Zhores Medvedev | |
|---|---|
Жорес Медведев | |
 | |
| Born | Zhores Aleksandrovich Medvedev (1925-11-14)14 November 1925 |
| Died | 15 November 2018(2018-11-15) (aged 93) |
| Alma mater | Russian State Agricultural University |
| Known for | Human rights activism and participation indissident movement in the Soviet Union |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Agronomy,biology,gerontology |
Zhores Aleksandrovich Medvedev (Russian:Жоре́с Алекса́ндрович Медве́дев; 14 November 1925 – 15 November 2018) was a Russianagronomist,biologist,historian anddissident. His twin brother is the historianRoy Medvedev.
Zhores Medvedev and his twin brother Roy were born on 14 November 1925 inTbilisi,Transcaucasian SFSR,USSR. Their mother Yulia (nee Reiman), was a cellist, and their father, Alexander Medvedev, was a philosopher in a military academy in Leningrad.[1] Zhores, named after French socialist leaderJean Jaurès (his twin was named after Indian revolutionaryM. N. Roy),[1] was drafted into theRed Army in 1943, but was soon discharged after being seriously wounded in a battle on theTaman Peninsula.[2] He then began his studies in biology at theTimiryazev Agricultural Academy inMoscow.[2] In December 1950, Zhores was awarded aPhD degree for his research into sexual processes in plants.
He became a junior research scientist in the Agrochemistry and Biochemistry Department at Timiryazev Academy and he was promoted to senior research scientist in 1954 and remained at the academy until 1963. Beginning in 1952, Medvedev had focused his attention on the problems of aging, concentrating on the turnover of proteins and nucleic acids. In 1961, he published the first paper suggesting that aging is the result of an accumulation of errors in the synthesis of proteins and nucleic acids. In 1962, Medvedev wrote his book on the history ofSoviet genetics, which passed an editorial review but was withheld by state censors.[2] It was later published in the United States in 1969 asThe Rise and Fall ofT.D. Lysenko.[3]
In 1963, Medvedev moved toObninsk to the Institute of Medical Radiology, where he was appointed head of the molecular radiobiology laboratory. He published two books,Protein Biosynthesis and Problems of Heredity Development and Ageing[4] andMolecular Mechanisms of Development.[a]
Medvedev was dismissed from his position in 1969. Between 1968 and 1970, Medvedev wrote two more books:International Cooperation of Scientists and National Frontiers[5] andSecrecy of Correspondence is Guaranteed by Law (about postal censorship in the USSR). These works were widely circulated in the USSR among scientists, along with a copy of his 1962 history of Soviet genetics (which had been published inGrani, a Russian journal published outside the USSR), and this activity resulted in Medvedev's arrest and forced detention in theKaluga psychiatric hospital in May 1970. This action, however, produced many protests from scientists (academicsAndrei Sakharov,Pyotr Kapitsa,Igor Tamm,Vladimir Engelgardt,Boris Astaurov,[6]Nikolai Semyonov, and others) and writers (includingSolzhenitsyn,Tvardovsky,Vladimir Tendryakov,Vladimir Dudintsev), which resulted in Medvedev's release (this experience was reflected in Zhores and Roy Medvedev's bookA Question of Madness[b]).
In 1971, Medvedev was given the job of senior scientist of the Institute of Physiology and Biochemistry of Farm Animals inBorovsk, in the Kaluga region.
In 1972, Medvedev was invited for one year's research by theNational Institute for Medical Research in London at its new Genetic Division. In August 1973, however, hisSoviet passport was confiscated and he was stripped of hisSoviet citizenship. He remained in London and worked as senior research scientist at the National Institute for Medical Research until his retirement in 1991.
In 1977, Medvedev publishedHazards of Nuclear Power, which mentioned theKyshtym nuclear disaster in passing. At the time, the disaster was essentially unknown, and his work was dismissed as baseless propaganda even by his Western colleagues.[2] Medvedev responded by publishingSoviet Science in 1978, which assembled evidence from Soviet publications that taken together comprised conclusive evidence of the disaster's occurrence. He followed this with the bookThe Nuclear Disaster in the Urals in 1979, and a further critiqueThe Legacy of Chernobyl (1990), which connected the two disasters as being a product of the same attitudes toward science and engineering in the USSR.[2]
In London, Medvedev acted as his brother Roy's representative, managing his publishing contracts and financial affairs. In 1975 he created a small publishing house, "T.C.D. publications", for the purpose of publishing the Russian-language version of Roy Medvedev'ssamizdat journalXX Century.[7] The two brothers also coauthoredKhrushchev: The Years in Power (1978) and several other books, the last oneThe Unknown Stalin (2007).
Medvedev died in London on 15 November 2018, one day after his 93rd birthday, with his family by his side.[8][9] In 2019, his memoirs posthumously appeared in Russian under the titleA Dangerous Profession.[10]
Medvedev published about 170 research papers and reviews, about sixty of them during his time in London. In 1973 he was one of the signatories of theHumanist Manifesto.[11] He received the Aging Research Award from the United States Association of Biogerontology in 1984 and the Rene Schubert Prize in Gerontology in 1985.
According toMichael Gordin, a professor of history atPrinceton University, Medvedev provided critiques of the Soviet Union that were "powerful, persuasive and principled", with Medvedev being "sympathetic to the dreams of the[Russian] Revolution" but opposed to the "cronyism andStalinism [that] had contaminated the early promise."[2]
{{cite book}}:|journal= ignored (help)