L. G. Ramensky communication with N. I. Vavilov (from the chronicle of the 1920’s)

Abstract

The article follows the series of author's publications devoted to the biography of L. G. Ramensky (Golub, Nikolaichuk, 2012; Golub, 2013, 2014, 2017). It describes a short period of his life when he met an outstanding botanist, geneticist, and geographer N. I. Vavilov, whose 130th anniversary is celebrated in 2017. In 1917 Ramensky moved fr om Petrograd to the Voronezh region, where he lived until 1928. These years in Voronezh were among the most productive in his life. Ramensky worked in several organizations of the region wh ere he met and cooperated with such well-known scientists as B. A. Keller, B. M. Kozo-Po­lyansky, A. I. Maltsev and N. I. Vavilov. Ramensky and Vavilov met in Voronezh in September 1920 at the First All-Russian Congress on applied Botany. Аt the congress Vavilov repeated his talk on the law of homologous series, which he first presented in June of the same year in Saratov. Ramensky gave five talks which mainly concerned the theory of phytocenology. These presentations received a positive feedback from the congress participants. The author suggests that Vavilov thought of involving Ramensky in his research, which he directed at the Bureau of applied Botany in Petrograd. Vavilov and Ramensky agreed on cooperation. Ramensky was offerd to study the meadow-steppe vegetation in the Kamennaya Steppe. Ramensky had the pragmatic approach to this cooperation. He and his family were starving. For the work assigned to him by Vavilov, Ramensky received food rations and remuneration in money. In addition, Vavilov promised to provide Ramensky with an assistant for his work on the compilation of vegetative key to the plants. Observations made by Ramensky in the Kamennaya Steppe were used in his article “Basic regularities of vegetation cover and their study (on the basis of geobotanical researches in Voronezh province)” (Ramensky, 1924). This fundamental work has not lost its significance until now.