The "Useful Questions of Heredity" before Mendel

Abstract

Now Emeritus Head of the Mendelianum (Mendel Museum) in Brno, Czech Republic, Vítezslav Orel began his academic career as a student at the Brno Agriculture University. His work was interrupted first by the Nazi invasion and then by the communist revolution, when the science of genetics was denounced and replaced by Lysenko pseudogenetics. V. O. was dismissed from his position at the Poultry Research Institute and assigned to work at a small duck farm outside Brno. When the "Lysenkoist madness" subsided, Professor Jaroslav Krizenecky (1896-1964), teacher of V. O., was allowed to develop the museum in recognition of Mendel's contributions. V. O. assisted him by conducting research on the history of Mendel and of genetics. On Jaroslav Krizenecky's death, V. O. became head of the Mendelianum. V. O. has become an internationally recognized figure in the study of the history of science, having published nearly 200 papers in Czech and 10 other languages. Orel's most recent books, published by Oxford University Press, make use of the rich archives of the Mendelianum that he helped create. Gregor Mendel-The First Geneticist (Orel 1996) is the definitive biography of Mendel, and in 2001, V. O. and co-author R. J. Wood published Genetic Prehistory in Selective Breeding: A Prelude to Mendel. (Biography from Margaret H. Peaslee).