As academician Nesmeyanov proposed to feed the Soviet people with food from oil. How academician Nesmeyanov proposed to feed the Soviet people with food from oil Nesmeyanov, a scientist
From 1948 to 1951 - Rector of the Moscow state university them. M. V. Lomonosov. From 1954 to 1980 - Director of the Institute of Organoelement Compounds of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1951-1961 - President of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Twice Hero of Socialist Labor (1969, 1979).
Biography
Born August 28 (September 9), 1899 in Moscow in a family of teachers. Father - Nikolai Vasilyevich Nesmeyanov, after graduating from the Faculty of Law of Moscow University, became interested in enlightenment, began to teach at a rural school, then headed an orphanage; mother - Lyudmila Danilovna, was a multi-talented teacher. From childhood, Alexander Nesmeyanov was distinguished by his lively mind and independent character. He became interested in chemistry from the age of thirteen, by which time he had become interested in various branches of biology: entomology, hydrobiology, ornithology.
In 1917 Alexander graduated from silver medal P. N. Strakhov’s private Moscow gymnasium and entered the natural department of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Moscow University. Studying in the revolutionary era required great self-sacrifice and fanatical enthusiasm: they studied in unheated rooms, there was not enough laboratory equipment. Working as a night watchman at the faculty, he lived in the laboratory of N. D. Zelinsky, devoting all his time to scientific experiments. In the summer of 1920, together with relatives and friends, he went to the village for bread.
After graduating from the university (1922), Nesmeyanov remained at the department of Academician N. D. Zelinsky, where in 1924-1938 he held the positions of assistant, associate professor, professor (since 1935). From 1938 he headed the Department of Organic Chemistry of the Institute of Fine Chemical Technology, in 1939-1954 Nesmeyanov was the director of the Institute of Organic Chemistry of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Founder and first director (1954-1980) of the Institute of Organoelement Compounds of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1939 he was elected a corresponding member, and in 1943 - an academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences in the Department of Chemical Sciences (in 1946-1951, academician-secretary of the Department). Member of the CPSU (b) since 1944.
At the end of the Great Patriotic War Alexander Nikolaevich returns to his native university: since 1944 he has been the head of the Department of Organic Chemistry, in 1945-1948 he was the dean of the Faculty of Chemistry, and in 1948-1951 he was the rector of Moscow State University.
At the stage of the post-war revival of the national economy, the university was supposed to provide training for the leading industries and the development of science in the main areas. The state was faced with the task of a qualitative cardinal re-equipment of the country's leading university and largest center world science.
During the period of Nesmeyanov's rectorship, the construction of a large complex of university buildings on the Sparrow (Lenin) Hills began. Under these conditions, Alexander Nikolayevich devoted much energy to the development of the material and technical base of the university.
Under his leadership, competent commissions were created to develop technical specifications for the placement of university units in a new location. They worked in close creative contact with the author's group of architects (full members of the Academy of Architecture of the USSR L. V. Rudnev, S. E. Chernyshev, architects A. F. Khryakov, P. V. Abrosimov), with builders (A. N. Komarovsky, A. V. Voronkov). The construction of new buildings of Moscow State University has become a truly nationwide affair, it required enthusiasm, ingenuity, active participation of people of various professions and various strata. Soviet society(from shock Komsomol brigades to detachments of Gulag prisoners).
Simultaneously with the colossal construction, the development of the university structure is taking place, learning programs. Yes, in educational plans natural faculties were introduced courses in the history of science. In 1948 Department of Biology was reorganized into a biological-soil. The following year, the construction of an agrobiological station in Chashnikovo began. At the same time, on the basis of the geological department of the Faculty of Geology and Soil Science, the Faculty of Geology was created and the departments were organized: crystallography and crystal chemistry; history of geological sciences. In 1950, assistance was provided to the University of Chisinau with literature, scientific and educational instruments and equipment.
In 1950-1962, Nesmeyanov was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
Alexander Nikolayevich was one of the greatest organic chemists of the 20th century. He performed a number of fundamental works on the theory of the structure and reactivity of organic compounds and created a new discipline lying on the border of inorganic and organic chemistry, which, at his suggestion, was called "the chemistry of organoelement compounds". Nesmeyanov founded a large scientific school in this area. In 1954, the first Institute of Organoelement Compounds of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR was opened, which he headed (currently the Institute named after A.N. Nesmeyanov).
In May 1969, at a meeting of the Academic Council of the Institute of Organoelement Compounds, Nesmeyanov spoke out against the election of Candidate of Chemical Sciences Rokhlin as a senior researcher, stating “I am a vindictive person. Last year, Rokhlin was among those who opposed the introduction of Soviet troops to Czechoslovakia. It is curious that this speech by Nesmeyanov did not affect the results of the vote, and Rokhlin was elected a senior researcher.
In addition to chemistry, he was interested in literature, wrote poetry.
Alexander Nikolayevich Nesmeyanov died on January 17, 1980 in Moscow. He was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery.
Merits
Alexander Nikolayevich's work on the chemistry of organoelement compounds brought him fame and recognition not only in our country, but also in the world. They were awarded the Stalin Prize of the first degree (1942; awarded in 1943) and the Lenin Prize (1966). Twice, in 1969 and 1979, he was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor. He was elected an honorary member of several dozen foreign national academies and learned societies. Awarded with the Gold Medal. D. I. Mendeleev (1977) "for a series of works in the field of organometallic compounds and obtaining food products from non-traditional sources." V Mendeleev reader.
Memory
One of the streets of the Gagarinsky district of Moscow is named after him. Russian Academy Sciences established the A. N. Nesmeyanov Prize, awarded since 1995 for outstanding work in the field of chemistry of organoelement compounds.
Legends of Moscow State University. Academician Nesmeyanov and cranberries.
Attention, warning: The information contained in the Legend is based on university folklore and may not be true!
It is impossible to imagine Russian Science without the old traditions of the feast.
Informal communication and learning in laboratories, seminars and conferences is no less important than formal communication and formal learning. And it's not so important - you speak for science at a chic banquet in a restaurant with cognac, champagne and salmon, or over a tin mug of denatured alcohol for three, sniffing the last "Belomor". The main thing in such things is a wise and worthy interlocutor and the Metaphysical Depth and Breadth of the Coverage of the discussed problems.
The so-called "pub science" conversation exists, of course, in the West, but in Russian scientific schools alcohol-esoteric approach to the comprehension of scientific, philosophical and metaphysical problems reaches its peak!
The interlocutor, Breadth and Depth of coverage of the problem, of course, is most important, but the drink consumed, after all, plays a certain role. The most iconic drink of Russian people in general and Russian scientists in particular is, of course, 40-degree Russian Vodka, it's hard to argue with that.
And everyone, of course, knows the Legend about the invention of this iconic 40-degree drink - it was invented, according to the Legend, by the great Russian scientist Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev during his PhD thesis. According to the Legend, his dissertation was devoted to the physical chemistry of alcohol hydration, he prepared mixtures of water and alcohol of different concentrations, measured the energy output, but the rest of scientific work don’t throw away mixtures of water and alcohol, right? .... Well, and thus, according to the Legend, he came to the conclusion that of all possible combinations, it is 40% alcohol that is most beneficial to health and has various amazing properties. However, I also heard a slightly different version - that it was not only the gastronomic preferences of the graduate student Mendeleev, but, it seems, there is some other scientific physico-chemical background under this, energy optimization, or what?
All this is already a classic of Russian Mythology, I have not heard any alternative versions about Moscow University, so it looks like we will have to admit defeat from the Petersburgers on the field of Legends about the invention of the Greatest Russian Drink, alas... ...
But there is another drink that, at least in academic circles, boldly takes 2-3 places and is not much inferior to vodka in popularity. So we're still fighting for second place!
The recipe for this drink is as follows: 1 kilogram of cranberries is homogenized using a homogenizer or ground in a mortar, then the cranberry homogenate is placed in a five-liter conical glass flask, mixed with 1 kg of sugar, 1 liter of pure medical alcohol is added to this, mixed and gently heated on a magnetic stirrer with heating (do not heat on an open fire, it is dangerous!)
Then the mixture is poured into centrifuge glasses, centrifuged in a centrifuge. The supernatant is collected in conical flasks, cooled. They drink the drink chilled from measuring cylinders.
The thoughtful reader, of course, has already guessed that we are talking about cranberry - the favorite drink of natural scientists. Cranberry is drunk amazingly, and it hits the balls even better!
For modern biologists, chemists, biochemists, physicists, soil scientists, geologists, this drink has already become such a familiar part of laboratory life that few people think about the question, where did it actually come from?
So, one of the Legends of Moscow University says that this drink is relatively young, and it was invented in the laboratory of the Legendary Russian Chemist Academician Nesmeyanov, and, it seems, Academician Nesmeyanov himself was directly involved in trying out various recipes for alcohol-berry mixtures, and came to As a result, to the conclusion that cranberries are still the best shader of the amazing qualities of medical alcohol.
And Alexander Nikolayevich Nesmeyanov himself, like Mendeleev, was not only a chemist, but also generally versatile. developed person, apparently with great enthusiasm and a sense of humor, and, in addition to the Legend of Cranberries, left other Legendary stories about himself in university folklore. At one time he was even the rector of our University, and then for a long time he headed the Institute of Organoelement Compounds of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Additional Information:
1) And here - Legends about another very extraordinary rector of Moscow State University, Academician Petrovsky
NESMEYANOV, ALEXANDER NIKOLAEVICH(1899–1980), Russian chemist. Born August 28 (September 9), 1899 in Moscow. His father was the director of the Bakhrushinsky orphanage in Moscow. In 1908, Nesmeyanov entered the Strakhov private gymnasium, and at the same time studied Latin and Greek with his father. In 1917 he became a student of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at Moscow University. All the years of study he worked: as a night watchman at the Faculty of Chemistry, as a laboratory assistant at the Military Pedagogical Academy. In 1922 he graduated from the university and was left at the department on the recommendation of Academician N.D.Zelinsky. He also proposed the topic of Nesmeyanov's first work, which was related to the chemistry of cyclopropanes. After several years of research, Nesmeyanov formulated his own problem - to find esters of complex acids of the type HHg II I 3 , HPb II I 2 . It was known that a direct connection, for example, CH 3 I with HgI 2 does not give anything, and the scientist decided to decompose the phenyldiazonium salts of those complex acids, the esters of which were required to be obtained. The decomposition of the HgI 3 salt in 1929 marked the beginning of a whole trend in organic chemistry - the preparation of organometallic compounds using double diazonium salts (Nesmeyanov's diazo method). In contrast to direct metalation methods, which result in mixtures of difficult-to-separate isomers, the diazo method made it possible to introduce a metal atom into a fixed position in the molecule. With its help, key organometallic compounds were synthesized, which, in turn, served as starting materials for the synthesis of various classes of organoelement compounds. In 1935–1948, Nesmeyanov and his students investigated numerous ways of the interconversion of various organometallic compounds, in particular, the mutual transitions between mercury organic compounds and organic compounds Mg, Zn, Cd, Al, Tl, Sn, etc. The extensive experimental material accumulated in the course of these studies made it possible to formulate a pattern between the position of an element in Periodic table and its ability to form organic compounds.
A large place in the work of Nesmeyanov was occupied by questions of stereochemistry, primarily the study of the geometric isomerism of ethylene organometallic compounds. They were obtained in pure form b- vinyl chloride derivatives of Hg, Sb, Sn, Ta, etc. These works led to the establishment of the most important rule in stereochemistry for the non-reversal of the stereochemical configuration in the processes of electrophilic and radical substitution at a carbon atom linked by a carbon-carbon double bond.
Nesmeyanov paid special attention to the problem, first posed by A.M. Butlerov and V.V. Markovnikov, about the mutual influence of atoms in molecules. In this regard, he carried out extensive studies of the properties and structure of the products of the addition of metal salts and non-metal halides to unsaturated compounds. These substances had a specific reactivity, expressed in the duality of their chemical behavior. Nesmeyanov proved that they are true organoelement compounds (that is, they contain a carbon-metal bond), and not complex ones. The question of their dual behavior was wholly related to the problem of the mutual influence of atoms. Within the framework of these studies, the concept of conjugation of simple bonds, reactions with the transfer of the reaction center, and the mechanism of electrophilic substitution at a saturated carbon atom were developed.
In 1954–1960, Nesmeyanov carried out a number of works in the field of chemistry of chlorovinyl ketones (together with R.Kh. Freidlina), phosphorus-, fluorine-, and magnesium-organic compounds. In 1960, he discovered the phenomenon of metallotropy - the reversible transfer of an organomercury residue between oxy- and nitroso groups n-nitrosophenol, in 1960–1970 the foundations of a new line of research were laid - the creation of synthetic food products. The pathways for the synthesis of amino acids and protein products have been established.
Nesmeyanov was not only a talented scientist, but also a brilliant organizer, teacher, and popularizer of science. Constantly working at Moscow State University (from 1922 - assistant, from 1935 - professor, from 1944 - head of the department of organic chemistry, in 1944-1948 - dean of the Faculty of Chemistry, in 1948-1951 - rector), he simultaneously headed various departments at the Institute of Organic Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences USSR (1935), the Institute of Fine Chemical Technology (1938–1941), etc. In 1948–1953, being the rector of Moscow State University, he was directly involved in the design and construction of a new university building on the Lenin Hills. In 1956, at his suggestion, the All-Union Institute of Scientific and Technical Information (VINITI) was established. In 1954, Nesmeyanov organized and headed the Institute of Organoelement Compounds, which now bears his name. In 1951–1961 he was president of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
In the 1960s ex-president Soviet Academy of Sciences Nesmeyanov developed a method for obtaining yeast from oil. His first artificial product is the protein "black caviar". A staunch vegetarian himself, he proposed not to drive oil abroad, but to use it to feed Soviet people.
Alexander Nesmeyanov was born in 1899. After February Revolution joined the Social Revolutionaries, after the October - to its left faction, to the end of the Civil - went over to the side of the Bolsheviks. A huge moral shock for him was the Great Famine of 1920-22. Nesmeyanov went with a food detachment to seize bread from the peasants. Starvation, cannibalism, the loss of human appearance by the peasants shocked him. He swore to himself to devote his life to solving the food problem not only in Russia, but throughout the world.
Nesmeyanov successfully climbed the career ladder of a chemist, survived the Stalinist purges, and in 1951 headed Soviet Academy Sciences. However, in 1961, he had a strong quarrel with the head of the country, Nikita Khrushchev, and was removed from his post.
One of the main disagreements with Khrushchev was Nesmeyanov's original vision of how to solve the food problem in the country. If head Soviet state believed that the plowing of virgin lands, land reclamation, breeding of new varieties of plants and livestock breeds can feed the Soviet people, then the scientist - the intensification of chemical production. The chemist believed that even a poor, war-ravaged country would take decades to develop agriculture, while soviet man I wanted to eat a lot and eat cheaply now.
Since the second half of the 1950s, under the leadership of Nesmeyanov, chemical and biological institutes have been working on creating food from hydrocarbons.
The same scientific process went not only in the USSR, but also in other developed countries. Nesmeyanov and laureate Nobel Prize, Englishman Alexander Todd met in the summer of 1955 at a meeting of the International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry, and in a conversation they found that both considered it desirable to train young chemists abroad. In the autumn of the same year, Alexei Kosygin, deputy chairman of the Soviet government, came to England, visited Cambridge and listened to Todd's proposal to accept two trainees from the USSR. As a result, in the fall of 1956, the first trainees from the USSR arrived in Cambridge - chemists N. Kochetkov and E. Mistryukov.
Nesmeyanov's interest in the synthesis of food had a second reason. Even before the Revolution, he became a staunch vegetarian. The problem he wanted to solve was to get food protein without killing animals. Tatyana Nikolaevna, his sister, recalls: “At the age of nine, Shura refused to eat meat, and at the age of twelve he became a complete vegetarian, refusing fish as well. It was based on the firm belief that animals should not be killed. This was not inspired by anyone, and all his life he did not change the word given to himself once in childhood.
By 1964, Nesmeyanov developed and mastered by the industry a method for preparing protein granular caviar, similar to sturgeon caviar, based on milk proteins (more precisely, milk production waste - skim milk).
Another direction is the cultivation of yeast on oil hydrocarbons and the production of food protein from them. And another way, purely chemical, is the synthesis of amino acids that form the basis of proteins. This work was carried out at INEOS (Institute of Organoelement Compounds) and at some institutes in Leningrad. A special building for food synthesis laboratories was even attached to INEOS.
Doctor of Chemical Sciences G.L. Slonimsky recalled how this process went:
“For the first time I heard about this problem at a meeting of the scientific council of our institute, at which Nesmeyanov outlined all its aspects in detail. To my question why A.N. did not say anything about the taste of food, he replied that the taste is of no interest, since it is easily created by a mixture of four components - sweet, salty, sour and bitter, such as sugar, common salt, some food acid and caffeine or quinine. I immediately objected, noting that taste is determined not only by the chemical action of food components on taste buds, but also by the mechanical properties of food, its coarse and fine structure. The same puff cake - in its usual form and passed through a meat grinder - will taste different. A.N. immediately agreed and asked who would be able to work on this? I replied that since the main problem of our laboratory is the study of the physical structure and mechanical properties of polymers and their solutions, and proteins and polysaccharides are also polymers, I am ready to start these studies.
(Academician Nesmeyanov (right) tasting artificial black caviar)
A few days after a detailed discussion with A.N. in our laboratory, we set up the first experiments on the formation of pasta from food protein. When I showed them to A.N., he immediately tried it, said “Nothing” and was obviously pleased with the result.
A few days later, in a conversation with me, he dropped: “You know, if you are already seriously engaged in this, then I think you should start with something that would stun people and break through the wall of distrust in artificial food!” When I asked what he meant, A.N. dreamily said: “Well, for example, granular caviar!”
I immediately had an idea how to mold the eggs, so I replied that I would try to do it. Already in 1964, we made the first samples of artificial granular caviar from skimmed milk in the laboratory. And then the Institute developed the technology of its production. Since then, this cheap and tasty product called “Protein Grained Caviar” (based on casein, protein from broken eggs and other food waste) has been made in Moscow and other cities. A.N. was very pleased, but scolded me for the fact that caviar contains gelatin - he was a staunch vegetarian.
Nesmeyanov also tried to fundamentally, ideologically justify the production of artificial food. In one of his articles he wrote:
“Nature did not set itself the goal of feeding man. Once upon a time, the sun lit up on its own. But unlike the sun, alfalfa, and calves, we have intelligence. We can make a calculation of the food chain and come to the conclusion that it is difficult to feed properly with such a chain. We need to fix it, improve it!
Under the former agriculture only one boy in ten can be fed veal chops. For the share of the rest - rice porridge or soybeans.
What will we win?
Reliability first. There are no crop failures. We have won hygiene. Synthetic food is fresher: it does not need to be stored for a long time.
Synthetic food can be accurately dosed, adapted to the needs of the average person in general and this individual in particular. The product contains a medically established proportion of fats, proteins and carbohydrates, and there are no more fat people with obesity of the heart, no more diseases of the stomach and liver. And for the patient, you can choose special diets.
The third benefit, but not the last one, is the moral one.
Eating meat, we are forced to kill millions of bulls, rams, pigs, geese, ducks, chickens, accustoming thousands and thousands of people to cold-blooded bloodshed, to bloody and dirty work. And this does not really fit with the upbringing of love for nature, kindness, cordiality. There will be meat, but without bloodshed - artificial, made of polymers. There will be animals, but in parks, in the wild.”
In another of his works, “Artificial and Synthetic Food” (1969), he described how such food is created:
“First of all, it is necessary to synthesize the most expensive products - protein products, primarily the replacement of meat and dairy products.
In the microcosm, among algae, yeast and non-pathogenic microorganisms, there are cultures that are rich sources of complete proteins. Thus, yeast cultures are known that are very rich in complete protein, but are still not used for cooking. They are grown on cheap raw materials. For example, crops such as Torula and Candida tropicalis, the basis for the growth of which are the waste of the alcohol industry and liquid paraffins of oil.
The cultivation of yeast on hydrocarbons is currently very well developed. The resulting biomass contains about 40% proteins. The action of proteolytic enzymes on this biomass leads to the hydrolysis of protein molecules. The amount of chromatographically pure amino acids can be isolated from the product thus obtained, for which the method of displacement ion-exchange chromatography is used.
In order to use such yeast in human nutrition, of course, it is necessary to completely remove from them all impurities that could get from the culture medium, and to isolate and then purify the most nutritionally valuable components. The most valuable nutritionally integral part yeast is a protein, or rather a mixture of proteins that can be isolated in the form of pure proteins or their constituent L-amino acids.
To use proteins isolated from microbiological raw materials directly for food purposes, it is necessary to eliminate the undesirable factors inherent in yeast (unpleasant color, smell, foreign taste). In terms of their biological value, such proteins can be brought to the level of the best proteins of animal origin. It was possible, for example, to show that the isolated total protein of Micrococcus glutamicus does not differ in amino acid composition from the protein of chicken eggs.
Academician Nesmeyanov in the late 1960s calculated that yeast "meat", literally grown on oil, could be brought up to 40-60 kopecks per kilogram at cost, "butter" and "cheese" from oil - about 80 kopecks. These prices were 3-4 times lower than in retail. He paraphrased famous phrase his colleague, the chemist Mendeleev, “Stoking a furnace with oil is the same as heating with banknotes” - “Selling oil abroad is depriving the country of food.”
But the academician's idea had reverse side, more precisely, a few. In the case of the start of large-scale production of proteins from oil in Soviet agriculture, 70-80% of collective farmers would be unnecessary. Where to put them? Again, several tens of millions of people unprepared for this city?
Nesmeyanov himself wrote about this:
“About a third of our workers are employed in agriculture. Add to them drivers and railroad workers transporting products; add workers of tractor, combine, automobile factories; add the food and canning industry, warehouse workers. It turns out that at least half of the able-bodied people are employed in our food industry. And we still did not take into account the hands of a woman, busy for two hours a day peeling potatoes, vegetables, fussing with meat, boiled, fried, turned, baked.
What should these hands be applied to, where will tens of millions of liberated workers go? At least for service. It is more convenient to live, more pleasant to live, if there are many shops, and there are many sellers, if there are many cinemas and theaters, many laundries and hairdressers, many buses and trolleybuses, many hospitals and many nurseries, kindergartens and schools.
When free hands (and heads) appear, there will also be free time. It's interconnected. If a society spends half of its labor on food, then the average member of this society spends half of his working time (and earnings) on food. But when the labor of producing food is reduced to a minimum, the time required for this production is reduced to a minimum. Time is freed up.
For what? This is where it gets up, a difficult task has already arisen on a national scale: to teach people to use time wisely, to open their eyes to the world.”
The second problem is that the USSR, starting from the late 1960s, urgently needed a currency: for the purchase of machine tools, consumer goods and the same food - grain. By the way, Nesmeyanov did not propose to synthesize bread from oil (as well as carbohydrates in general, as well as fruits and vegetables) - their cost was lower when grown on the ground than in a test tube.
Finally, the top authorities believed (apparently, reasonably) that the Soviet people were not yet ethically ready to eat ersatz instead of real meat and dairy products, and, on the contrary, he would perceive the appearance of such “products” as a weakness of the state (“he cannot properly feed”) , not its scientific strength.
The projects of Academician Nesmeyanov remained at the level of laboratory developments. Although in the late 1970s, when the food problem worsened, he proposed a new idea - to get protein from algae (chlorella, etc.), but in January 1980 Nesmeyanov died, and apart from him there were no more scientific authorities whose administrative weight could push through even pilot production of ersatz.
More on the Nutrition Interpreter's Blog.
I begin the most difficult section of my story for me. Going back far, to my age of five. Once, walking around our garden - from the residential building towards the bathhouse and laundry building, I saw the janitor Matvey, whom I knew - a small, bow-legged peasant with a beautiful duck under his arm and a large knife in his hand. Curious, I followed him. Having reached the laundry room and stopping at a log stump standing upright, he put the duck on the log and quickly cut off her head. The duck desperately flapped its wings and, escaping, flew without a head and fell about 20 steps. Toddler, I took this with philosophical interest. There was no pity. It was just an interesting experiment. But in retrospect, all this was painted and still is painted in tones of deep indignation and own impotence.
When I was 65 years old, I learned from Igor Evgenievich Tamm (physicist, academician) that his grandson, Vereshchinsky, then a boy of 13, was a vegetarian by conviction. I asked Igor Evgenievich to introduce me to his grandson. They were with us - a charming grandfather and a charming grandson, and the boy told me about his "seduction" into vegetarianism: the cook turned the head of a chicken in front of the children. Vereshchinsky and his sister grabbed their knives and rushed at the cook. And I, a 65-year-old man, envied their reaction and recalled my behavior with shame.
Several years passed before I began to realize that I was living in a world of constant cold-blooded murder. At the age of 9-10, I categorically told my parents that I would not eat meat. Dad reacted calmly and respectfully to this, and mom, with extreme concern (probably for my health) and, being an imperious nature, used every exhortation and power to force me to eat "like all people." In discussions with me, she brought many arguments that were weighty in her eyes, and sometimes it was difficult for me to challenge them: where would the animals go if they were not eaten; a person cannot live and be healthy without meat food. My position was - "without me", "I do not want to participate in this, I cannot and will not." At first, however, palliatives were achieved: my mother persuaded me to eat meat soup (to which she attached some special nutritional value), fish (which is not a pity) and a shot bird. The latter was based on the fact that from our discussions, my mother knew that I was especially “pressed” by hopelessness, the inability to escape from my fate for the animal scheduled for slaughter. Hunting is a different matter. However, this part of the palliative was of purely theoretical significance, since no game was ever served with us. I quickly abandoned the soup palliative, and the fish palliative lasted quite a long time, and only from 1913 did I finally give up fish as well. There was such a typical case.
For some holiday, we had “brushwood” made and served with tea. I ate it like everyone else. One of the guests asked my mother for a recipe, my mother forgot about my presence and said that the dough was dipped in hot goose fat. Here she caught herself and bit her tongue. I got up from the table and left the room. I did not appear for a long time and thought about suicide. The next day, dad came to me and sincerely and well talked to me, said that my mother promised not to do such things, apologized for her. And although I began to thaw, but a significant proportion of children's love for my mother was killed forever. She surprisingly did not understand me. She never tried to treat me to “human” again, but in the kitchen I used to find duck heads, and even parts of the body of “my” calf.
My active "vegetarian feeling", reinforced by her resistance, forced the fact that I saw traces of blood and murder everywhere, if not the actual acts of murder. In the shelter, I constantly stumbled upon stumps with feathers stuck to the cut and a puddle of darkened blood, I heard the heart-rending squeal of killed pigs. In Kirzhach, I saw my grandmother buying chickens, feeling them in a cannibalistic way when buying. In Shuya, getting up early, I came across servants plucking a freshly slaughtered chicken. Returning from the gymnasium along the poetic 3rd clearing, I met a caravan of sledges or carts with skinned and decapitated corpses of cows and bulls piled on them, or corpses of pigs cut in half. All this was unbearable, stood before my eyes day and night.
If a person is robbed or killed, it is not only possible, but it is also necessary to intercede for him by any means. If an animal is killed before your eyes (or in absentia, it doesn't matter), no matter how intense your feelings, you have no right not only to save the animal, but you have no rights. Is this not a remnant of Stone Age jurisprudence? Later, I became convinced that a certain, probably small, percentage of people feel all this in the same way as I do, but then I was quite alone. Moreover, I began to see in my own mother an enemy, an intercessor and a participant in this bloody system, a rapist. Violence was (and is) all around. It was demonstrated on the streets by draft drivers who beat overloaded horses in mortal combat, knackers who destroyed horses unsuitable for work, a sanitary service that caught and killed dogs, hunters out of self-interest or much more often out of "love for nature" (!!) shot "game".
And the greatest cruelty is manifested in relation to domestic "edible" animals. It still hurts me to drive along the Kashirskoye Highway in the summer, because I meet herds of bulls and calves driven to Moscow to meet their fate. Probably, if it were not for my generally deeply optimistic nature, which is not at all prone to melancholy, I would have gone crazy. As a child, I was prone to fantasies and in my fantasies I dealt with all the butchers that came across on the way. Meeting a caravan of skinned corpses, or passing by a meat trade, or seeing a draft cab torturing a horse, I mentally shot all the participants in these bloody deeds. Although in terms of fantasy, it still reduced the nightmarish helplessness.
Later, in my old age, I learned from letters to me that I was not alone in the world with such feelings. It is clear how little these moods contributed to my rapprochement with classmates. As for the orphanage friends, I remember conversations with Generalov alone, who took a practical point of view: “How many cattle are driven to the slaughterhouse, so many will be killed, whether you eat meat or not. So nothing depends on it and it won't change anything.". All these conversations were difficult for me. I felt like I didn't have an answer for them. I then came to the conclusion that it is necessary to consider the feeling and conviction that guided me as the main, primary, and to derive everything else from them. It gave some ground under their feet. To the statement of my mother and her like-minded people like Uncle Volodya, a statement characteristic of natural scientists in general, that, they say, “ animal world it is arranged in such a way that some creatures feed on others and that this is the law of nature, ”I already knew the objection from childhood: “This is why a person masters science in order to establish his own orders and laws in nature, and not to follow the blind laws of nature. According to the law of nature, man does not fly through the air, but, using other laws of nature, he overthrew this law and flew. The goal of mankind is to overcome the bloody law of trampling some by others, primarily by man..
Much became clear to me later.
“But why breed so many animals in violation of natural evolution? They will die and they will not exist at all.”.
To a certain extent, this was justified later on the example of a horse, which is now less and less common.
Of course, in everything there is the result of gradualness and gradation, not eternal, but different in different eras. Killing a person was once an everyday occurrence. Killing a person with a mercenary purpose in my eyes is an even more serious crime than killing an animal, and killing an animal is more serious than, say, fish. Obviously, we cannot do without the destruction of insects in our era, but the conclusion does not follow from this that it should be allowed to kill animals, and then humans. Here is an approximate outline of my discussions with relatives and with myself.
After 1910, throughout my whole life I did not eat meat at all, and after 1913 I did not eat fish either, which, by the way, was not easy in the famine years of 1919-1921, when roach and herring were an essential food product. If I say not easy, then this refers only to a hungry organism, and not to the will. I could not even imagine that I would eat something that was not supposed to me according to my convictions.
In 1919, making his way to the office of the department fine arts Narkompros to Ostozhenka and back to Domnikovskaya, where I then lived in the family of Sergei Vinogradov, I indulged in hungry dreams of buckwheat porridge and other equally delicious dishes, but I could not even think of meat or fish. When I entered the apartment, I felt sick from the smell of horsemeat, which Anna Andreevna Vinogradova cooked for her family. I would certainly go to my death if I had to, just not to eat meat. This is how fanaticism arises. This is how sectarianism is born. I have always been aware of this danger and have tried to avoid it; I tried not to oppose myself to all people. Do not consider a symbol, a protest, which in essence is the rejection of meat, as the essence of the matter.
A.N. Nesmeyanov
For reference:
Alexander Nikolaevich Nesmeyanov (1899-1980) - Soviet organic chemist, organizer Soviet science. President of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1951-1961, rector of Moscow University, director of INEOS.
Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1943; corresponding member 1939). Twice Hero of Socialist Labor (1969, 1979). Laureate of the Lenin Prize (1966) and the Stalin Prize of the first degree (1943).
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