a) Biography of V.L. Komarova

b) Research by V.L. Komarova

3) Survey results

4) Conclusion

5) Literature used

Introduction.

I took this topic because the life and work of V.L. Komarov, a scientist and researcher of the Far East, is little known among school students. I was interested in the fate of this scientist, who came from a poor family, was left without a father at an early age, and at the age of 13 lost his mother. This man found strength in himself and achieved enormous success. V.L. Komarov became an outstanding scientist, president of the Academy of Sciences.

The purpose of my work was:

1. Find out what the President of the Geographical Society V.L. is famous for. Komarov?

2.What is the significance of his research in the development of the Primorsky Territory?

I set before myself tasks :

Study the biography of Komarov.

Explore his travel routes

To do this, for a month I studied:

1. Popular science literature

2.Encyclopedias

3.N. A. Gvozdetsky “V.L. Komarov"

4. Far Eastern book publishing house Vladivostok “Around the Native Land”

5.A.A. Khisamutdinov “Society for the Study of the Amur Region 1-2 parts”

I conducted a survey among eighth and ninth grade students, the purpose of which was to find out whether they knew who Komarov was.

In my work I used various methods:

1. Study the material

2. Questionnaire

3. Computer processing of material.

Biography of V.L. Komarova

Russian travel scientists made an invaluable contribution to geographical science. They have done especially much in the study of Asia: Siberia, the Far East, the deserts and mountains of Central Asia. Members of the Society for the Study of the Amur Region, created in 1884 in Vladivostok, also invested a lot of effort into the study of Primorye. On its basis, various scientific research institutes then began to be created.

One of the outstanding researchers of the Asian continent, especially its eastern outskirts, is Vladimir Leontievich Komarov. His expeditions and the materials collected in them were of particular importance for understanding the nature of Primorye.

The name of academician and botanist V.L. Komarov is widely known not only in our country, but also far beyond its borders. He, one of the first botanists, made difficult expeditions to Primorye, North-Eastern China and the Korean Peninsula. At the end of the last century, Komarov characterized all the plants growing in this vast territory, and paid special attention to the extraordinary richness of the flora of the Far East.

In past geological eras, there was no continuous glaciation in Primorye, as, for example, in Siberia and Europe. Therefore, the direct heirs of heat-loving tertiary forests were preserved here, and that mosaic combination of representatives of various botanical and geographical areas that Komarov identified and described was formed.

Vladimir Leontyevich Komarov was born on October 13, 1869 in St. Petersburg, in the family of a military man. His father died when the future researcher was one and a half years old. The widowed mother remarried, but when Vladimir Komarov was 13 years old, she also died. Since his stepfather was unfriendly towards his stepson, the boy lived with his uncle Vissarion Vissarionovich and aunt Ekaterina Grigorievna Komarov.

Young Komarov, from the age of 14, was fond of reading books on natural history, was fond of botany and began to independently study the flora of the Novgorod province, where he spent the summer months in the Borovichi district on the estate of his maternal grandfather. Self-education played a major role in his development. This hobby soon grew into a professional choice, and in 1890 the young man came to the university with clearly defined scientific interests. Contrary to the opinion of his relatives who financed his education, who did not approve of his choice and predicted his death in poverty, the future president of the Academy of Sciences was firm in his intention to devote himself to botany. In 1894 V.L. Komarov graduates from the university with a first-degree diploma. Komarov received a master's degree in botany (dissertation: Flora of Manchuria - St. Petersburg University, 1902) and a doctorate in botany (dissertation: Introduction to the floras of China and Mongolia (Moscow University, 1911). In 1901, the first volume of “Flora of Manchuria” was published ", and then two more volumes, for which the Academy of Sciences awarded him the Academician Baer Prize, and the International Academy of Botanical Geography in France awarded him a medal with a relief image of Tournefort and Linnaeus. V. L. Komarov chose botany as his specialty. Of the botanist teachers, the greatest he was influenced by A. N. Beketov - a bright scientist and public figure of that time. A. N. Beketov - the author of the first Russian "Geography of Plants" - was a wonderful lecturer who captivated his listeners, who was attentive and loving towards student youth.

In 1903-1906. V.L. Komarov conducted teaching work at the university and other higher educational institutions of St. Petersburg. At the same time, he processed the Chinese and Mongolian collections of plants collected by the great Russian travelers N.M., transferred by the Russian Geographical Society to the herbarium of the St. Petersburg Botanical Garden. Przhevalsky, G.N. Potanin and others.

In 1920 V.L. Komarov was elected a full member of the Academy of Sciences. It was here that Vladimir Leontievich’s organizational skills were revealed. In 1930 he was elected vice-president, and from 1936 - president of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

In 1944, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR awarded Komarov the title of Hero of Socialist Labor. The high government award was timed to coincide with the 75th anniversary of his birth and the 50th anniversary of scientific, social and pedagogical activity.

Komarov devoted all his strength to the development of Soviet science until the end of his life. In 1932, on the initiative of V.L. Komarov, the Far Eastern Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences was organized, which now bears the name of its creator. In the same year, he founded the Mountain-Taiga Scientific Station, the Komarovsky Nature Reserve, and subordinated the existing Kedrovaya Pad Nature Reserve to a branch of the Academy of Sciences.

The Soviet era, which gave rise to a scale of scientific research unprecedented in former Russia, gave the opportunity to V.L. Komarov to fully develop his scientific and organizational talent.

Name V.L. Komarov, an outstanding botanist and geographer, a talented organizer of scientific forces, an ardent patriot of the Motherland, has firmly entered the history of Russian and Soviet science.

The vibrant life of V.L. Komarova ended on December 5, 1945. But a number of major works devoted to the study of flora and vegetation of the South Ussuri region and Kamchatka are reference books for all students of the flora of the Far East.

Research by V.L. Komarova

On May 1, 1892, V.L. Komarov, being a student at St. Petersburg University, sets off on a long journey. The task before him was interesting and at the same time difficult. The flora of the Zeravshan mountain valley is very rich and diverse, but it has been studied too little. Many places were not visited by botanists at all.

Komarov’s journey marked the next stage in the study of this territory - a more specialized and at the same time more detailed (botanically) study. V.L. Komarov also continued the accumulation of general geographical information about the basin of the mountainous Zeravshan.

V.L. Komarov carried out expeditionary work on the Amur in 1895. From the same time, his systematic research in East Asia began. For two years of travel 1896-1897. he collected a wealth of botanical material, presented a comprehensive geographical description of the areas surveyed, gave a description of the geological structure of the relief, climate, and showed the peculiarities of life and everyday life of the population, fauna and vegetation.

Many Russian scientists and travelers devoted their energies to studying the nature of the Far East: R.K. Maak, who explored the Amur almost to the very mouth and the length of its tributary Ussuri (1855-1859), the famous Przhevalsky, who made his first trip to the Ussuri region (1867-1869), the outstanding geographer and famous revolutionary P.A. Kropotkin, who made comprehensive observations of the nature of Manchuria during his most interesting travels through the Greater Khingan and along the Sungari (1864). The famous Russian botanist, academician K.I. studied the vegetation of East Asia - Japan, China and Mongolia. Maksimovich, the flora of the Baikal region, Transbaikalia and Northern Mongolia was described by N.S. Turchanov. The area along the middle reaches of the Amur was explored in 1891 by the botanist S.I. Korzhinsky.

Because of his connection with revolutionary circles, the graduate of St. Petersburg University with great difficulty managed to obtain permission to travel to the Amur and Primorsky regions, where construction of the railway began at that time. He traveled around the southern part of the Russian Far East, visited Korea and Manchuria. To get to V.L.’s place of work. Komarov had to make a long voyage by ship from Odessa through the Suez Canal, Singapore and Nagasaki to Vladivostok. From Vladivostok he went to Iman, located in the Ussuri River basin, and then to the Amur region, where he had to determine the possibilities of economic development of land along the planned railway. The study areas in the Amur region extended from Khabarovsk to the mouth of the Bureya and Blagoveshchensk.

Landscapes among which V.L.’s routes ran. Komarov, were quite diverse.

The traveler described heavily swampy plains in the Tunguska basin. To the west of the Bureinsky ridge covered with coniferous forests stretched luxurious meadows in the valley of the Khingan and the lower reaches of its tributaries. This area, with dark soils suitable for plowing, according to Komarov, was especially convenient for settlement. The total number of species of higher plants, including trees, shrubs and grasses, is about 3000. A number of relict plants, more than 60 endemics, and more than 150 rare and endangered species have been preserved here. These are Amur velvet, poppy euonymus, aralia, Korean cedar, pointed yew, Manchurian walnut, eleutherococcus.

More than 2/3 of the territory of the Primorsky Territory is occupied by the famous Ussuri taiga with cedar-broad-leaved forests and whole-leaved fir. The most complex and multi-species, they are located on well-moistened slopes up to an altitude of 600-950 m. Among the conifers, Korean cedar and whole-leaved fir grow here, and among the deciduous trees - seven types of maples, three types of linden, ash, Mongolian oak, walnut, hornbeam, yew, birch, as well as a significant part of the Araliaceae family and ginseng.

The vines of Amur grapes, lemongrass, and actinidia are widespread. Broad-leaved forests themselves occupy relatively small areas on the plains, in river valleys and foothills. From a height of 750-800m. taiga dark coniferous forests begin with the dominance of Ayan spruce and whitebark fir, and from an altitude of 1300-1500m. – tundra vegetation.

In the north of Primorye there are light coniferous larch forests. The vegetation on the low shores of Lake Khanka is unique. The lake is surrounded by a wide strip of floodplains formed by thickets of reeds, cattails, reeds, tsitsaniya, calamus, as well as aquatic plants. Among aquatic plants there are many heat-loving subtropical species, the most famous of which is lotus.

As a result of the work carried out by V.L. Komarov published a large article “Conditions for further colonization of the Amur River.”

V.L. Komarov proved that the Amur coast was quite suitable for settlement, and this was of great importance for the construction of a railway line here in the future.

Taking into account the successful results of the work of V.L. Komarov in the Amur region, the Russian Geographical Society invited him to study Manchuria, which was then very little studied.

On May 12, 1896, members of the Manchurian expedition arrived in the village. Nikolskoye, where they started organizing the caravan. For almost a month, until permission to cross the Manchurian border was received, V.L. Komarov conducted research in the surrounding forests. He gave a wonderful description of the nature of the South Ussuri region, its originality of coniferous-deciduous forests.

Returning to St. Petersburg, V.L. Komarov reported to the Geographical Society and the St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists on the results of two years of research in the Amur region, Primorye and Northern Manchuria, and briefly described the four floristic regions he identified - Daurian, Siberian, Manchurian and Okhotsk, the boundaries of which converge in the Amur basin. The Manchurian region, little known before Komarov’s research, was covered in more detail than others. The research results turned out to be so interesting that the Geographical Society provided funds for a new journey.

Komarov's works on Manchuria and Korea are the best examples of Russian regional studies of the pre-revolutionary period. Their value is especially great because before Komarov’s travels, very little reliable information was known about these countries, especially since actual scientific information was meager.

For research in East Asia, the Russian Geographical Society awarded V.L. Komarov in 1897, the N.M. Prize. Przhevalsky.

Survey results.

Questions:

Is V.L. Komarov an outstanding botanist, researcher of the Far East? Yes or no

Was V.L. in 1936? Komarov elected president of the USSR Academy of Sciences? Yes or no

Was the Kedrovaya Pad Nature Reserve named after Komarov? Yes or no

Conclusion. Students in grades 8-9 took part in the survey. Only 100 people. The results showed that school students do not know who Komarov is and what the significance of his research is.

Conclusion

The name of Komarov is firmly entrenched in the history of Russian and Soviet science. Vladimir Leontievich made an invaluable contribution to the study of the Far East and in particular Primorye. The Kedrovaya Pad Nature Reserve (named after Komarov), the Komarov lotus, and the Komarovka River are named in his honor.

In numerous floristic works on Siberia and the Far East, V. L. Komarov gives a description of the new plant species he established. Published in 1931 and 1932, the two-volume “Identifier of Plants of the Far Eastern Territory” (written by Komarov together with the botanist E. N. Klobukova-Alisova) contains a description of 1,966 plant species, of which 146 were openly and first described by V. L. Komarov. In total, he described 222 new species of Far Eastern plants. The works on Kamchatka published by V.L. Komarov in Soviet times are very valuable not only for botanists, but also for geographers.
V.L. Komarov wrote summary works on the vegetation of Siberia, a number of works on the vegetation cover of Yakutia, Cisbaikalia, etc. In 1934, he organized the publication of the 20-volume “Flora of the USSR”, bringing together a large team of Soviet botanists to work on it. V.L. Komarov himself was not only the initiator and editor-in-chief of this major work (11 volumes were published under his editorship), but also a very productive author. The systematization of material for “Flora of the USSR” is based on the theoretical ideas of V. L. Komarov. On his initiative, the section “Economic Importance of Plants” was introduced and for the first time, for all plant species found in the country, Russian names were given, borrowed from Russian scientific literature or the languages ​​of the peoples of the USSR.

V.L. Komarov wrote a large number of general theoretical studies in the field of botany and biology, educational manuals and popular science books. In all general studies by V.L. Komarov, vegetation cover is considered in close connection with the characteristics of the natural environment, and much attention is paid to the history of the development of the natural environment as a whole and vegetation cover. Dwelling on the relationship between plants and the environment, V.L. Komarov makes extensive use of his extensive experience as a traveler-geographer, who is personally well acquainted with the types of vegetation of various zones and latitudes, from the far north to the tropics.

Let's show due respect to this greatest scientist, who devoted his entire life to botany, to his invaluable work. After all, everything that was created through long and painstaking efforts can be destroyed in an instant.

(1869 - 1945)

V. L. Komarov is an outstanding researcher of the nature and vegetation of East Asia, a systematic botanist and florist, geographer and biologist, as well as an outstanding organizer of scientific research, popularizer, historian of science, teacher and major public figure.

Komarov is world famous for his works describing the flora, vegetation and nature of individual parts of our homeland (Primorye, Kamchatka, Sayan Mountains, Baikal region, Yakutia, Zeravshan, etc.) and Mongolia for the development of a number of important issues in the theory of botany and botanical geography. Science owes Komarov, in particular, the development of a geographical-morphological method of plant taxonomy, the study of races and series of plants, the study of plant migrations, the study of meridional zoning of organisms, a description of new plant species discovered by him, etc. Being the best expert on the nature and vegetation of East Asia, Komarov not only gave a masterful description of them in his works, but raised and solved the most difficult question about the origin of the flora of this part of the Eurasian continent.

In the field of plant taxonomy and floristry, Komarov created his own large “Komarov” school, the traditions and principles of which are continued by his students and followers.

Komarov was born on October 1, 1869 in St. Petersburg into a military family. Komarov lost his father when he was one and a half years old, and his further upbringing and education took place under the supervision of his mother.

Komarov early became addicted to botany and, while still a young high school student, was studying the flora of individual places in the Borovichi and Starorussky districts of the former Novgorod province. In 1890, after graduating from a gymnasium in St. Petersburg, Komarov entered the natural sciences department of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of St. Petersburg University, where he not only studied, but also carried out extensive scientific work.

In his second and third years at the university, Komarov, with the help of the St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists, studied the vegetation of the Zeravshan River valley, the Giosar and Turkestan ranges and, on behalf of the Russian Geographical Society, explored the central part of the Karakum Desert. Here he carried out a barometric leveling of the Unguz and a chain of depressions in the central part of the Karakum Desert and, using height figures, refuted the previously existing idea of ​​the Unguz as an ancient riverbed. For this research, the Russian Geographical Society awarded Komarov a silver medal. The result of Komarov’s botanical research in Zeravshan was a number of articles (“A brief outline of the vegetation of mountain Zeravshan”, “Materials on the flora of the Turkestan Highlands. The Zeravshan basin”, etc.), in which Komarov gave a description of a number of new genera and species of plants, a diagram of altitudinal zonation in the Pamir Mountains -Alaya, outlined the genetic connections of the Turkestan flora with the Mediterranean flora, etc.

Having joined the circles of revolutionary youth at the university who studied the works of K. Marx and F. Engels, Komarov came under the supervision of the tsarist guard, which deprived him of the opportunity after graduating from the university (1894) to remain at the department to prepare for a professorship and made it very difficult to find a job somewhere at the university. permanent job. Only with great difficulty, thanks to the recommendation of the Geographical Society, Komarov got a job in the Survey Directorate of the Amur Railway and left for the Far East.

In the Far East, Komarov launched extensive research work. In 1895, he studied the vegetation of the Iman River valley, then explored the basins of the Sutara, Bidzhan and Khingan rivers, the Burey River valley, part of the Amur River valley and the lowlands along the Tunguska River valley. Winter 1895 - 1896 Komarov spent time in Blagoveshchensk, writing the article “Conditions for further colonization of the Amur.” In this work, based on

Analyzing the natural, historical and economic conditions of the region, Komarov argued that farming in the Amur Valley is both possible and advisable, that it improves the quality of meadows, increases the yield of agricultural crops, and reduces the number of harmful insects - midges.

In 1896 and 1897 Komarov, already at the expense of the Russian Geographical Society, which elected him a full member in 1895, traveled to Manchuria and North Korea. He explored the Girin and Mukden provinces, as well as the valleys of the Tumangan and Amnokkan (Yalujiang) rivers. At the same time, a lot of scientific materials and extensive collections of plants were collected, on the processing of which Komarov worked for several years. For these studies in 1897, Komarov received the Przhevalsky Prize from the Geographical Society. Upon returning to St. Petersburg, Komarov was enrolled as an assistant in the Department of Botany at St. Petersburg University in 1898, and in 1899 as a junior conservator at the Botanical Garden. Komarov did not part with this garden throughout his life, successively holding positions there: senior conservator (1902), head of the department of living plants (from 1918), head of the department of systematics and geography of plants (from 1931 to the day of his death) .

Studying the Far East, Komarov not only collected a huge amount of factual material, but also made a number of major theoretical conclusions. In 1897, Komarov’s work “Botanical-geographical regions of the Amur basin” was published, in which he showed that in the southern part of the Far East it is necessary to distinguish between four botanical-geographical (floristic) regions: Manchurian, Okhotsk, East Siberian and Daurian-Mongolian . For the Manchurian and Okhotsk regions, Komarov gave detailed descriptions, substantiated their boundaries and showed the features of the composition and origin of floras.

Komarov’s three-volume work “Flora of Manchuria” is especially important from a theoretical point of view. In addition to a very detailed and thorough description of 1682 plant species and 84 species new to science that were newly established and described by Komarov, in this work (1901) Komarov substantiated his doctrine of “race” in plants. A factor influencing the formation of new races is a change in physical and geographical conditions, especially climate. In this regard, close races, according to Komarov, never grow in the same area. 40 years later, the doctrine of race was presented by Komarov in an in-depth and refined form in his generalizing work “The Doctrine of Species in Plants” (1940), which was awarded the Stalin Prize of the first degree.

The first volume of “Flora of Manchuria” served as Komarov’s master’s thesis, which he successfully defended at St. Petersburg University in 1902. Later (1909), the author of this work was awarded the Baer Prize by the Academy of Sciences, and a medal with portraits of Tournefort and Linnaeus by the International Academy of Botanical Geography.

In 1902, Komarov went to Mongolia and the Eastern Sayan Mountains. Here he studied the flora of the region of Lake Khubsugul (Kosogol), climbed to the highest point of the Sayan - Munku-Sardyk and, in addition to general descriptions of flora and vegetation, collected interesting materials on geology, ancient glaciation of the Eastern Sayans, the origin of the flora and vegetation of the latter, etc. These materials, together with collections of Chinese and Mongolian plants processed by Komarov, accumulated in the herbarium of the St. Petersburg Botanical Garden and in the herbaria of England, France and Germany, served as the basis for Komarov’s major work “Introduction to the Floras of China and Mongolia”. In this work, Komarov used to solve the problem of the genesis of the floras of China and Mongolia a new geographical and morphological method for studying some genera of plants characteristic of these countries. As a result, he came to the conclusion that the desert flora of Mongolia was formed from xerophyllized descendants of various neighboring mountain floras, and the flora of China is associated with tropical flora, the roots of which, according to Komarov, should be sought in Indochina, and not in the Himalayas.

In the same work, Komarov developed the idea of ​​plant migration, showing the importance of migration both in the processes of speciation and in the genesis and formation of modern floras. Of particular note is the botanical and geographical division of Mongolia and China into floristic regions and regions, masterfully carried out by Komarov in the same work. It has not lost its meaning to this day.

Completed in an extremely short time (one and a half years), this two-volume work was subsequently brilliantly defended by Komarov at Moscow University as a doctoral dissertation (1911).

In 1908 and 1909 Komarov is traveling again, this time as part of the Kamchatka expedition of the Russian Geographical Society.

In 1908, Komarov studied the natural features and flora of the surrounding area of ​​Petropavlovsk and reached the city of Bolsheretsk.

In 1909, Komarov brought horses with him to Kamchatka and thanks to this he was able to make large and difficult routes (Kalakhtyrskoye Lake, the sources and valley of the Kamchatka River, Kronotskoye Lake, the coast of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk).

In addition to the vegetation cover, Komarov studied other aspects of its nature in Kamchatka (geological structure, volcanism, relief, soils, climate, wildlife, altitudinal zonation of nature, as well as the life, culture and customs of the population). The results of these studies were summarized by Komarov in a detailed comprehensive geographical work “Travels around Kamchatka in 1908 - 1909.” In addition to nature, Komarov described in detail the occupations of the population, their living conditions and outlined ways for the development of agricultural production in Kamchatka. The extensive materials collected by Komarov on the flora and vegetation of Kamchatka later served as the basis for him to compile the major three-volume “Flora of the Kamchatka Peninsula”.

The work contains a description of 825 species of plants in Kamchatka, of which 74 are new to science. In this work, Komarov again applied the geographical and morphological method of research and revealed the history of the development and origin of the flora of Kamchatka. He established that the flora of Kamchatka is little original, poor in endemic species and consists of plants partly circumpolar (found in all subpolar parts of the globe), partly common with the western coast of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, partly common with Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. Minor connections have been made with the flora of North America. Komarov identified six large botanical-geographical landscape areas in Kamchatka, giving for each of them a description of the characteristic types of vegetation and indicating the origin and routes of penetration of individual groups of species into these areas.

In 1910, Komarov was elected assistant to the chairman of the biogeographical commission of the Geographical Society.

The year 1913 finds Komarov again studying Southern Primorye. He visited the environs of Lake Khanka, the valleys of the Suputinka, Maikhe and Lefou, Daubikhe, Suchan rivers and the sea coast from Shkotovo to Suchan. At the same time, he carefully studied the natural conditions for the development of vegetation, established the basic patterns of distribution of the most important types of vegetation cover, and at the same time outlined significant prospects for the development of agriculture. Komarov’s work “Vegetation Types of the South Ussuri Region,” dedicated to the results of this research, has not lost its significance to this day. Another work by Komarov, “Plants of the South Ussuri Region,” summed up the results of the study of the flora of the region. In it, Komarov gives a summary of 1412 plant species, defines the boundaries of the South Ussuri flora and establishes the botanical and geographical regions of the latter.

For outstanding scientific achievements in botany and geography, Komarov was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences in 1914. In 1916, he received the F. P. Litke medal from the Geographical Society for a set of geographical works. In 1920, on the proposal of a group of prominent scientists (I.P. Pavlov, N.V. Nasonov and I.P. Borodin), who noted that V.L. Komarov can be considered one of the most active, talented and widely educated in natural history our botanists in general and undoubtedly the first authority on the flora of Asia, Komarov was elected a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Here, at the headquarters of Soviet science, his research and scientific-organizational work developed especially widely; in 1930 Komarov was elected vice-president, and in 1936 - president of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

Having started working at the Geographical Society as a student, Komarov established himself as one of the most active and very energetic members of the latter. With recognition of his great scientific and organizational merits, he was elected in 1918 Scientific Secretary of the Society. Komarov’s extensive and fruitful work unfolded here. He strengthens and develops the network of local departments and branches of the Geographical Society, manages a variety of research work, edits the Society's journal Izvestia, and attracts many new members, mainly from young people, into the Society.

In 1932, Komarov was elected an honorary member of the Geographical Society, and in 1940 - honorary president.

In the 20s, Komarov intensively summarized his observations and materials and wrote a number of important and new works: “A Brief Essay on the Vegetation of Siberia”, “Introduction to the Study of the Vegetation of Yakutia”, “Vegetation of the Cis-Baikal Region”, etc. All these works demonstrate the exceptional breadth of scientific Komarov's views, scientific data are masterfully summarized and a number of new theoretical positions are put forward.

An interesting geographical generalization is the statement of Komarov (1921 - 1922) about the existence of meridional zoning of organisms, which complements latitudinal zoning and should be taken into account when identifying biogeographical regions. Komarov distinguishes two types of floras on large continents: oceanic, stretched out in a narrow strip along the coasts, and continental, developing at a distance from the former. Intersecting with latitudinal zones, the number of which on Earth is seven, they give 42 floristic districts in the spaces of the Old and New Worlds, each with its own climate, soil, its own plant endemism and the predominant type of vegetation cover.

Particularly noteworthy should be Komarov’s initiative in publishing the multi-volume general “Flora of the USSR”, in the work of which he attracted a large team of Soviet botanists. Komarov was the editor-in-chief of this fundamental work, as well as its active author. He processed a number of large groups and genera of plants for him. The design of “Flora of the USSR” reflected the geographical and morphological method of plant taxonomy developed by Komarov and the concept of plant races and rows (series) of species.

In total, during Komarov’s lifetime, 11 volumes of “Flora of the USSR” were published. This publication continues successfully.

As president of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Komarov launched active efforts to radically reorganize the work of the Academy, bringing them closer to the practical needs of the Soviet country. Part of this restructuring was the organization, largely on the initiative and plan of Komarov, in different parts of the country of branches of the USSR Academy of Sciences, with the goal of a comprehensive and in-depth study of local nature and its riches. Thus, branches were established: Far Eastern (under the direct leadership of Komarov), Ural, Kola, Tajik, Armenian, Azerbaijan, Georgian, etc. By providing them with all possible scientific and organizational assistance, Komarov contributed to the growth of culture and science in national regions and republics. Many branches soon turned into independent academies of sciences of the Union republics.

Komarov was an outstanding teacher and versatile lecturer. Komarov’s main teaching activity took place at Leningrad University, where he headed the department of botany since 1918. Here he taught a number of original courses (“Theory of Speciation”, “General Fundamentals of Plant Taxonomy”, “Geography and Ecology of Plants”, “Introduction to Botany”, “Spore-bearing plants”, “The doctrine of species”, etc.).

Komarov created original teaching aids - “Practical Course of Plant Anatomy”, “Types of Plants”, which are still considered one of the best textbooks for higher education. In 1949, Komarov’s course “Introduction to Botany” was published, which he read at Leningrad University with particular brilliance.

Komarov also paid a lot of attention to the popularization of science and the history of biology. For example, Komarov’s works are widely known: “The Origin of Plants”, “The Origin of Cultivated Plants”, “Lamarck” (1925), “The Life and Works of Carl Linnaeus” (1923). Komarov devoted a lot of work to describing the routes and results of the botanical research of N. M. Przhevalsky and G. N. Potanin in Central Asia. Issues of bibliography occupied a significant place in Komarov’s works; in particular, his work “Bibliography of the flora and description of vegetation of the Far East” is very famous and is an indispensable reference book.

All his life, Komarov was closely connected with the work of Russian scientific societies: in addition to the Geographical Society, he was a member of several other Societies, and in some of them he held many elected positions; in particular, Komarov was the president of the Botanical Society, a long-term editor of the Botanical Journal and a number of other periodicals.

Komarov was an outstanding public figure: deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, deputy of the Leningrad Soviet, member of the Far Eastern Regional Executive Committee. Komarov responded vividly and passionately to all significant events in the life of the country and tirelessly attracted our scientists to solve production-related problems. In the fall of 1926, Komarov headed a delegation of Soviet scientists at the Pacific Congress in Japan.

In 1930 - 1931 Komarov again visits Primorye and prepares the basis for organizing stationary comprehensive research at the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1932, the Far Eastern Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences was established, in the work of which Komarov took an active part. In 1933 and 1935 Komarov again comes to the Far East, helps the Far Eastern Branch and its Mountain Taiga Station, and personally inspects the work of expeditions of the USSR Academy of Sciences and other institutions.

During the harsh years of the Great Patriotic War, Komarov acted as a true humanist and patriot. With fiery articles, he called on the scientists of our country to mobilize strength and knowledge in the fight against German fascism. He called on progressive foreign figures to defend democracy and culture from fascist tyranny and barbarism. During these same years, Komarov headed a special commission of the USSR Academy of Sciences to mobilize the resources of the Urals, Western Siberia and Kazakhstan for defense needs. In 1942, this work of Komarov and a number of his collaborators was awarded the second Stalin Prize, 1st degree.

In 1939, in connection with the 70th anniversary of his birth and the 45th anniversary of scientific, pedagogical and social activities, Komarov was awarded the Order of Lenin, and in 1944 - for outstanding services in the field of development of science in connection with his 75th anniversary, Komarov was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor with the Order of Lenin and the Hammer and Sickle gold medal.

Komarov died on December 5, 1945 in Moscow, without stopping scientific work until the last day of his life.

Komarov is the author of about 400 works, some of which were republished several times. In accordance with the resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, in connection with the 75th anniversary of Komarov’s birth, the USSR Academy of Sciences is publishing his many voluminous selected works.

A number of peaks and glaciers are named in honor of Komarov, including a peak in the Pamirs in the Academy of Sciences ridge, one of the highest peaks of the Sikhote-Alin mountain region, glaciers on the Kokshaal-tau ridge (Tien Shan) and in the Northern Urals. Two genera and about 90 species of plants and several species of insects are also named after him.

In commemoration of Komarov’s major scientific achievements, the USSR Academy of Sciences annually holds “Komarov Readings” at the Botanical Institute and the Far Eastern Branch. The V.L. Komarov Prize was also established, awarded by the USSR Academy of Sciences for outstanding work in the field of botanical geography, taxonomy and floristry. The name of Komarov was given to a number of institutions (Botanical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Far Eastern Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, etc.).

- Source-

Domestic physical geographers and travelers. [Essays]. Ed. N. N. Baransky [and others] M., Uchpedgiz, 1959.

Post Views: 7

Vladimir Leontievich Komarov (1869-1945)

One of the remarkable naturalists of our time, the largest researcher of Asian flora, Vladimir Leontyevich Komarov, was born on October 13, 1869 in St. Petersburg in the family of a military man. When Vladimir Leontievich was a little over one year old, his father died, and he began to receive funds for his education from a small scholarship from the Committee for Assistance to Wounded and Sick Warriors. While still a high school student, V.L. Komarov became interested in studying plants. On foot he made large botanical excursions around the bay. Novgorod province, the flora of which at that time was still very little studied. In 1886, he compiled an excellent herbarium of plants collected in Borovichi district; in the valley of the Mosta River, he discovered sage and mullein, which were extremely interesting for this area and were newcomers from the distant steppe zone. In 1890, V.L. Komarov entered St. Petersburg University and signed up for lectures by Menshutkin, Kovalevsky, Dokuchaev, Petri, Favorsky, Shimkevich and Wagner. Among the botanists, V.L. Komarov’s teachers were Beketov, Famintsyn, Borodin, and then Navashin and Rostovtsev. Already in his first year, V.L. Komarov continued the research he had begun in the Novgorod province, and in his second and third years, in 1892-1893, he made expeditions to Central Asia, to the Zeravshan valley. In 1893, V.L. Komarov carried out leveling surveys in the Kara-Kums and came to original conclusions about the genesis of the so-called “dead river” - Unguz. V.L. Komarov's travel to Central Asia in 1892 led him to a characteristic glacial area, the study of which showed him the enormous role glacial processes play in changes in nature.

The following year, V.L. Komarov again drove through the Zeravshan valley, and then went deeper into the Kara-Kum desert. He managed to penetrate very deep into the darkest desert of Central Asia. The nature here is completely different, unlike the mountainous landscape of the upper Zeravshan. Sand dunes covered with sparse vegetation stretch across a vast area here. A comparison of these regions, different in nature, although close to each other, led V.L. Komarov to a deep understanding of the role of natural factors in the distribution of plant species and their complexes and in their origin.

Already in his student years, V.L. Komarov took the position of consistent Darwinism and sided with the Marxists in his social and philosophical views. The security forces subject V.L. Komarov to secret surveillance, and then transfer him to public police surveillance. This circumstance made it impossible for V.L. Komarov to remain at the university, so after graduating from the university in 1894, he went on a three-year trip to the Far East.

This is how V.L. Komarov himself recalls these years: “In the classical school (I graduated from the Sixth Gymnasium) there were no natural sciences at all, but nevertheless, from the age of 14, I became more and more interested in reading books on natural science, and if I got into outside the city, then on excursions into nature, which is why, despite the disapproval of my relatives who subsidized me, I entered the physics and mathematics department of the current Leningrad State University. On the threshold of university life, I became very interested in Darwinism and even translated the entire volume on the origin of species. Unfortunately, later, in a moment of acute self-criticism, I burned the manuscript and now I can’t compare my translation with others. At the university, in the first two years, I enthusiastically devoted myself to working in circles where the works of K. Marx were studied, and individually I settled on F. Engels, who struck me with clarity and the consistency of his teaching, completely eclipsed in my mind our populists and even Plekhanov. After graduating from the university, I found myself under the tutelage of the judicial chamber and deprived of the right to travel. Due to poor health, I was exempt from military service, and I had to look for permanent income, and yet everywhere the notorious “certificate of trustworthiness” was required, which I, as a person under investigation, could not obtain. And the service itself was not attractive, and through the Geographical Society I was assigned to the research of the Amur Railway. I had to spend about six months going to the police department to get permission to travel to the Amur and Primorsky regions. It helped that the Amur Road was considered an important state matter, and there were few people willing to go to such a remote region.”

Since 1895, systematic research by V. L. Komarov began on the vegetation of East Asia. The Far East at that time was far from sufficiently explored. The famous traveler Przhevalsky traveled through the southern regions several times, but to the north of these regions, crossed by Przhevalsky, territories stretched for thousands of kilometers that were waiting for the explorer. A person was needed who would combine the breadth of scientific horizons with a penetrating, close interest in the smallest details of plant taxonomy, botanical geography and other branches of science.

After traveling around the Russian Far East, V.L. Komarov came to the conclusion that a number of geographical problems could be solved by exploring the areas lying south of the Amur, in Manchuria, which was then completely unexplored geographically. In the spring of 1896, V.L. Komarov from Nikolsk-Ussuriysk walked throughout the central part of Manchuria and arrived in Vladivostok in the fall. Here he boarded a ship and, rounding India, returned to Odessa.

The Russian Geographical Society, after the report of V.L. Komarov, gave him funds for further study of Manchuria, and he again, having made the same flight, organized a small party in Vladivostok to study North Korea and Manchuria. Korea was then a completely wild and sparsely populated region. V.L. Komarov walked along the valleys of the Tumyngan and Yalu rivers to Manchuria, then returned by a different route and brought to St. Petersburg a huge number of botanical materials and geographical observations.

This ended the first cycle of Far Eastern studies by V. L. Komarov. For several years, V.L. Komarov taught at the university, worked at the St. Petersburg Botanical Garden, processing the richest collections and pondering the results of botanical research. During these years, he studied the richest herbariums of the Botanical Garden and the vast botanical and geographical literature. In this literature, V.L. Komarov constantly encountered descriptions of the nature of those areas from which botanists brought their herbariums. This material prompted the talented and courageous researcher to make important generalizations. Gradually, an amazing ability developed, which has few analogies in modern natural science, to imagine each plant species in all the infinite variety of those geographical and historical factors that determine the existence and development of this species. During these years, V.L. Komarov became the largest expert on Asian flora. He then wrote the first volume of his large work "Flora of Manchuria", which was his dissertation for a master's degree in botany. The first volume of "Flora of Manchuria" was published in 1901. Already in this volume, the young botanist shows himself as a major theorist and a brilliant researcher. The three volumes of "Flora of Manchuria" contain information about 1682 plant species. Of these, 84 were first described by V. L. Komarov. In his work he does not limit himself to a comprehensive description of plants; it gives a detailed botanical and geographical description of the territories visited. "Flora of Manchuria" becomes the main basis for all further research on the flora of the Far East. The Far East has been studied so thoroughly and comprehensively by V.L. Komarov that scientists distinguish between the “Komarovsky” and “pre-Komarovsky” periods in the study of the flora of this region. Scientific institutions highly appreciate the work of the young scientist. The Russian Geographical Society awards V. L. Komarov a medal named after the famous traveler N. M. Przhevalsky; Academy of Sciences - Academician Baer Prize; International Academy of Botanical Geography - medal with portraits of Tournefort and Linnaeus.

Having received his first academic degree, V.L. Komarov in the summer of 1902, together with A.A. Elenkin, went traveling again. He traveled south from Irkutsk and Baikal to Northern Mongolia, walked from Irkutsk up the Irkut River to the highest peaks of the Sayan Range, crossed the Sayan Mountains, went to Lake Kosogol, walked around this lake and returned to Irkutsk.

Summing up the results of this expedition, V.L. Komarov analyzed the literary data remaining from his predecessors, and then formulated the main problems that were posed by science and could be solved on the basis of personal observations.

The first question that was not clarified in the works of V.L. Komarov’s predecessors was the question of the presence of traces of significant ancient glaciation in the eastern part of the Sayan Mountains. The evidence of glaciation discovered by Meglitsky and Chekanovsky, and then by the major Russian geographer and famous revolutionary Kropotkin, was not sufficient, and subsequently Chersky, refuting Kropotkin, argued that there was no ice age in Siberia at all and that all the facts indicated by Kropotkin are explained by the action of atmospheric and fluid water and river ice. Getting acquainted with the conclusions of V.L. Komarov, you see what fruitful results were produced by his exceptional observation and ability to simultaneously pay attention to both the details of the landscape and its character as a whole. Based on his numerous observations, he writes: “Summarizing everything that has been said, I think that at Munku-Sardyk we have clear traces of extremely strong glacial activity; that the entire space from the northern shore of Kosogol to Mount Alibera and from the Gargan Pass to the middle reaches of Ikhe- Ogun, and perhaps even before Turan, must have once represented almost continuous glaciation."

Next, V.L. Komarov examines the issue of the development and drying out of lakes and shows what the outline of lakes and the process of lake formation were in ancient times and what phenomena are occurring here now. The third question is the distribution of igneous rocks with a vesicular structure. V.L. Komarov traced their distribution and came to the conclusion that “it will not be difficult for geologists to establish a connection between a gigantic failure filled with lake waters, a shift that gave rise to the West Kosogolsky ridge, almost perpendicular to the system of nearby folded mountains, and powerful eruptions that gave rise to sheets of bubbly lavas to the east and northwest of the lake."

V.L. Komarov established the polar nature of the alpine and subalpine flora of these places. He found here many species identical to the polar ones. Analyzing the flora of the region, V.L. Komarov comes to very important generalizations. “Another interesting fact,” he writes, “is that in the eastern part of the Sayans there are still no species of the northern monsoon region, which already appear on the mountains at the eastern end of Lake Baikal and in the eastern Transbaikalia. This is a sharply continental flora, and oceanic forms both from the west and and from the east they do not reach it, leaving full scope for newcomers from the north. Figuratively speaking, we sometimes say that the relative richness of Atlantic North America in tertiary plant types with Europe is explained by the fact that in Europe the Ice Age, causing the retreat of these plants to the south, as if drowned them in the Mediterranean Sea, and they never returned north with the return of heat, while in America the country between the Mississippi and the Atlantic Ocean was a sufficient refuge for plants pressed by the cold of the glaciers, and then they again moved north. Applying the same reasoning to the Sayan Mountains, we can say that here the ice age completely destroyed all the tertiary flora, and the settlement of the territory liberated from glaciers was exclusively due to the northern types that developed during this very ice age. Where else do polar plants such as Dryas octopetala grow at 51° N? w. at an altitude of only 890 meters (less than 3,000 ft.). It’s not for nothing that wild reindeer are still the main game animal of the Soyots.”

In 1902, even before the trip to Kosogol, after defending his dissertation, V.L. Komarov became a private assistant professor at St. Petersburg University. As a private assistant professor, he read “The History of the Development of the Plant Kingdom” (1903-1906); theory of speciation (1908-1911); general principles of plant taxonomy (1911 -1914) and geography and ecology of plants (1914-1917). Thus, the breadth of scientific interests and talents of V.L. Komarov was revealed in pedagogical practice. Listeners saw in him a consistent Darwinist, an original systematic theorist, botanist-geographer and ecologist. His lectures were widely known far beyond the boundaries of the faculty.

1905 comes. V. L. Komarov speaks sharply and passionately at rallies against the autocracy. He helps organize appearances for members of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, organizes an association of private assistant professors, which played a well-known role in the social upsurge of the country. The revolutionary-minded scientist is subjected to all kinds of harassment by the university authorities. They were forced to allow him to give lectures and lead the student botanical circle, but in order to disrupt the normal course of classes, various obstacles were erected; he does not receive specific audiences for lectures; management deliberately changes them suddenly. But the students found their favorite lecturer and listened to him with delight.

The botanical circle of St. Petersburg University, led by V. L. Komarov, played a large role in the training of domestic botanist scientists. He was also of great importance in the ideological life of St. Petersburg students. At its meetings, which attracted up to 200 people, reports were given that were sharply directed against idealistic philosophy and against its claims to rely on natural science. In this circle, V.L. Komarov read the report “Main Trends in Biological Sciences,” which was a bright and militant preaching of Darwinism and materialism.

Simultaneously with teaching at the university, V. L. Komarov lectured on botany at Lesgaft courses until 1908, and from 1900 at women’s natural history courses at Lokhvitskaya, where he taught courses in the anatomy of plants, spore plants, flowering plants, geography of plants and teachings about plant propagation. Here V.L. Komarov organized a botanical office, a herbarium, a collection of drugs and, ultimately, created a group of botanical researchers, which later played a significant role in the development of Soviet science.

In 1905, the St. Petersburg Botanical Garden and the Russian Geographical Society decided to transfer to V.L. Komarov for scientific processing the Chinese and Mongolian collections of the Botanical Garden, the bulk of which were collected in the remarkable expeditions of the Russian Geographical Society. For two years, V.L. Komarov became acquainted with the East Asian herbarium of the Botanical Garden, which included plants from China, Manchuria, Korea, Japan, Mongolia and Tibet, in total at that time about six thousand species and 50 thousand specimens. By this time, he had already explored the flora of Manchuria, the Ussuri region, the southern part of the Amur region, and northern Korea. Based on these studies, V.L. Komarov came to the idea that the question of the systematic position and independence of a particular plant can be resolved only by tracing the history of the entire genus to which this plant belongs and establishing the division of this genus into natural groups.

As for the floristic studies of China and Mongolia, another difficulty arose here. When it came to plants found in the south, the role of the Himalayas in their genesis remained a mystery. V.L. Komarov notes that during floristic studies of these countries it is impossible to determine whether we should talk about the Himalayan element in the Chinese flora or, on the contrary, about Chinese plants in the Himalayas. The relationships between these elements of the flora were unclear. It was possible to refuse to solve the general cardinal problems of the genesis of the floras of China and Mongolia and simply register the plant species found in these countries. This was often done in floral works. The predecessors of V.L. Komarov were inclined towards this. However, they still had to point out the morphological changes that the species undergoes within its range, depending on climate and soil changes.

To solve the problem, V.L. Komarov used a selective method of monographic processing of the material. Only through monographing was it possible to establish the actual relationship of the vegetation of China and Mongolia to the vegetation of neighboring countries. V. L. Komarov approached the enormous empirical material that had to be systematized and generalized with clear general principles, already tested in his previous floristic and monographic studies. He monographically described five characteristic genera of Mongolian vegetation.

The first of these, Clematoclethra, confirmed that the flora of China is related to tropical prototypes. The study of this genus has shown that one cannot look for the roots of the Chinese flora in the Himalayas. This can be done in relation to Indo-China. According to V.L. Komarov, Indo-China and China at one time constituted one floristic region, and then differentiated, and the Ice Age caused the appearance of new plants in China, which penetrated from the north into the mountainous regions and competed with ancient tropical vegetation.

The study of another genus, Codonopsis, showed V.L. Komarov that genera, abundantly represented in Central China, have the center of their development here, no matter how far they diverge beyond China. The third genus, monographically studied by V.L. Komarov, demonstrated that plants that emigrated to neighboring countries cannot be identical with the original ones. Even with the closest movement, for example to the Himalayas, close, but still independent species are obtained. V.L. Komarov, considering the genera that spread from China to other countries, comes to the conclusion that “while the genera that arose in the southern part of the Angara continent, spreading to the west, used the Himalayas as a bridge, the genera that arose in its northern parts, emigrated to the west before the onset of the Ice Age through the Altai-Sayan mountainous country and only later received a disrupted habitat due to the displacement of species located along the route by climatic conditions caused by glaciation."

In order to find out where Mongolia received its dominant forms of desert flora, V.L. Komarov studied the genus Nitraria. It turned out that the Mongolian flora is not only of eastern origin: Nitraria came here from the west through the Aral-Caspian basin.

Processing of the genus Caragana showed that the plants of China, or rather the Angara continent, which arose during the Cretaceous period, as well as during the Eocene, have since moved westward, remaining mountain plants. Using this genus of plants as an example, V.L. Komarov shows how at a time when the individual peaks of the Himalayas had already merged into a common folded belt, another route opened for Chinese plants to move to the west. Komarov then explains that the influence of the Ice Age caused the appearance of alpine forms, and, finally, the drying of inland water basins gave impetus to new changes in vegetation.

Before V.L. Komarov, the so-called relict point of view dominated in the issues he raised. It was believed that the modern plant world within the boreal zone represents a remnant of the pre-glacial flora. Komarov complemented this view with a migration point of view. He wrote: “The migration point of view, which I deduced in particular detail on the history of caragana, does not contradict the relict one, but includes it as part of the whole. It revives the problematic history of modern plants to the clarity of a directly observable process. Let there remain even unrefuted objections to individual cases, based on the possibility of another decision parallel to the one taken. The point here is not in details, the reliability of which is virtually impossible to establish, but in revealing the general course of the process of speciation and the formation of modern floras as a whole for each specific case."

In 1908, a new period of travel to the East began. This time, the object of V.L. Komarov’s research was Kamchatka. In the nineties, Kamchatka, in the words of the famous Russian geographer Yu. M. Shokalsky, seemed to be on another planet. There were several descriptions of expeditions, the first of which was the book of the remarkable Russian traveler and scientist of the 18th century Krasheninnikov, who in 1755 published his “Description of Kamchatka”. However, in the 19th century, printed information about the nature of Kamchatka did not correspond to the variety and wealth of materials for natural scientific generalizations that could be collected there.

In 1908-1909 V.L. Komarov with his expedition walked the southern part of the peninsula from Petropavlovsk and Bolsheretsk in the south to Tigil on the shore of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk and Ust-Kamchatsk on the shore of the Pacific Ocean in the north. At that time there were no wheeled roads in Kamchatka. Komarov and his companions moved along pack trails. Overcoming a number of significant difficulties, V.L. Komarov conducted an extensive study of the nature of Kamchatka.

After Kamchatka research, V.L. Komarov again works in the South Ussuri region, studying its nature and especially its vegetation. In 1913, he made an expedition from Vladivostok to Lake Khanka, visiting the valleys of the rivers Suputinka, Maykhe, Lefou, Daubikhe, Santahezy, Suchan and the sea coast along the tract from Shkotov to the mouth of Suchan. At the same time, V.L. Komarov’s assistants explored other areas, and the expedition as a whole covered the entire “cultural” region located between the Sikhote-Alin ridge and the Pogranichny ridge.

The October Revolution revealed to V.L. Komarov the richest opportunities in scientific work. First of all, he freed himself from the restrictions imposed on him as a radically thinking privatdozent. Komarov was able to occupy the department of botany at St. Petersburg University, where for so long they did not allow an authoritative botanist who enjoyed worldwide fame to become a professor. At the university, V. L. Komarov creates the largest botanical research center; he calls his department the Department of Plant Morphology and Ecology and directs the forces of the researchers grouped around him towards experimental morphology. He retains the courses "Introduction to Botany" and "Spore Plants". At the same time, V.L. Komarov works in the Botanical Garden of the Academy of Sciences, in its herbarium - the second largest in the world in terms of volume - and in the laboratory of experimental morphology and taxonomy of plants created by Komarov.

In the activities of V.L. Komarov at this time, as in other periods of his life, university teaching is inseparable from scientific creativity. He belongs to the type of scientists who, creating new scientific values, directly present them to a wide audience. Therefore, books written as textbooks become classic scientific monographs and, conversely, botanical monographs become widespread textbooks and literature for the general public.

V. L. Komarov becomes widely known beyond his specialty. Botanists have known him since the 90s, and now he is known and appreciated by representatives of other branches of natural science. Elected back in 1914 as a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences, V. L. Komarov in 1920 was elected one of its full members.

In 1926, V.L. Komarov headed the Soviet delegation to Tokyo for the Pacific Congress. He uses this trip to expand his understanding of the vegetation of the Far East.

Following this, Yakutia became the subject of scientific research by V.L. Komarov. He leads scientific research into Yakut nature, compiling a map of the Yakut Republic, and studying its Arctic regions. Thus, the accumulation of empirical material for new geographical and botanical ideas continued steadily.

After 1930, V.L. Komarov again made an expedition to the Far East and then in 1932-1935. - to Central Asia and the Caucasus. At the end of the 30s, V.L. Komarov studied the flora of the Mediterranean Riviera and the Chamonix Valley in France. Thus, as a result of many years of geographical and botanical expeditions, he was able to study the nature and especially the vegetation of the Eurasian continent. V. L. Komarov explored this continent, gigantic in extent and diversity, from the valley of Southern France to the Pacific coast, through the steppes and ridges of Central Asia, the mountains of the Caucasus, Tien Shan and Altai, the Gobi and Kara-Kum deserts, the vast territories of Siberia, Mongolia, Korea and China. It is not surprising, therefore, that V.L. Komarov headed the enormous work of compiling the multi-volume “Flora of the USSR” - a colossal reference book in which one can find a description of any plant growing on the territory of the Soviet Union. Such a reference book has been needed for a long time. In modern botanical research, when it was necessary to process and identify any plants collected in Central Asia or in the regions of Eastern Siberia, it was necessary to resort to a huge scattered botanical literature. Ledebour's summary work on the flora of Russia was published about a hundred years ago and contained a description of only 6,568 plants, while the vegetation of the USSR includes at least 16,000-17,000 species.

V.L. Komarov gathered around him a large group of botanists and taxonomists of the Soviet Union and developed a plan for this grandiose work. “Flora of the USSR” is based on the theoretical ideas of V. L. Komarov, his doctrine of “series”, and the principles of botanical-geographical zoning that he established. Under his leadership, a special diagram was drawn up, which shows the distribution of a particular plant outside the Soviet Union. On his initiative, the “Flora of the USSR” systematically describes the economic importance of plants.

In the recently published volumes of "Flora of the USSR" 7297 plant species are described and for thousands of them the characteristics of national economic use are given. "Flora of the USSR" for the first time gives all plant species found in the country, without exception, Russian names, borrowed from Russian scientific literature or from the language of the peoples of the USSR.

V. L. Komarov’s works as taxonomy and floristry represent a deepening of Darwinism, a concretization of Darwin’s teachings, and the enrichment of it with new observations and conclusions. But other works of V.L. Komarov develop and enrich this theory, its geographical and geological or its practical conclusions. A direct development of Darwin's ideas are Komarov's theoretical concepts related to the problems of species and speciation. These concepts are presented both in works on studies of eastern flora and in special monographs. The result of V.L. Komarov’s theoretical research in the field of speciation was the book “The Doctrine of Species in Plants.” It now serves as a teaching aid in universities, has penetrated into the widest circles and at the same time is carefully studied by major scientists, for whom Komarov’s views serve as a valuable source for the further development of theoretical ideas. V.L. Komarov emphasizes the need for a historical, dynamic understanding of the species. The main idea of ​​his “Doctrine of Species in Plants” is that a species is a set of generations descending from a common ancestor and under the influence of the environment and the struggle for existence of living beings isolated by selection from the rest of the world. The theory of speciation as presented by V.L. Komarov is based on Darwin’s idea of ​​the continuous development of a species, the emergence and death of species. It asserts that a species arises and grows in a certain period of time and at a certain moment in geological history reaches a culmination point, when the number of its constituent individuals reaches its maximum, and the area occupied by it, its range, reaches its greatest extent. Finally, the emergence of new competitors in the struggle for life or changes in climate and other conditions can cause the decline of a species, a gradual decrease in the number of its constituent individuals, and even its complete extinction.

The doctrine of speciation was concretized by V.L. Komarov in his work “The Origin of Plants.” This book is extremely characteristic of the content and style of his scientific work. V. L. Komarov sets out here his botanical views in the form of a very broad picture of the evolution of organic and inorganic nature against the background of the general evolution of our planet. The enormous literary and historical erudition of V.L. Komarov allowed him to rely on a huge range of observations and facts established by science in the past, on modern research by Soviet and foreign scientists, as well as the results of his own botanical work.

Vladimir Leontievich Komarov is an outstanding historian of natural science. He owns both individual historical excursions in botanical works and special studies on the history of domestic and world science. He wrote two large volumes devoted to the history of Russian botanical and geographical travels. One of them talks about the travels of N. M. Przhevalsky, the second - about the travels of G. N. Potanin. V.L. Komarov brought into the system the botanical and geographical data scattered in the travel records of Przhevalsky and Potanin, and the herbarium materials collected by them.

Fragments on the history of natural science are also contained in “The Doctrine of Species in Plants.” V.L. Komarov analyzes the first historical ideas about the species, which arose at the end of the 17th century, and draws the historical background of these works.

In other works, V.L. Komarov reveals the historical roots of the development of botany and shows how the doctrine of species arose. He analyzes the work of Rey and Lang and Linnaeus. In the works of Linnaeus, V. L. Komarov reveals a combination of metaphysical attitudes with new views that broke with the old biblical tradition of the immutability of nature. V.L. Komarov showed how Linnaeus, in the process of developing his views, moved from traditional, outdated ideas to some evolutionary guesses. V. L. Komarov tells how the doctrine of species achieves further development in the works of Buffon and Cuvier, and at the same time formulates those progressive trends in natural science of the 18th century that prepared later evolutionary biology. At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, Lamarck's evolutionary theory appeared. Komarov reviews and analyzes this theory in several works.

It is characteristic that in his historical excursions V.L. Komarov does not limit himself to biology, but considers the development of natural philosophy and natural science in general. This helps to reveal and show with greater certainty the general ideological origins of biological theories, and, ultimately, the material historical roots of successive scientific theories.

In the historical analysis of Darwin's works, V. L. Komarov pays special attention to the idea of ​​species. “It is often said,” writes Komarov, “that Charles Darwin in his famous work “The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection” does not give a definition of what a species is, limiting itself only to evidence that the species and the variety, contrary to the statement of Linnaeus, are essentially one and the same. A variety is an incipient species, a young species, and a species is a developed variety. In fact, Charles Darwin gives a deeply thought-out doctrine of the species. In his presentation, the question “what is a natural-historical species” receives a comprehensive answer for its time." .

Based on a thorough analysis of Darwin’s statements, V.L. Komarov shows that the doctrine of a mobile, continuously developing species follows from the latter’s theory. He emphasizes the main feature of Darwin's teaching: the idea of ​​the historical connection between the evolution of a species and the evolution of its surrounding nature. For Komarov, Darwinism is one of the largest steps in the idea of ​​the unity of nature. Speaking about V. L. Komarov as a historian of natural science, one involuntarily recalls K. A. Timiryazev. Komarov’s historical statements are in many ways reminiscent of Timiryazev’s corresponding assessments, not only in similar judgments, but even in the style of presentation. This similarity is most clearly visible where Komarov writes about Timiryazev himself. K. A. Timiryazev found in V. L. Komarov the interpreter, commentator and biographer closest in spirit, in the direction of scientific interests and in the entire style of scientific creativity. According to V.L. Komarov, Timiryazev’s scientific feat lies in the synthesis of Darwin’s historical and biological method with the experimental and theoretical discoveries of physics of the 19th century, and especially with the law of conservation of energy. V.L. Komarov believes that this synthesis is connected with Timiryazev’s social worldview. Therefore, in his works about Timiryazev, Komarov pays great attention to the ideological origins of the latter’s worldview and scientific interests.

In 1944, the Institute of History of Natural Sciences was created at the USSR Academy of Sciences. V.L. Komarov, as its director, headed the work on the history of Russian and world science.

The scientific and organizational activities of V. L. Komarov played a very important role in the development of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Back in 1930, V.L. Komarov was elected vice-president of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Due to the serious illness of the president, even then a significant part of the work of leading the Academy fell on him. In 1936, after the death of Karpinsky, V.L. Komarov was unanimously elected president of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He held this post until 1945, when his health forced him to ask the Academy of Sciences for release from his duties as president. From that time on, V.L. Komarov concentrated all his efforts on final works on botany and the history of natural science.

When Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union, V.L. Komarov became not only the leader of the practical struggle of Soviet scientists to expand defense resources. He became an inspired preacher of humanism and his voice resounded throughout the country and beyond.

In the fall of 1941, when many evacuated enterprises had to quickly increase production at new sites, with new raw materials and fuel, under new conditions of transport and supply, V. L. Komarov arrived in the Urals. With the help of a large group of specialists, V.L. Komarov created a new form of scientific collective activity aimed at ensuring the great cause of victory - the Commission for the mobilization of resources of the Urals for defense needs. This Commission united the work of the USSR Academy of Sciences and other scientific institutions and established close contact with industrial enterprises of the Urals. Subsequently, the work of the Commission expanded to include Kazakhstan and Western Siberia.

These are the most significant stages of creativity and practical activity of the remarkable Russian scientist V.L. Komarov. It continued literally until the last day of his life. On the night of December 5, 1945, death interrupted the work of an outstanding worker of science, who with all his activities strengthened the power of his Motherland. “There is no greater joy for workers of science,” he said, “than the opportunity with their research to serve the great cause of strengthening socialist construction, giving happiness to our working people and bringing liberation to all humanity.”

The main works of V. L. Komarov: Flora of Manchuria, vol. I. St. Petersburg, 1901; vol. II, part I, St. Petersburg, 1903; vol. II, part 2, St. Petersburg, 1904; vol. III, part I, St. Petersburg, 1905; vol. III, part 2, St. Petersburg, 1907; Traveling around Kamchatka in 1908-1909, M., 1912; Introduction to the study of vegetation of Yakutia, L., ed. USSR Academy of Sciences, 1926; Introduction to the floras of China and Mongolia, St. Petersburg, 1908; Brief sketch of the vegetation of Siberia, Pg., 1922; Flora of the Kamchatka Peninsula, Leningrad, ed. USSR Academy of Sciences, 1929; Origin of cultivated plants, M.-L., Selkhozgiz, 1938; Selected Works, vol. I, M.-L., ed. Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1945 (Speciation; Life and works of Carl Linnaeus; The doctrine of species in plants; Lamarck, etc.); Materials on the history of flora and vegetation of the USSR, vol. I, M.-L., ed. USSR Academy of Sciences, 1941; Patriotic War and Science (collection of articles), M., Gospolitizdat, 1942; Origin of plants, M.-L., ed. USSR Academy of Sciences, 1943; Flora of the USSR and neighboring countries, M.-L., 1931; Types of plants, M.-L., ed. USSR Academy of Sciences, 1939.

About V. L. Komarov: Meshchaninov I.I. and Chernov A.G., Vladimir Leontievich Komarov, M., 1944; Shishkin B.K. and Ovchinnikov P.N., Vladimir Leontievich Komarov (on the 75th anniversary of his birth), L., 1944; To the President of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Academician Vladimir Leontievich Komarov, on his seventieth birthday and forty-fifth anniversary of scientific activity (collection), Leningrad, 1940.

Komarov, Vladimir Leontyevich

Botanist; genus. in 1869 in St. Petersburg. In 1894 he graduated from the Faculty of Natural Sciences of St. Petersburg. Univ. While still a student, he performed on behalf of St. Petersburg. total natural two trips to Turkestan, to the Samarkand district, which resulted in three works on the little-studied flora of the Zeravshan basin, for one of which he received a gold medal at the University. After graduating from the University, he took part as a naturalist in research on the construction of the Amur Railway. roads and from 1895 traveled around the Amur region, the result of which was his work “Conditions for the further colonization of the Amur (XXXII vol. “Izv. Rus. Geogr. General.”), Then he was on an expedition to Manchuria for 2 years and received a prize upon his return Przhevalsky. In 1898 he received a position as a conservator in the St. Petersburg Botanical Garden. In 1902, K. defended his master's thesis at the St. Petersburg University (1st volume of "Flora of Manchuria") and, having received the title of private associate professor of the St. Petersburg University. , opens the reading of a number of biological courses devoted primarily to the processes of speciation.In the summer of 1902, K. made a trip to the Sayan Mountains, which provided rich collections of the flora of this little-studied part of Siberia and geographical data about the Tunkinsky region and Lake Kosogol.

(Brockhaus)

Komarov, Vladimir Leontyevich

Under the leadership of K. a large team of owls. botanists undertook the work of creating “Flora of the USSR” (24 volumes, continued edition), containing a description of wild plant species growing on the territory of the USSR (the first volume was published in 1934). At K.'s suggestion, in this edition, in addition to botanical. descriptions of plants, characteristics of their economic importance were given.

One of the first K. substantiated the need to take into account biogeographical. zoning not only with the latitudinal zonality of plant distribution, running parallel to the climate. zones, but also from the meridional one. By connecting latitudinal belts with meridional ones, K. received floristic. districts with a characteristic climate, soil, endemism and dominant plant landscape for each of them. This principle was concretized using the example of Siberia ("A Brief Essay on the Vegetation of Siberia", 1922). K. is one of the creators of morphological and geographical. method in plant taxonomy. In his works, he carried out an in-depth development of this method and made it one of the working methods of taxonomy.

K. worked a lot in the field of development of general theoretical science. views on the origin and development of species in plants. He developed the theory of speciation in a number of his major works over the course of forty years. He attached decisive importance to the influence of the environment in the process of formation and development of a species, at the same time believing that a species is a certain stage in the process of evolution. He argued that the formation of each species is not a repetition of the path traversed by the ancestors, but a movement along an ascending line and represents a transition from minor quantitative changes to fundamental, qualitative changes; recognized the species as an objective fact, reality, and not a conventional unit introduced for classification purposes.

Of great importance for Russian botanical science. science has almost fifty years of scientific and organizational activity in St. Petersburg. botanical garden. Thanks to K., this garden became a prominent botanist. institution; in 1931 it was reorganized into Botanich. Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences, which in 1940 was named after K. K. also worked in the field of history of science. He wrote a number of books and articles about C. Linnaeus, J. Lamarck, K. A. Timiryazev. He owns the major work “Botanical routes of the most important Russian expeditions to Central Asia” (2 issues, 1920-28). Simultaneously with the research. K.'s work gave lectures in St. Petersburg. University and other higher educational institutions.

As vice-president and then president of the USSR Academy of Sciences, K. contributed to the organization of scientific research at the Academy related to the tasks of national economic development. On K.’s initiative and under his direct leadership, numerous branches and bases of the Academy were created locally, some of which were transformed into republican academies of sciences during K.’s lifetime. During the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45, on his initiative, a commission was formed (1941) to mobilize the resources of the Urals for defense needs, which then extended its activities to the West. Siberia and Kazakhstan; in 1942 a separate collection of his patriotic works was published. articles - "Patriotic War and Science". Laureate of the Stalin Prize (1941 and 1943).

Works: Practical course of plant anatomy, 8th ed., M.-L., 1941; Types of plants, 3rd ed., M.-L., 1939; Origin of plants, 7th ed., M.-L., 1943; Introduction to botany, M., 1949; Selected works, vol. 1 -11, M.-L., 1945-54; The doctrine of species in plants, M., 1940.

Lit.: To the President of the USSR Academy of Sciences Vladimir Leontyevich Komarov on the occasion of his seventieth birthday and forty-fifth anniversary of scientific activity, M., 1939; "Bulletin of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR", 1939, No. 10, 1944, No. 10; Vladimir Leontyevich Komarov, M.-L., 1946 (Materials for the biobibliography of scientists of the USSR. Series of biological sciences. Botany, issue 1); Shishkin V.K. and Ovchinnikov P.N., Vladimir Leontievich Komarov, L., 1944; Gvoadetsky N. A., Travels of V. L. Komarov, M., 1949; Pavlov N.V., Vladimir Leontievich Komarov, M.-L., 1951; Tarakanov K.N., V.L. Komarov and some ideological and theoretical issues of biology, "Izvestia of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Biological Series", 1956, No. 2; Kultiasov M.V., Vladimir Leontievich Komarov as a biologist (On the tenth anniversary of his death), "Journal of General Biology", 1956, v. 17, no. 2; Sochava V.B., Outstanding Russian botanist, geographer and traveler V.L. Komarov, "Botanical Journal", 1956, v. 41. No. 1; Gvozdetsky N. A., Komarov V. L., M., 1953.

Mosquito O c, Vladimir Leontievich

Genus. 1869, d. 1945. Botanist, specialist in taxonomy, floristry and geography of plants (flora of the Far East, Manchuria). Participated in the development of the geographical and morphological concept of species in plants. Since 1920, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, since 1925 - USSR Academy of Sciences (1930-36 vice-president, since 1936 president). Twice laureate of the USSR State Prize (1941, 1942), Hero of Socialist Labor (1943). Oversaw the creation of the 30-volume "Flora of the USSR" (1934-64).

Large biographical encyclopedia. 2009 .

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Soviet botanist and geographer, public figure, academician (1920; corresponding member 1914), vice president (1930‒36) and president (1936‒45) of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Hero of Socialist Labor (1943). The president… … Great Soviet Encyclopedia

Komarov Vladimir Leontievich- (18691945), botanist and geographer, Academician (Academy of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 1920), vice president (193036) and president (193645) of the USSR Academy of Sciences, compare Hero of Social Labor (1943). One of the organizers (1915) and president of the All-Union Botanical... Encyclopedic reference book "St. Petersburg"

- (1869 1945) Russian botanist and organizer of science, academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1925; academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 1920), vice president (1930 36) and president (since 1936) of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Hero of Socialist Labor (1943). An active participant in the reform of the USSR Academy of Sciences, the organization of its bases and... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

Botanist. Born in 1869. Graduated from the Faculty of Natural Sciences of St. Petersburg University. While still a student, on behalf of the St. Petersburg Society of Natural History, he made two trips to Turkestan and wrote three works on little-studied flora... ... Biographical Dictionary

- (1869 1945), botanist and geographer, Academician (Academy of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 1920), vice president (1930 36) and president (1936 45) of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Hero of Social Labor (1943). One of the organizers (1915) and president of the All-Union Botanical Society (since... ... St. Petersburg (encyclopedia)

(1869-1945)

V. L. Komarov is an outstanding researcher of the nature and vegetation of East Asia, a systematic botanist and florist, geographer and biologist, as well as an outstanding organizer of scientific research, popularizer, historian of science, teacher and major public figure.

Komarov is world famous for his works describing the flora, vegetation and nature of individual parts of our homeland (Primorye, Kamchatka, Sayan Mountains, Baikal region, Yakutia, Zeravshan, etc.) and Mongolia for the development of a number of important issues in the theory of botany and botanical geography. Science owes Komarov, in particular, the development of a geographical-morphological method of plant taxonomy, the study of races and series of plants, the study of plant migrations, the study of meridional zoning of organisms, a description of new plant species discovered by him, etc. Being the best expert on the nature and vegetation of East Asia, Komarov not only gave a masterful description of them in his works, but raised and solved the most difficult question about the origin of the flora of this part of the Eurasian continent.

In the field of plant taxonomy and floristry, Komarov created his own large “Komarov” school, the traditions and principles of which were continued by his students and followers.

Komarov was born on October 1, 1869 in St. Petersburg into a military family. Komarov lost his father when he was one and a half years old, and his further upbringing and education took place under the supervision of his mother.

Komarov early became addicted to botany and, while still a young high school student, was studying the flora of individual places in the Borovichi and Starorussky districts of the Novgorod province. In 1890, after graduating from a gymnasium in St. Petersburg, Komarov entered the natural sciences department of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of St. Petersburg University, where he not only studied, but also carried out extensive scientific work.

In his second and third years at the university, Komarov, with the help of the St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists, studied the vegetation of the Zeravshan River valley, the Gissar and Turkestan ranges and, on behalf of the Russian Geographical Society, explored the central part of the Karakum Desert. Here he carried out a barometric leveling of the Unguz and a chain of depressions in the central part of the Karakum Desert and, using height figures, refuted the previously existing idea of ​​the Unguz as an ancient riverbed. For this research, the Russian Geographical Society awarded Komarov a silver medal. The result of Komarov’s botanical research in Zeravshan was a number of articles (“A brief outline of the vegetation of mountain Zeravshan”, “Materials on the flora of the Turkestan Highlands. The Zeravshan basin”, etc.), in which Komarov gave a description of a number of new genera and species of plants, a diagram of altitudinal zonation in the mountains Pamir-Alai, outlined the genetic connections of the Turkestan flora with the Mediterranean, etc.

Having joined Marxist circles at the university, Komarov came under the surveillance of the tsarist secret police, which deprived him of the opportunity to remain at the department after graduating from university (1894) to prepare for a professorship and made it very difficult to find a permanent job somewhere. Only with great difficulty, thanks to the recommendation of the Geographical Society, Komarov got a job in the Survey Department of the Amur Railway and left for the Far East (1895).

In the Far East, Komarov launched extensive research work. In 1895, he studied the vegetation of the Iman River valley, then explored the basins of the Sutara, Bidzhan and Khingan rivers, the Burey River valley, part of the Amur River valley and the lowlands along the Tunguska River valley. Winter 1895-1896 Komarov spent time in Blagoveshchensk, writing the article “Conditions for further colonization of the Amur.” In this work, based on an analysis of the natural historical and economic conditions of the region, Komarov argued that farming in the Amur Valley is both possible and feasible, that it improves the quality of meadows, increases crop yields, and reduces the number of harmful insects - midges.

In 1896 and 1897 Komarov, already at the expense of the Russian Geographical Society, which elected him a full member in 1895, traveled to Manchuria and North Korea. He explored the Girin and Mukden provinces, as well as the valleys of the Tumangan and Amnokkan (Yalujiang) rivers. At the same time, a lot of scientific materials and extensive collections of plants were collected, on the processing of which Komarov worked for several years. For these studies in 1897, Komarov received the Przhevalsky Prize from the Geographical Society. Upon returning to St. Petersburg, Komarov was enrolled as an assistant in the Department of Botany at St. Petersburg University in 1898, and in 1899 as a junior conservator at the Botanical Garden. Komarov did not part with this garden throughout his life, successively holding positions there: senior conservator (1902), head of the department of living plants (from 1918), head of the department of systematics and geography of plants (from 1931 to the day of his death) .

Studying the Far East, Komarov not only collected a huge amount of factual material, but also made a number of major theoretical conclusions. In 1897, Komarov’s work “Botanical-geographical regions of the Amur basin” was published, in which he showed that in the southern part of the Far East it is necessary to distinguish between four botanical-geographical (floristic) regions: Manchurian, Okhotsk, East Siberian and Daurian-Mongolian . For the Manchurian and Okhotsk regions, Komarov gave detailed descriptions, substantiated their boundaries and showed the features of the composition and origin of floras.

Komarov’s three-volume work “Flora of Manchuria” is especially important from a theoretical point of view. In addition to a very detailed and thorough description of 1682 plant species and 84 species new to science that were newly established and described by Komarov, in this work (1901) Komarov substantiated his doctrine of “race” in plants. A factor influencing the formation of new races is a change in physical and geographical conditions, especially climate. In this regard, close races, according to Komarov, never grow in the same area. 40 years later, the doctrine of race was presented by Komarov in an in-depth and refined form in his generalizing work “The Doctrine of Species in Plants” (1940), which was awarded the Stalin Prize of the first degree.

The first volume of “Flora of Manchuria” served as Komarov’s master’s thesis, which he successfully defended at St. Petersburg University in 1902. Later (1909), the author of this work was awarded the Baer Prize by the Academy of Sciences, and a medal with portraits of Tournefort and Linnaeus by the International Academy of Botanical Geography.

In 1902, Komarov went to Mongolia and the Eastern Sayan Mountains. Here he studied the flora of the region of Lake Khubsugul (Kosogol), climbed to the highest point of the Sayans - Munku-Sardyk and, in addition to general descriptions of flora and vegetation, collected interesting materials on geology, ancient glaciation of the Eastern Sayans, the origin of the flora and vegetation of the latter, etc. These materials, together with collections of Chinese and Mongolian plants processed by Komarov, accumulated in the herbarium of the St. Petersburg Botanical Garden and in the herbaria of England, France and Germany, served as the basis for Komarov’s major work “Introduction to the Floras of China and Mongolia”. In this work, Komarov used to solve the problem of the genesis of the floras of China and Mongolia a new geographical and morphological method for studying some genera of plants characteristic of these countries. As a result, he came to the conclusion that the desert flora of Mongolia was formed from xerophyllized descendants of various neighboring mountain floras, and the flora of China is associated with tropical flora, the roots of which, according to Komarov, should be sought in Indochina, and not in the Himalayas.

In the same work, Komarov developed the idea of ​​plant migration, showing the importance of migration both in the processes of speciation and in the genesis and formation of modern floras. Of particular note is the botanical and geographical division of Mongolia and China into floristic regions and regions, masterfully carried out by Komarov in the same work. It has not lost its meaning to this day.

Completed in an extremely short time (one and a half years), this two-volume work was subsequently brilliantly defended by Komarov at Moscow University as a doctoral dissertation (1911).

In 1908 and 1909 Komarov is traveling again, this time as part of the Kamchatka expedition of the Russian Geographical Society.

In 1908, Komarov studied the natural features and flora of the surrounding area of ​​Petropavlovsk and reached the city of Bolsheretsk.

In 1909, Komarov brought horses with him to Kamchatka and thanks to this he was able to make large and difficult routes (Kalakhtyrskoye Lake, the sources and valley of the Kamchatka River, Kronotskoye Lake, the coast of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk).

In addition to the vegetation cover, Komarov studied other aspects of its nature in Kamchatka (geological structure, volcanism, relief, soils, climate, wildlife, altitudinal zonation of nature, as well as the life, culture and customs of the population). The results of these studies were summarized by Komarov in a detailed comprehensive geographical work “Travels in Kamchatka in 1908-1909.” In addition to nature, Komarov described in detail the occupations of the population, their living conditions and outlined ways for the development of agricultural production in Kamchatka. The extensive materials collected by Komarov on the flora and vegetation of Kamchatka later served as the basis for him to compile the major three-volume “Flora of the Kamchatka Peninsula”.

The work contains a description of 825 species of plants in Kamchatka, of which 74 are new to science. In this work, Komarov again applied the geographical and morphological method of research and revealed the history of the development and origin of the flora of Kamchatka. He established that the flora of Kamchatka is little original, poor in endemic species and consists of plants partly circumpolar (found in all subpolar parts of the globe), partly common with the western coast of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, partly common with Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. Minor connections have been made with the flora of North America.

Komarov identified six large botanical-geographical landscape areas in Kamchatka, giving for each of them a description of the characteristic types of vegetation and indicating the origin and routes of penetration of individual groups of species into these areas.

In 1910, Komarov was elected assistant to the chairman of the biogeographical commission of the Geographical Society.

The year 1913 finds Komarov again studying Southern Primorye. He visited the environs of Lake Khanka, the valleys of the Suputinka, Maikhe and Lefou, Daubikhe, Suchan rivers and the sea coast from Shkotovo to Suchan. At the same time, he carefully studied the natural conditions for the development of vegetation, established the basic patterns of distribution of the most important types of vegetation cover, and at the same time outlined significant prospects for the development of agriculture. Komarov’s work “Vegetation Types of the South Ussuri Region,” dedicated to the results of this research, has not lost its significance to this day. Another work by Komarov, “Plants of the South Ussuri Region,” summed up the results of the study of the flora of the region. In it, Komarov gives a summary of 1412 plant species, defines the boundaries of the South Ussuri flora and establishes the botanical and geographical regions of the latter.

For outstanding scientific achievements in botany and geography, Komarov was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences in 1914. In 1916, he received the F. P. Litke medal from the Geographical Society for a set of geographical works. In 1920, on the proposal of a group of prominent scientists (I.P. Pavlov, N.V. Nasonov and I.P. Borodin), who noted that V.L. Komarov can be considered one of the most active, talented and widely educated in natural history our botanists in general and undoubtedly the first authority on the flora of Asia, Komarov was elected a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1930, Komarov was elected vice-president, and in 1936, president of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

Having started working at the Geographical Society as a student, Komarov established himself as one of the most active and very energetic members of the latter. With recognition of his great scientific and organizational merits, he was elected in 1918 Scientific Secretary of the Society. Komarov’s extensive and fruitful work unfolded here. He strengthens and develops the network of local departments and branches of the Geographical Society, manages a variety of research work, edits the Society's journal Izvestia, and attracts many new members, mainly from young people, into the Society.

In 1932, Komarov was elected an honorary member of the Geographical Society, and in 1940, honorary president.

In the 20s, Komarov intensively summarized his observations and materials and wrote a number of important and new works: “A Brief Essay on the Vegetation of Siberia”, “Introduction to the Study of the Vegetation of Yakutia”, “Vegetation of the Cis-Baikal Region”, etc. All these works demonstrate the exceptional breadth of scientific Komarov's views, scientific data are masterfully summarized and a number of new theoretical positions are put forward.

An interesting geographical generalization is the statement of Komarov (1921-1922) about the existence of meridional zoning of organisms, which complements latitudinal zoning and should be taken into account when identifying biogeographical regions. Komarov distinguishes two types of floras on large continents: oceanic, stretched out in a narrow strip along the coasts, and continental, developing at a distance from the former. Intersecting with latitudinal zones, the number of which on Earth is seven, they give 42 floristic districts in the spaces of the Old and New Worlds, each with its own climate, soil, its own plant endemism and the predominant type of vegetation cover.

Particularly noteworthy should be Komarov’s initiative in publishing the multi-volume general “Flora of the USSR”, in the work of which he attracted a large team of Soviet botanists. Komarov was the editor-in-chief of this fundamental work, as well as its active author. He processed a number of large groups and genera of plants for him. The design of “Flora of the USSR” reflected the geographical and morphological method of plant taxonomy developed by Komarov and the concept of plant races and rows (series) of species.

In total, during Komarov’s lifetime, 11 volumes of “Flora of the USSR” were published.

As president of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Komarov launched active efforts to radically reorganize the work of the Academy, bringing them closer to practical needs. Part of this restructuring was the organization, largely on the initiative and plan of Komarov, in different parts of the country of branches of the USSR Academy of Sciences, with the goal of a comprehensive and in-depth study of local nature and its riches. Thus, branches were established: Far Eastern (under the direct leadership of Komarov), Ural, Kola, Tajik, Armenian, Azerbaijan, Georgian, etc. By providing them with all possible scientific and organizational assistance, Komarov contributed to the growth of culture and science in national regions and republics. Many branches soon turned into independent academies of sciences of the Union republics.

Komarov was an outstanding teacher and versatile lecturer. Komarov’s main teaching activity took place at Leningrad University, where he headed the department of botany since 1918. Here he taught a number of original courses (“Theory of Speciation”, “General Fundamentals of Plant Taxonomy”, “Geography and Ecology of Plants”, “Introduction to Botany”, “Spore-bearing plants”, “The doctrine of species”, etc.).

Komarov created original teaching aids - “Practical Course of Plant Anatomy”, “Types of Plants”, which were considered one of the best textbooks for higher education. In 1949, Komarov’s course “Introduction to Botany” was published, which he read at Leningrad University with particular brilliance.

Komarov also paid a lot of attention to the popularization of science and the history of biology. For example, Komarov’s works are widely known: “The Origin of Plants”, “The Origin of Cultivated Plants”, “Lamarck” (1925), “The Life and Works of Carl Linnaeus” (1923). Komarov devoted a lot of work to describing the routes and results of botanical research in Central Asia. Issues of bibliography occupied a significant place in Komarov’s works; in particular, his work “Bibliography of the flora and description of vegetation of the Far East.”

All his life, Komarov was closely connected with the work of Russian scientific societies: in addition to the Geographical Society, he was a member of several other Societies, and in some of them he held many elected positions; in particular, Komarov was the president of the Botanical Society, a long-term editor of the Botanical Journal and a number of other periodicals.

Komarov was an outstanding public figure: deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, deputy of the Leningrad Soviet, member of the Far Eastern Regional Executive Committee. In the fall of 1926, Komarov headed a delegation of Soviet scientists at the Pacific Congress in Japan.

In 1930-1931 Komarov again visits Primorye and prepares the basis for organizing stationary comprehensive research at the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1932, the Far Eastern Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences was established, in the work of which Komarov took an active part. In 1933 and 1935 Komarov again comes to the Far East, helps the Far Eastern Branch and its Mountain Taiga Station, and personally inspects the work of expeditions of the USSR Academy of Sciences and other institutions.

During the Great Patriotic War, Komarov headed a special commission of the USSR Academy of Sciences to mobilize the resources of the Urals, Western Siberia and Kazakhstan for defense needs. In 1942, this work of Komarov and a number of his collaborators was awarded the second Stalin Prize, 1st degree.

In 1939, in connection with the 70th anniversary of his birth and the 45th anniversary of scientific, pedagogical and social activities, Komarov was awarded the Order of Lenin, and in 1944 - for outstanding services in the field of development of science in connection with his 75th anniversary Komarov was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor with the Order of Lenin and the Hammer and Sickle gold medal.

Komarov died on December 5, 1945 in Moscow, without stopping scientific work until the last day of his life.

Komarov is the author of about 400 works, some of which were republished several times. In accordance with the resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, in connection with the 75th anniversary of Komarov’s birth, the USSR Academy of Sciences is publishing his multi-volume selected works.

A number of peaks and glaciers are named in honor of Komarov, including a peak in the Pamirs in the Academy of Sciences ridge, one of the highest peaks of the Sikhote-Alin mountain region, glaciers on the Kokshaal-tau ridge (Tien Shan) and in the Northern Urals. Two genera and about 90 species of plants and several species of insects are also named after him.

To commemorate Komarov’s major scientific achievements, the USSR Academy of Sciences annually held “Komarov Readings” at the Botanical Institute and the Far Eastern Branch. The V.L. Komarov Prize was also established, awarded by the USSR Academy of Sciences for outstanding work in the field of botanical geography, taxonomy and floristry. The name of Komarov was given to a number of institutions (Botanical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Far Eastern Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, etc.).

Bibliography

1. Kabanov N. E. Vladimir Leontyevich Komarov / N. E. Kabanov // Domestic physical geographers and travelers. – Moscow: State educational and pedagogical publishing house of the Ministry of Education of the RSFSR, 1959. – P. 721-730.