“We cannot wait for favors from nature; to take them from her is our task!"
I. V. Michurin
Ivan Michurin was born on October 27, 1855 in the Ryazan province in the Pronsky district. His great-grandfather and grandfather were small local nobles, military people, participants in numerous campaigns and wars. Michurin's father, Vladimir Ivanovich, having received an excellent education at home, served as a receiver of weapons at an arms factory in the city of Tula. Against the will of his parents, he married a girl of the bourgeois class, and soon after that he retired with the rank of provincial secretary, settling in the inherited small estate called "Top", located near the village of Yumashevka. He was a famous person in the district - he was engaged in beekeeping and gardening, communicated with the Free Economic Society, which sent him special literature and seeds of agricultural crops. Working tirelessly in the garden, Vladimir Ivanovich made various experiments with decorative and fruit plants, and in the winter taught peasant children to read and write at his home.
In the Michurin family, Ivan Vladimirovich was the seventh child, but he did not know his brothers and sisters, because of all the seven, only he survived in infancy. Reality met the future great biologist extremely harshly - Vanya was born in a cramped and dilapidated forester's hut. The miserable situation was explained by the fact that his parents were forced to get away from a violent, nervous grandmother on his father's side. Living with her under the same roof was absolutely unbearable, and there was no money to rent your own corner. Winter was approaching, which, quite possibly, a small child in a forest hut would not have survived, but soon the grandmother was taken to an insane asylum, and the Michurins returned to the estate. This only happy period in the life of the family passed very quickly. When Vanya was four years old, his poor health mother, Maria Petrovna, died of fever.
Michurin himself grew up a strong and healthy child. Deprived of his mother's supervision, he spent a lot of time on the banks of the Proni River, fishing, or in the garden with his father. The boy watched with interest how plants grow and how they die, how they withdraw in themselves in the rains and how they languish in drought. All the questions that arose in the head of the observant Ivan found fascinating and lively explanations of Vladimir Ivanovich. Unfortunately, over time, Michurin Sr. began to drink. In the house they became sad, and the few guests and relatives did not appear at all. Vanya was rarely allowed outside to play with the village boys, and left to himself, he spent his days in the garden of a huge beautiful estate. Thus, digging, sowing and collecting fruits became the only games that Michurin knew as a child. And his most valuable treasures and favorite toys were seeds, invisibly hiding in themselves the embryos of a future life. By the way, little Vanya had whole collections of seeds of various colors and shapes.
Michurin received his initial training at home, and after that he was sent to the Pronskoe district school. However, Ivan found a common language with his peers with great difficulty - for him the plant world was a recognizable, lasting and real world for life. While studying, he continued to spend all his free time digging in the land of his beloved estate. Already at the age of eight, the boy perfectly mastered various methods of plant grafting, masterly performed such complex and obscure wood operations for modern summer residents as ablactation, copulation and budding. As soon as the lessons ended, Michurin collected books and, without waiting for the carts from the "Vershina", set off on the many kilometers journey home. The road through the forest in any weather was a real pleasure for him, because it gave him the opportunity to communicate with his good and only companions - every bush and every tree on the way was well known to the boy.
In June 1872 Michurin graduated from the Pronskoe School, after which Vladimir Ivanovich, having collected the last pennies, began to prepare him for admission to the St. Petersburg Lyceum at the gymnasium course. Soon, however, a relatively young father suddenly fell ill and was sent to a hospital in Ryazan. At the same time, it turned out that the family's financial affairs were going nowhere worse. The Michurins' estate had to be mortgaged, re-mortgaged, and then sold for debts altogether. The boy was taken care of by his paternal aunt, Tatyana Ivanovna. It should be noted that she was a well-educated, energetic and well-read woman who treated her nephew with great care and attention. During his school years, Michurin often visited her small estate located in Birkinovka, where he whiled away the time reading books. Unfortunately, Tatyana Ivanovna, ready to sacrifice everything for Vanya, could hardly make ends meet herself. An uncle, Lev Ivanovich, came to the rescue, who arranged for the boy to go to the Ryazan gymnasium. However, Michurin did not study at this educational institution for long. In the same 1872 he was expelled from there with the wording "for disrespect to the authorities." The reason was the case when the gymnasium student Michurin, due to ear disease and severe frost (or perhaps simply from horror in front of his superiors), did not take off his hat in the street in front of the director of the educational institution. According to biographers, the real reason for Michurin's exclusion was his uncle's refusal to bribe the school administration.
Thus ended Michurin's youth, and in the same year Ivan Vladimirovich moved to the city of Kozlov, whose neighborhood he did not leave for a long time until the end of his life. There he got a job as a commercial clerk at a local station related to the Ryazan-Ural railway. His monthly salary, by the way, was only twelve rubles. He lived in a modest hut in the railway village of Yamskaya. The rude attitude of his superiors, monotonous work, a sixteen-hour shift and bribery of fellow clerks - such was the situation in which Michurin was in those years. The young man did not take part in friendly drinking, he was considered trustworthy in his disposition, he quickly and accurately counted - not without reason that he had a district school behind him. Two years later, Ivan Vladimirovich was promoted - a quiet and executive young man took the place of a commodity cashier, and soon became one of the station chief's assistants. Life gradually began to improve, Ivan could well consider himself lucky - in tsarist times, leading work on the railway was considered a prestigious occupation. From his high position, Ivan Vladimirovich gained a kind of benefit - he began to visit repair shops and master plumbing. He worked there for a long time and persistently, racking his brains for hours over various technical problems.
A year later, having accumulated a small capital, Michurin decided to marry. His choice fell on the daughter of a local worker, Alexandra Vasilyevna Petrushina, an obedient and hard-working girl who became a friend and assistant of the great natural scientist for many years. It should be noted that the impoverished noble relatives of Michurin were so outraged by his unequal marriage that they declared that they would be deprived of their inheritance. It was an arrogant, but completely empty gesture, since there was still nothing to inherit. And only Michurin's aunt, Tatyana Ivanovna, continued to correspond with him. And soon after the wedding in 1875, Ivan Vladimirovich rented an empty Gorbunov estate, located in the vicinity of Kozlov, with an area of about six hundred square meters. Here he, having planted various fruit plants, began his first experiments on selection. Years later Michurin will write: "Here I spent all my free hours in the office." However, at first, Ivan Vladimirovich had to experience severe disappointment due to a lack of knowledge and inexperience. In subsequent years, the breeder actively studied all kinds of domestic and foreign literature on gardening. Nevertheless, many questions that troubled him remained unanswered.
After a short time, new difficulties came - Ivan Vladimirovich, in a conversation with his colleagues, allowed himself to say too much about his boss. The latter found out about this, and Ivan Vladimirovich lost the well-paid position of assistant chief of the station. With the loss of their place, the financial situation of the young spouses turned out to be the most deplorable, close to poverty. All the funds accumulated by Michurin went to rent land, and therefore, in order to subscribe from abroad very expensive books on botany, seedlings and seeds from different countries of the world, as well as buy the necessary equipment and materials, Ivan Vladimirovich had to tighten his belt and start earning money on side. Upon returning from duty Michurin stayed up late into the night, doing the repair of various devices and fixing watches.
The period from 1877 to 1888 in the life of Ivan Vladimirovich was especially difficult. It was a time of hard work, hopeless poverty and moral turmoil due to failures in the field of acclimatization of fruit plants. However, here the iron patience of the gardener was shown, who continued to stubbornly struggle with all the problems that arose. During these years, Ivan Vladimirovich invented a sprayer "for greenhouses, greenhouses, indoor flowers and all kinds of crops in the open air and in greenhouses." In addition, Michurin drew up a project for lighting the railway station, where he worked, using an electric current, and subsequently implemented it. By the way, the installation and repair of telegraph and telephone sets has long been a source of income for the breeder.
By that time, a unique collection of fruit and berry plants of several hundred species had been collected at the Gorbunovs' estate. Ivan Vladimirovich noted: "The estate I rented turned out to be so overflowing with plants that there was no way to continue doing business on it." In such circumstances, Michurin decided to further reduce costs - from now on, he scrupulously and to the penny took into account all the expenses, entering them in a special diary. Due to extreme poverty, the gardener himself repaired old clothes, sewed gloves on his own, and wore shoes until they fell apart. Sleepless nights, malnutrition, metal dust in the workshop and constant anxiety led to the fact that in the spring of 1880 Ivan Vladimirovich showed serious signs of a health disorder - he began pulmonary hemoptysis. To improve his health, Michurin took a vacation and, having closed the workshop, moved out of town with his wife, having lived the summer in the miller's house, located near a luxurious oak grove. Beautiful and healthy countryside, sun and fresh air quickly restored the health of the breeder, who devoted all his time to reading literature and observing forest plants.
Soon after returning home, Ivan Vladimirovich moved the entire collection of plants to the new Lebedev estate. He acquired it, by the way, with the help of a bank, and immediately (due to lack of funds and numerous debts) mortgaged the land. It was in this place that the first unique Michurin varieties were bred. However, after a couple of years, this patrimony turned out to be overflowing with plants.
In the fall of 1887, the breeder learned that a certain priest Yastrebov was selling a plot of land of thirteen hectares near the village of Turmasovo, located seven kilometers from the city on the banks of the Lesnoy Voronezh River. Having examined the ground, Michurin was very pleased. The whole autumn and winter of 1887-1888 was spent on feverish raising of funds with labor reaching exhaustion, and, finally, in May 1888, after the sale of all planting material, the deal took place, and half of the land was immediately mortgaged. It is curious that the Michurins family, which by that time had increased to four people (the gardener had a daughter, Maria, and a son, Nikolai), had only seven rubles left in cash. Due to a lack of money, members of the Michurin family carried all the plants from the Lebedev plot seven kilometers away on their shoulders. In addition, there was no home in the new place, and for two seasons they lived in a hut. Recalling those years, Ivan Vladimirovich said that their diet included only vegetables and fruits grown by them, black bread, and "a little tea for a couple of kopecks."
Years of hard work flowed by. On the site of the hut, a small, but real log hut arose, and the neglected wasteland around turned into a young garden, on which Ivan Vladimirovich, like a demiurge, created new forms of life. By 1893, thousands of hybrid seedlings of pears, apples and cherries were already growing in Turmasovo. For the first time in the history of fruit growing in central Russia, winter-hardy varieties of apricot, peach, oil rose, sweet cherry, mulberry, cigarette tobacco and almonds appeared. Michurin's plums grew, unseen in these lands, grapes were bearing fruit, the vines of which hibernated in the open air. Ivan Vladimirovich himself, who finally replaced the railway worker's cap with a wide-brimmed farm hat, lived in the nursery without a break.
It seemed to Michurin that his dreams of a secure and independent life, devoted to creative activity, were close to being realized. However, an unusually cold winter came and the southern as well as Western European varieties of its plants were severely damaged. After that, Ivan Vladimirovich realized all the unsuccessfulness of the method of acclimatization of old varieties that he had tested with the help of grafting and decided to continue his work on breeding new varieties of plants through directed education of hybrids and artificial crossing. With great enthusiasm, the breeder took up the hybridization of plants, but this work required a considerable investment of money.
It should be noted that by that time Michurin had organized a trading nursery in Turmasovo, which, however, was not widely known. In this regard, one of the most pressing questions for the biologist was still the question of maintaining his family. However, the gardener did not lose heart, pinning high hopes on the sale of his unique varieties. In the twelfth year of selection work, he sent out to all parts of the country a "complete price list" of fruit and ornamental shrubs and trees, as well as seeds of fruit plants available on his farm. This collection was illustrated with drawings by the gardener himself, who was excellent in both graphics and complex watercolor techniques. Michurin's price list had nothing to do with the advertising catalogs of trading companies and was more a scientific guide for gardeners than a genuine price list. In his diary dating back to that period, the breeder noted: "I gave up to twenty thousand catalogs for distribution on trains to knowingly conscientious apple tree peddlers, conductors and conductors … From the distribution of twenty thousand catalogs, a hundred customers will turn out …".
Finally, autumn 1893 came - the long-awaited time for the first release of seedlings grown in the nursery. Michurin believed that the price lists and his articles in various journals, breaking the age-old routine in gardening, would bear fruit. He was firmly convinced that there would be many orders, but he was severely disappointed - there were practically no buyers. In vain hope of marketing, the breeder spent his last pennies on magazine and newspaper ads, and through acquaintances going to auctions and fairs, sent new catalogs for distribution to traders and the public. Despite this, in the early years of the trading nursery Michurin only met with distrust and indifference, both on the part of reputable gardeners and acclimatizers, and on the part of ordinary residents.
In 1893-1896, when thousands of hybrid seedlings were already growing in Ivan Vladimirovich's garden, a new thought came to Michurin's brilliant mind, which led to important and great consequences. The biologist found that the soil of his nursery, which is a powerful black soil, is too oily and, "spoiling" the hybrids, makes them less resistant to the devastating "Russian winters". For the breeder, this meant the merciless elimination of all hybrids dubious in their cold resistance, the sale of the Turmasovsky plot, as well as the search for a new, more suitable place. Thus, almost all the long-term work on founding the nursery had to be started anew, seeking funds from new hardships. Such a state of affairs would have broken a less staunch person, but Ivan Vladimirovich had enough determination and strength to move to a new stage of his research work.
After a long search, he finally found a piece of useless, abandoned land in the vicinity of the town of Kozlov. It belonged to a local official and was a washed-out sediment that abounded in ravines, swamps, channels and streams. During the flood, which was especially stormy here, the entire land plot was covered with water, and even large, mature trees were washed out in low places. However, there was no cheaper and more suitable land, and the breeder decided to move his nursery here. In 1899 he sold the old place and together with his family moved to the suburban settlement Donskoye for the winter. Throughout the summer of 1900, while the new house was being built, he lived in a hastily knocked down barn. By the way, Ivan Vladimirovich designed the two-story house himself, and also calculated an estimate for it. Much to Michurin's chagrin, the transfer of his nursery to new soil resulted in the loss of a significant part of the unique collection of hybrids and original forms. He still bravely survived this, and his assumptions about the importance of the Spartan education of hybrids were fully and completely justified. The gardener noted: "When raising seedlings on lean soil, under a harsh regime, although a smaller number of them had cultural qualities, they were quite resistant to frost." Later, the site became the main department of the Michurin Central Genetic Laboratory, and the biologist himself worked in this place until the end of his life. Here, with various technologies developed by him, the breeder proved the practical possibility of overcoming the non-breeding of many species, and also achieved the development of hybrid seedlings of the required quality, developing very poorly under normal conditions.
In 1905, Ivan Vladimirovich was fifty years old. And the more his gardening skill improved, the more unsociable his character became. In addition, despite the fact that Michurin had already bred many outstanding varieties, official science refused to recognize the biologist's achievements. The breeder, by the way, sent his works to all specialized journals, wrote to the emperor himself, reproaching him, as well as the entire bureaucratic Russia for the criminal inattention to the fruit and berry industry, scribbled to various ministries, drawing the attention of bureaucrats to gardening as the most important human mission on Earth. There is a story about how Michurin once sent an article about his new method of cutting cherries to a Moscow gardening magazine. The editors knew that cherries are not cuttings, and they refused to publish them, explaining with the phrase: "We write only the truth." Furious, Ivan Vladimirovich dug up and, without any written support, sent a dozen rooted cherry cuttings. In the future, he did not respond to pleas to send a description of the method, or to tearful apologies. Michurin also refused state subsidies, so as not to fall, in his own words, into slavish dependence on the departments, since "every penny issued will be taken care of by its best use." In the summer of 1912, the office of Nicholas II sent a prominent official, Colonel Salov, to the gardener in Kozlov. The gallant military man was extremely surprised by the modest appearance of the Michurin estate, as well as by the poor attire of its owner, whom the colonel at first took for a watchman. A month and a half after Salov's visit, Ivan Vladimirovich received two crosses - the Green Cross "for work in agriculture" and Anna of the third degree.
By that time, the fame of the gardener's hybrids had spread all over the world. Back in 1896, Ivan Vladimirovich was elected an honorary member of the American scientific society "Breeders", and in 1898 the All-Canadian congress of farmers who met after a harsh winter, was surprised to note that all varieties of cherries of American and European origin froze in Canada, with the exception of Fertile Michurin from Russia. Perfectly versed in flowers, the Dutch offered Ivan Vladimirovich about twenty thousand royal rubles for the bulbs of his unusual lily, smelling like a violet. Their main condition was that this flower in Russia would no longer be grown. Michurin, although he lived poorly, did not sell the lily. And in March 1913, the breeder received a message from the US Department of Agriculture with a proposal to move to America or sell a collection of plants. In order to suppress the encroachment on hybrids, the gardener broke such an amount that the US agriculture was forced to surrender.
Meanwhile, the Michurinsky garden kept growing. The most daring plans of Ivan Vladimirovich were carried out, as if by magic - before the revolution, more than nine hundred (!) Varieties of plants, discharged from Japan, France, the USA, Germany and many other countries, grew in his nursery. His hands were no longer enough, the breeder wrote: "… loss of strength and upset health make themselves felt quite persistently." Michurin thought about attracting street children to household work, but the world war intervened in these plans. The biologist's commercial nursery stopped working, and Ivan Vladimirovich, who was exhausted, was again struggling to make ends meet. And the new year 1915 brought him another misfortune, which almost destroyed all hopes for the continuation of research work. In the spring, the raging river, overflowing its banks, flooded the nursery. Then severe frosts struck, burying under the ice many valuable hybrids, as well as a school of two-year-olds determined for sale. This blow was followed by an even more terrible second. In the summer, a cholera epidemic began in the city. Michurin's kind and sensitive wife took care of one sick girl and became infected herself. As a result, the young and strong girl recovered, and Alexandra Vasilievna died.
The loss of the closest person broke the great biologist. His garden began to fall into desolation. Out of habit Michurin still courted him, but did not feel the same enthusiasm. He rejected all offers of help, and despised sympathizers. At some point, news of the October coup reached Ivan Vladimirovich, but he did not attach much importance to this. And in November 1918 he was visited by an authorized comrade from the People's Commissariat of Agriculture and announced that his garden would be nationalized. The horror of the situation shook Michurin, knocking him out of his usual rut and bringing a complete cure for mental ailments. The breeder, immediately leaving for the nearest Soviets, indignantly declared there that it was impossible to take everything from him like this … The Soviet government reassured the gardener - he was informed that he would be left at the garden as a manager. And soon numerous assistants and students were sent to Ivan Vladimirovich. Thus began Michurin's second life.
Attention to the work of the breeder, to his personality and to his experience fell on the biologist with an avalanche. The authorities needed new public idols, and somewhere in the highest spheres Michurin was appointed as such. From now on, his research was financed unlimitedly, Ivan Vladimirovich received the official rights to run the nursery at his own discretion. All his life this beacon of science dreamed that the wall of indifference around him would not be so discouragingly impenetrable, and at once received indisputable, nationwide and full recognition. From now on, Michurin exchanged telegrams with Stalin on every suitable occasion, and an important change appeared in his long-term daily routine - now from twelve to two in the afternoon he received delegations of scientists, collective farmers and workers. By the spring of 1919, the number of experiments in the Michurinsky garden had increased to several hundred. At the same time, the formerly unsociable Ivan Vladimirovich advised agricultural workers on the problems of raising yields, combating drought and breeding, participated in the agronomic work of the People's Commissariat for Agriculture, and also spoke to numerous students, eagerly catching every word of the master.
It should be noted that Michurin - a vivid adherent of the scientific organization of labor - at the age of forty-five (in 1900) established a rigid daily routine, which remained unchanged until the very end of his life. The breeder got up at five in the morning and worked in the garden until twelve, with a break for breakfast at eight in the morning. At noon he had lunch, then until three o'clock in the afternoon he rested and read newspapers, as well as special literature (after the revolution, he received delegations). From 3 pm until the evening, Ivan Vladimirovich again worked in the nursery or, depending on the weather and circumstances, in his office. He ate supper at 21 o'clock and worked until midnight on the correspondence, and then went to bed.
A curious fact, when Ivan Vladimirovich had a streak of failures, he temporarily broke away from his beloved plant world and moved on to other work - he repaired watches and cameras, was engaged in mechanics, modernized barometers and invented unique tools for gardeners. Michurin himself explained this by the need to "refresh the thinking abilities." After the break, he took up his main activity with renewed vigor. A multifunctional natural scientist's office, he simultaneously served as a laboratory, a workshop for optics and mechanics, a library, and also a blacksmith. In addition to numerous barometers and secateurs, Ivan Vladimirovich invented and made a device for measuring radiation, an elegant distillation apparatus for distilling essential oil from rose petals, a grafting chisel, a cigarette case, a lighter, and a special machine for stuffing cigarettes with tobacco. Designed by a biologist and a lightweight internal combustion engine for his own needs. In his experiments, he used electricity generated by a hand-held dynamo machine he had assembled. For a long time, the breeder could not afford to buy a typewriter, in the end he made it himself. In addition, he invented and built a metal portable portable oven in which he soldered and forged his equipment. He also had a unique workshop for making dummies of vegetables and fruits from wax. They were reputed to be the best in the world and were so skillful that many tried to bite them. In the same office-workshop Michurin received visitors. Here is how one of them described the room: “Behind the glass of one cabinet there are test tubes, flasks, flasks, jars, bent tubes. Behind the glass of another - models of berries and fruits. On the tables are letters, drawings, drawings, manuscripts. Wherever there is space, various electrical appliances and apparatus are placed. In one corner, between the bookshelf and the workbench, is an oak cabinet with all kinds of carpentry, locksmith and turning tools. In other corners, garden forks, hoes, shovels, saws, sprayers and pruners. On the table are a microscope and magnifiers, on a workbench a vise, a typewriter and an electrostatic machine, on a bookcase are notebooks and diaries. On the walls there are geographical maps, thermometers, barometers, chronometers, hygrometers. By the window there is a lathe, and next to it is a cabinet decorated with carvings with seeds obtained from all over the world."
The gardener's second life lasted eighteen years. By 1920, he had developed over one hundred and fifty new hybrid varieties of cherries, pears, apples, raspberries, currants, grapes, plums, and many other crops. In 1927, on the initiative of a prominent Soviet geneticist, Professor Iosif Gorshkov, the film South in Tambov was released, which promoted Michurin's achievements. In June 1931, the breeder for his fruitful work was awarded the honorary Order of Lenin, and in 1932 the ancient city of Kozlov was renamed Michurinsk, turning into an all-Russian center of horticulture. In addition to large fruit nurseries and fruit growing farms, Michurin State Agrarian University and the Michurin Research Institute of Fruit Growing subsequently appeared there.
The disciples of the great biologist told legends about how Michurin could talk for hours with dying plants, and they came back to life. He could also enter any unfamiliar courtyard and the huge watchdogs did not bark at the same time. And out of hundreds of seedlings, with some supernatural instinct, he rejected those that were not viable. The disciples tried to transplant secretly discarded seedlings, but they never took root.
Almost the entire winter of 1934-1935, despite age-related malaise, Ivan Vladimirovich worked actively, without violating the established regime for decades. As always, delegations came to him, his closest students were always with him. In addition, Ivan Vladimirovich corresponded with all the leading breeders of the Soviet Union. In February 1935, the seventy-nine-year-old scientist suddenly fell ill - his strength weakened, he lost his appetite. Despite his condition, Michurin continued to be engaged in all the work carried out in the nursery. Throughout March and April, between attacks, he worked hard. At the end of April, the Kremlin's Main Sanitary Directorate, together with the People's Commissariat for Health, appointed a special council, which discovered stomach cancer in the patient. In connection with the serious condition of the patient, a second consultation was organized in mid-May, which confirmed the diagnosis of the first one. Doctors were constantly with the gardener, but throughout May and the beginning of June Michurin, who was on artificial nutrition, tormented by severe pain and bloody vomiting, without getting out of bed, continued to look through the correspondence, and also to advise his students. He constantly called them, gave instructions and made edits to the work plans. There were a great many new breeding projects in Michurin's nursery - and the students, with choked, choppy voices, informed the old gardener of the fresh results. The consciousness of Ivan Vladimirovich died out at nine o'clock in the morning and thirty minutes on June 7, 1935. He was buried next to the agricultural institute he created.
