By this author

From the Czar’s gardens to the experiment station: Agronomy experiments on the Russian country estates

Issue 1 from 01.03.2005

The existing tradition sees the historical roots of Russian agronomy in the farming of field crops, the principal branch of Russian agriculture. This article argues that ornamental horticulture on the gentry lands provided another source of Russian agronomy. The practice of agronomical experimentation was born in the spaces of the Russian country estate, such as the Czar’s «paradises» of the 17 th century and the nobility’s gardens of the 18 th century. Experiments with ornamental plants became part of the culture of the nobility. Motives behind experimentation were far from pragmatic: they combined aesthetic, leisure, educational, and scientific interests. Czar Peter I, Academy of Sciences director E.R. Dashkova, minister of people’s enlightenment A.K. Razumovsky, and the grandson of Catherine II, Count A.A. Bobrinsky all shared an interest in experimental gardening. Starting with the acclimatization of overseas plants in the Kremlin palace gardens and the collection of «exotics» in the aristocrats’ palace parks, the nobility proceeded later to experimenting with economically important crops on their manors' fields. The owners of the estates acted as agronomy’s patrons by hiring professional scientists and by practicing themselves, as amateurs. For example, naturalist and agronomist A.T. Bolotov, state chancellor N.P. Rumiantsev, Decembrist M.N. Muraviov, Slavophile A.I. Koshelev, and poet A.A. Fet all conducted field experiments. By the end of the 19 th century, agronomic enthusiasm led to the establishment of agricultural and field experiment stations on the estates. These institutions conducted research in selection, agrochemistry, and other advanced areas of agronomy. The patrons of the experimental institutions included chemistry professor D.I. Mendeleev, minister of agriculture A.N. Ermolov, retired military commander P.A. von Bil’derling, and landowner and patron of the arts P.I. Kharitonenko, who all shared a common status as landowners. The scientific hobbies of the landed gentry thus contributed to the formation of the specific culture of the Russian country estate.

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War, Peace, and the Fertilizer Issue: A History of the Development of Mineral Fertilizers in Russia, 1900-1920s

Issue 3 from 01.09.2001

The article analyzes the influence of World War I on the study and development of artificial fertilizers in Russia. It begins by discussing the major reasons for the negative attitude toward fertilizers that was common in the late 19th century not only among the country’s landowners and peasants, but also among its scientists. The scarcity of agricultural experiments with fertilizers, the poor development of domestic agrochemical industry, and the high prices for imported products, coupled with the popularity of alternative approaches to increase soil fertility, made Russia lag far behind the leading agrarian countries in the use of mineral fertilizers. Things started to change by the turn of the 20th century, when the Ministry of Agriculture launched a policy that promoted the development of agricultural sciences in general, and agricultural chemistry in particular. This policy was made manifest in the Commission on Phosphates, established in 1908 for the three basic purposes: to investigate raw materials for the production of fertilizers, to stimulate their agronomic study, and to develop technologies for their large-scale production. For a number of years since its establishment, however, the Commission made no big progress in the field, although it listed a number of prominent scientists dedicated to its mission (such as Dmitrii Prianishnikov, Iakov Samoilov, and Ergard Britske). As the article shows, it was the outbreak of World War I that suddenly created a powerful stimulus for fertilizer research in Russia. Known among the students of Western European history as the “Chemists War” (especially in the case of Germany which had a well-developed nitric industry), World War I has hitherto attracted little attention among the historians of Russian science. The article sheds a light on this neglected issue, demonstrating a specific Russian “symbiosis” between military industry and agricultural chemistry dating back to the war period. The numerous factories of explosives that emerged in Russia in those years produced vast amounts of waste products; modified, they could serve as fertilizers. Indeed, Russian scientists and engineers successfully employed these by-products to produce new brands of agricultural fertilizers. In 1915, the country saw the creation of the Public Committee for Support of Fertilizers. Thanks to its activities, the new fertilizers were introduced into agricultural practice as early as in the days of World War I. Eventually, the Committee gave birth to the Institute of Fertilizers, one of the first research establishments founded by the Bolshevik government. As the article indicates in conclusion, even the project of “chemicalization of agriculture,” usually described as a revolutionary endeavor of the new Soviet power, was firmly rooted in the symbiosis between military and fertilizer industries established during World War I.

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Science in the Regional Context

Issue 4 from 22.11.1995

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