Dmitri Beljajev

Afbeelding van Dmitri Beljajev op een briefkaart van de Russische Academie van Wetenschappen.

Dmitri Konstantinovitsj Beljajev (Russisch: Дмитрий Константинович Беляев) (Kostroma, 17 juli 1917 - 14 november 1985) was een Russisch geneticus. Van 1959 tot 1985 was hij directeur van het Instituut voor Cytologie en Genetica, van de Academie van Wetenschappen van de Sovjet-Unie, in Novosibirsk.

Dmitri Beljajev werd geboren tijdens de Eerste Wereldoorlog, een paar maanden voor de bolsjewistische Oktoberrevolutie. Hij was de vierde en jongste zoon van Konstatin Pavlovitsj, een orthodoxe priester die groot belang hechtte aan onderwijs. Via zijn achttien jaar oudere broer Nikolai kwam hij al op jonge leeftijd in aanraking met de genetica, doordat Nikolai geneticus was en nauw samenwerkte met in die tijd toonaangevende wetenschappers als Sergej Tsjetverikov en Nikolai Koltsov.

In 1936 veranderde het tot dan toe vruchtbare wetenschappelijke klimaat voor genetici in de Sovjet-Unie echter drastisch, doordat de denkbeelden van Trofim Lysenko beter pasten in de ideologie van Jozef Stalin dan die van de Mendeliaanse genetici. Lysenko betoogde dat erfelijke eigenschappen van individuele organismen konden worden beïnvloed door veranderingen van de omgeving en dat die eigenschappen daarbij veel sneller kunnen veranderen dan door genetische selectie mogelijk is. Stalin, die geloofde in overerving van verworven eigenschappen, liet zich politiek vervolgens sterk beinvloeden door Lysenko en hij verbood de uitoefening van genetica die uitging van overerving gebaseerd opgenen en chromosomen.

d in disastrous crop failures.

It was a very fruitful period for Russian genetics and a very hard time to Russian geneticists. Koltsov was arrested and underwent trial for anti-soviet activities but was liberated after an appeal to Stalin by Maxim Gorki. However, campaigns against Koltsov and Nikolai Vavilov (both geneticists at the Soviet Academy of Sciences) led by T. Lysenko and his supporters, resulted in Koltsov death in 1940. Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov (born in 1887), one of the greatest geneticists, plant breeders and geographers of the 20th Century, was imprisoned and sentenced to death in 1940. Although his sentence was changed to 20 years in prison, Vavilov died in 1943 from dystrophy (faulty nutrition of muscles, leading to paralysis; that is, from hunger [Zakharov 2005; Pringle 2008]). Tchetverikov had also been arrested and exiled in 1929, shortly before Stalin’s persecutions; although he lived until 1959 his work was never the same (Adams 1998; Dobzhansky 1998). Timofeef-Ressovsky, who was working in Germany, after Russians entered Berlin was arrested, liberated, and arrested again to be sent to the Gulag until 1955 (Medvedev 1982). The elder brother of Dmitry Belyaev, Nikolai Konstantinovich, was also FigurE 1. Dmitry Konstantinovich Belyaev (1917-1985). Figura 1. Dmitry Konstantinovich Belyaev (1917-1985).64 Gayana 73(Suplemento), 2009 arrested in August 1937, and executed without trial in November 10 of the same year (Asrguthynskaya & Zakharov 2005). This infamous persecution resulted in an almost abolition of orthodox genetics and Darwinism during decades (Vucinich 1988). Soon after graduation from the Ivanovo Agricultural Institute in 1938, Dmitry entered the Department of Fur-Bearing Animals of the Central Research Laboratory. The genetic and biological background provided by his brother proved to be incredibly fruitful. Although military service to which he was called in 1941 during the Second World War (in which he was wounded and decorated with several military orders [Trut et al. 2007]) interrupted his scientific research, Dmitry reassumed after demobilization his activities at the Central Research Laboratory (Department of Fur Bearing Animals) affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Trade, where he became involved in breeding of silver-black foxes and mink. At that time Mendelian genetics and Darwinism were still being persecuted; however, Dmitry’s dissertation was on “The variation and inheritance of silver-colored fur in silver-black foxes”, an announcement of what was to come. During the hard years that followed the infamous Session of the All-Union Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Belyaev maintained his firm beliefs in Mendelian genetics and evolution and sided with such extraordinary biologists as Boris Astaurov (1904-1974) and many other scientists, although he was much younger than them (Trut et al. 2007). Nevertheless, because of his strong support of Mendelian genetics, Belyaev eventually was demitted from his position as Head of Department (Trut et al. 2007; Trut 1999). From 1958, when the political view on genetics was slowly reverting, to the end of his life in 1985, Dmitry worked at the USSR Academy of Sciences (Siberian Division). There, he became in 1963 Director of the Department of Animal Genetics of the Institute of Cytology and Genetics (through an invitation from N.P. Dubinin); position that he held until the end of his life. bElyaEv’s idEas on domEstiCation and thE Farm Fox ExpErimEnt One of Belyaev’s main scientific interests was that discussed in the first part of this essay: the origin and consequences of domestication, especially the recurrent similar changes that have appeared during the course of the process in widely different species. Although a good deal of scientific information was available on existing domestic plant and animals since Darwin’s day, the real nature of domestication and the concurrent morphological and physiological changes, were virtually unknown, Thus, at his research post at the Institute of Cytology and Genetics in Novosibirsk, Siberia, Belyaev started an extraordinary long-term experiment in domestication using a completely new model: the Red or Silver Fox (Vulpes vulpes).