maksimov N.A., Kuznetsov B.G., Kliment Arkadyevich Timiryazev, M., 1945.
Timiryazev Kliment Arkadyevich (1843, St. Petersburg - 1920, Moscow) - an outstanding Russian botanist and physiologist. By clarifying the dependence of photosynthesis on the intensity of light and its spectral composition, Timiryazev established that the assimilation of carbon from atmospheric carbon dioxide by plants occurs due to the energy of sunlight, mainly in red and blue rays, which are most completely absorbed by chlorophyll. Timiryazev was the first to express the opinion that chlorophyll is not only physically but also chemically involved in the process of photosynthesis, thereby anticipating modern ideas.
Timiryazev Kliment Arkadyevich (1843, St. Petersburg - 1920, Moscow) - an outstanding Russian botanist and physiologist.
Born into a large noble family of the head of the St. Petersburg customs district. He received serious home training and adopted his father's liberal, republican views. Having entered St. Petersburg University, Timiryazev was expelled from it in 1861 for participating in student unrest; He continued his education as a volunteer and graduated from the University in 1866. While still a student, he spoke in print on socio-political topics. In 1868 he was sent abroad to prepare for a professorship; he worked in the laboratories of major chemists and physiologists.
In 1870 - 1892 he taught at the Petrovsky Agricultural Academy, defending his master's thesis in 1871 and his doctoral dissertation in 1875. Since 1878, along with his previous position, Timiryazev combined professorship at Moscow University. In 1890 he became a corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences; was a member of many foreign and domestic scientific societies and universities.
By clarifying the dependence of photosynthesis on the intensity of light and its spectral composition, Timiryazev established that the assimilation of carbon from atmospheric carbon dioxide by plants occurs due to the energy of sunlight, mainly in red and blue rays, which are most completely absorbed by chlorophyll. Timiryazev was the first to express the opinion that chlorophyll is not only physically but also chemically involved in the process of photosynthesis, thereby anticipating modern ideas. He showed that the intensity of photosynthesis is proportional to the absorbed energy at relatively low light intensities, but when they increase, it gradually reaches stable values and does not change further, that is, he discovered the phenomena of light saturation of photosynthesis (“Dependence of carbon assimilation on light intensity,” 1889). Thus, Timiryazev experimentally proved the applicability of the law of conservation of energy and the first law of photochemistry to the process of photosynthesis.
In the so-called Crunian lecture, given at the Royal Society of London and entitled “The Cosmic Role of the Plant” (1903, in Russian translation 1904), Timiryazev summarized his many years of research in the field of photosynthesis. He highlighted the importance of photosynthesis carried out by green plants as the primary source of organic matter and stored energy necessary for the life of all organisms. Timiryazev's discovery of the energetic laws of photosynthesis was a major contribution to the doctrine of the unity and connection of living and non-living matter in the process of the cycle of substances and energy in nature.
In plant physiology, along with agrochemistry, T. saw the basis of rational agriculture. In 1867, at the suggestion of Mendeleev, T. was in charge of an experimental field organized with funds from the Free Economic Society in the village. Renyevka, Simbirsk province, where he conducted experiments on the effect of mineral fertilizers on crops. In 1872, on his initiative, on the territory of Petrovskaya agricultural sector. Academy built the first growing house in Russia. In 1896, Timiryazev organized a demonstration experimental station with a growing house at the All-Russian Exhibition in Nizhny Novgorod. In his lecture “Plant Physiology as the Basis of Rational Agriculture” (1897), Timiryazev shows the effectiveness of using mineral fertilizers.
In the lecture “The fight of plants against drought” (1892, published in 1893), read in connection with the crop failure caused by the drought of 1891, Timiryazev summarized the data available at that time on the issues of water regime and drought resistance of plants, recommending practical measures to reduce the damage caused to agriculture by drought.
Timiryazev is one of the first propagandists of Darwinism in Russia. He considered Darwin's evolutionary doctrine as the greatest achievement of science of the 19th century, establishing a materialistic worldview in biology. Having summarized his articles on Darwinism, published since 1864 in the journal Otechestvennye Zapiski, T. published the books “A Brief Essay on Darwin’s Theory” (1865), and in 1832 “Charles Darwin and His Teaching” (15th edition - 1941). In connection with the 50th anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s book “The Origin of Species,” T. published a series of articles (1908–10), in which he promoted Darwinism and defended it from attacks by conservative scientists and churchmen, and gave public lectures. Timiryazev gives a creative development of Darwin’s teachings in a series of lectures under the general title “Historical Method in Biology...” (published in 1922), where he defines the problems of morphology and physiology and shows ways to solve them based on the study of the historical process of the emergence of form and function. From the standpoint of Darwinism, and primarily the doctrine of natural selection, Timiryazev explained the evolution of functions in plants, in particular the evolution of photosynthesis and the universal distribution of chlorophyll in autotrophic plants.
Timiryazev repeatedly emphasized that modern forms of organisms are the result of long-term adaptive evolution; Any species of living organisms bears the stamp, on the one hand, of adaptation to living conditions, and, on the other, of all previous evolution. Based on this, Timiryazev believed that for a correct understanding of the laws of biology, the various manifestations of life and the possibility of controlling them, a historical method is necessary, that is, a consistent evolutionary approach to the study of organisms. He wrote: "...neither morphology, with its brilliant and fruitful comparative method, nor physiology, with its even more powerful experimental method, covers the entire field of biology, does not exhaust its tasks; both of them seek complements in the historical method "(Works, vol. 6, 1939, p. 61).
Popularization of science is one of the characteristic and brilliant features of Timiryazev’s multifaceted activity. He wrote: “From the first steps of my mental activity, I set myself two parallel tasks: to work for science and to write for the people, that is, popularly.” (ibid., vol. 9, pp. 13-14). He viewed the popularization of scientific knowledge as a path that unites science and democracy.
A classic example of the popularization of science is Timiryazev’s book “The Life of a Plant” (1878), which went through dozens of editions in Russian and foreign languages. The combination of a deep analysis of modern problems of natural science with an accessible and fascinating presentation is also characteristic of other works by Timiryazev: “Centenary Results of Plant Physiology” (1901), “Main Features of the History of the Development of Biology in the 19th Century” (1907), “The Awakening of Natural Science in the Third Quarter century" (1907; in 1920 published under the title "Development of natural science in Russia in the era of the 60s"), "Advances of botany in the 20th century" (1917; in 1920 published under the title "The most important successes of botany at the beginning of the 20th century"), "Science. Essay on the development of natural science over 3 centuries (1620-1920)" (1920), biographical sketches, memoirs and obituaries dedicated to outstanding figures of world science (Darwin, L. Pasteur, etc.). Timiryazev defended the idea of the enormous role of science in the struggle for peace.
In 1911, Timiryazev, among more than 100 professors and teachers, demonstratively left the university in protest against the violation of university autonomy by the Minister of Education L.A. Casso. He warmly welcomed the victory of the October Revolution, participated in the work of the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR and the Socialist Academy of Social Sciences; in 1920 he was elected as a deputy of the Moscow Soviet.
