But apparently Vavilov was too important a figure. After the war broke out in 1941, Vavilov was thrown into prison in Saratov.. .. On January 26, 1943, the scientist who had probably done more in his life than anyone else in the country to prevent humanity from suffering famine, died of hunger in a prison cell.. .the Soviet regime declared [Nikolai] Vavilov an enemy of the people, his name was erased from all printed sources, and his works were banned. ... Nikolai Vavilov's name was cleared, and his works began to be published again in the country in the 1960s. But the harm to Russian agriculture had been done and could not be reversed. The postage stamp illustrated here was issued in the Russian Federation in the year 2000 to commemorate the pioneering work of Nicolai Vavilov and his discovery of the law of biological variability in 1920. Bolotovski et al. (1998) analyze in detail the historical data including quotations from those who knew Sergei Vavilov to ascertain how Sergei could manage to continue to work diligently toward the creation of a national physics research institute of world renown for a government that, in the short period of only three years, had unjustly imprisoned and taken the life of his dear brother. They quoted Nobel Laureate Andrei Sakharov (1921—1989) who commented
I had an appointment with the FIAN director, a prominent optical physicist, academician Sergei Ivanovich Vavilov, who was a brother of another, even better known academician, Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov, a biologist who had been arrested and died in prison a few years before. It was one of the most terrible pages in the tragic history of Soviet biology. [Sergei] Vavilov was soon appointed (or had already been appointed) President of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In this capacity he had to meet regularly (at least once a week) with T. D. Lysenko, an Academy Presidium member who had been a principle prosecutor of his brother, responsible for his death. I just can't imagine how he took these meetings... [Sergei] Vavilov was a nice person to meet, good hearted and gentle. He had placed a number of envelopes with cash in a drawer of his desk (his personal money) and he pressed on the destitute visitors these envelopes as in most cases he was unable to give them the support they really needed. The authorities learned of this and attempted to prohibit it...he carried out his duties without sparing himself.... As Academy President he often had to deliver official addresses. In one such speech he referred to Stalin as the 'Coryphaeus of Science' and this expression later became a part of Stalin's official title (apparently he liked it).
Sergei Vavilov used his position as President of the USSR Academy of Sciences to try to attain exoneration for his brother Nikolei. Bolotovski et al. (1998) note that in 1955, 4 years after Sergei died, V. F. Sennikov, a staff member of FIAN, examined documents in the archives of the Ministry of State Security with the purpose of rehabilitating the innocent victims of Stalin's purges. They note that Sennikov was "particularly impressed (by Sergei) Vavilov's letter of 1949 addressed personally to Stalin in which he appealed for the exoneration of his brother. The letter included a detailed account of the life and work of N. Vavilov, described his openness and honest and straightforward manner of speaking. Vavilov firmly rejected all subversive actions attributed to his brother claiming that the accusations against him were slanderous. Vavilov ended his letter saying "if my brother N. Vavilov is not exonerated, I cannot remain President of the USSR Academy of Sciences." They note that the letter bears an inscrip- tion by Beria "Not authorized", and that there were no marks indicating that the letter was shown to Stalin. As Director of the P. N. Lebedev Physics Institute and President of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Sergei Vavilov did all he could to help and protect staff and colleagues from Stalin's purges. There are numerous examples and the reader is invited to peruse the detailed accounts given by Bolotovski et al. (1998). The degree to which Vavilov played in the establishment of physics in the USSR is evidenced by the relatively numerous Nobel Laureates that emerged from the P. N. Lebedev Physics Institute, which he established from 1934 to the time of his death in 1951 and from the USSR Academy of S (19(
of Sciences over which Vavilov presided. Among these Noble Laureates are Pavel A. Cherenkov (1904-1990), Il'ja M. Frank (1908-1990), Igor Y. Tamm (1895-1971), Lev D. Landau (1908-1968), Aleksandr M. Prokhorov (1922— ), Nicolay G. Basov ( 1922— ), Andrei D. Sakharov ( 1921—1989) was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace, Pyotr L. Kapitsa (1894—1984), and Vitaly L. Ginzburg (1916— ). A final example of the numerous cases where Sergei Ivanovich Vavilov tried to help fellow scientists within the stressful atmosphere of Stalin's oppression within which they had to live and work is taken from the life of Vitaly Ginzburg, who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics 2003 "for pioneering contri- butions to the theory of superconductors and superfluids." Vitaly Ginzburg did pioneering work on the interpretation of the VaviIov—Cherenkov Effect in collaboration with Il'ja Frank during 1939—1947. His contributions to the interpretation of the Vavilov—Cherenkov radiation did not begin to appear in print until 1940 in the Journal of Physics of the former USSR and in the Proceedings of the USSR Academy of Sciences some three years after the famous paper of Il'ja Frank and Igor Tamm (1937), which explained the radiation discovered by Vavilov and Cherenkov. Consequently Ginzburg did not share in the Nobel Prize for Physics 1958 with Cherenkov, Frank and Tamm. However, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics 45 years later as noted above on a totally different subject matter. Vitaly Ginzburg provides the following account of Sergei Ivanovich Vavilov in his book The Physics ofa Lifetime (Ginzburg, I ) with kind permission of Springer Science and Business Media O Springer:
Sergei Vavilov used his position as President of the USSR Academy of Sciences to try to attain exoneration for his brother Nikolei. Bolotovski et al. (1998) note that in 1955, 4 years after Sergei died, V. F. Sennikov, a staff member of FIAN, examined documents in the archives of the Ministry of State Security with the purpose of rehabilitating the innocent victims of Stalin's purges. They note that Sennikov was "particularly impressed (by Sergei) Vavilov's letter of 1949 addressed personally to Stalin in which he appealed for the exoneration of his brother. The letter included a detailed account of the life and work of N. Vavilov, described his openness and honest and straightforward manner of speaking. Vavilov firmly rejected all subversive actions attributed to his brother claiming that the accusations against him were slanderous. Vavilov ended his letter saying "if my brother N. Vavilov is not exonerated, I cannot remain President of the USSR Academy of Sciences." They note that the letter bears an inscrip- tion by Beria "Not authorized", and that there were no marks indicating that the letter was shown to Stalin. As Director of the P. N. Lebedev Physics Institute and President of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Sergei Vavilov did all he could to help and protect staff and colleagues from Stalin's purges. There are numerous examples and the reader is invited to peruse the detailed accounts given by Bolotovski et al. (1998). The degree to which Vavilov played in the establishment of physics in the USSR is evidenced by the relatively numerous Nobel Laureates that emerged from the P. N. Lebedev Physics Institute, which he established from 1934 to the time of his death in 1951 and from the USSR Academy of S (19(
of Sciences over which Vavilov presided. Among these Noble Laureates are Pavel A. Cherenkov (1904-1990), Il'ja M. Frank (1908-1990), Igor Y. Tamm (1895-1971), Lev D. Landau (1908-1968), Aleksandr M. Prokhorov (1922— ), Nicolay G. Basov ( 1922— ), Andrei D. Sakharov ( 1921—1989) was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace, Pyotr L. Kapitsa (1894—1984), and Vitaly L. Ginzburg (1916— ). A final example of the numerous cases where Sergei Ivanovich Vavilov tried to help fellow scientists within the stressful atmosphere of Stalin's oppression within which they had to live and work is taken from the life of Vitaly Ginzburg, who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics 2003 "for pioneering contri- butions to the theory of superconductors and superfluids." Vitaly Ginzburg did pioneering work on the interpretation of the VaviIov—Cherenkov Effect in collaboration with Il'ja Frank during 1939—1947. His contributions to the interpretation of the Vavilov—Cherenkov radiation did not begin to appear in print until 1940 in the Journal of Physics of the former USSR and in the Proceedings of the USSR Academy of Sciences some three years after the famous paper of Il'ja Frank and Igor Tamm (1937), which explained the radiation discovered by Vavilov and Cherenkov. Consequently Ginzburg did not share in the Nobel Prize for Physics 1958 with Cherenkov, Frank and Tamm. However, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics 45 years later as noted above on a totally different subject matter. Vitaly Ginzburg provides the following account of Sergei Ivanovich Vavilov in his book The Physics ofa Lifetime (Ginzburg, I ) with kind permission of Springer Science and Business Media O Springer:
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