Andrey Aleksandrovich Fedorov (russian: Андрей Александрович Фёдоров; 1908 – 5 March 1987) was a Soviet Russian biologist, botanist,

taxonomist In biology, taxonomy () is the scientific study of naming, defining ( circumscribing) and classifying groups of biological organisms based on shared characteristics. Organisms are grouped into taxa (singular: taxon) and these groups are given ...

and phytogeographer, who was from 1970 a corresponding member of the

Academy of Sciences of the USSR The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991, uniting the country's leading scientists, subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (until 1946 ...

. He was the brother of the botanist Alexander Fedorov (1906-1982).

Career

Andrey Fedorov was born in Tver, the son of a gardener. His higher education was at the Tver Institute of Education, in part at the same time as his brother, and he graduated in 1929. He worked until 1935 at the station in

Sukhumi Sukhumi (russian: Суху́м(и), ) or Sokhumi ( ka, სოხუმი, ), also known by its Abkhaz name Aqwa ( ab, Аҟәа, ''Aqwa''), is a city in a wide bay on the Black Sea's eastern coast. It is both the capital and largest city of ...

, a subsidiary of the

Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry The Institute of Plant Industry, Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry or All-Russian Research Institute of Plant Industry (in russian: Всероссийский институт растениеводства им. Н. И. Вавилова), as ...

. From 1935 to 1945 he continued his research at the

Armenian National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia (NAS RA) ( hy, Հայաստանի Հանրապետության գիտությունների ազգային ակադեմիա, ՀՀ ԳԱԱ, ''Hayastani Hanrapetut’yan gitut’yunneri az ...

(before 1943, Armenian subsidiary of the

). In 1945 he moved to

Leningrad Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

to work at the

Komarov Botanical Institute The Komarov Botanical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (russian: Ботанический институт им. В.Л.Комарова РАН) is a leading botanical institution in Russia, It is located on Aptekarsky Island in St. Peter ...

where he spent the rest of his career. He directed the Laboratory there from 1963. In 1955 and 1956, he took part in joint Sino-Soviet biological expedition to the province of

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked Provinces of China, province in Southwest China, the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is ...

. In 1955 he was a signatory of the "Letter of three hundred" - addressed to the

Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union The Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (, abbreviated: ), or Politburo ( rus, Политбюро, p=pəlʲɪtbʲʊˈro) was the highest policy-making authority within the Communist Party of the ...

, which criticised the activities of Lysenko and made an overall assessment of the state of biology in the Soviet Union. The letter was drafted by a large group of Soviet scientists and led eventually to the resignation of Lysenko as president of All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Andrey Fedorov was appointed in 1970 as a corresponding member of the

. His main work was devoted to the

taxonomy Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification. A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

s, to the

flora Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous) native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms '' gut flora'' or '' skin flora''. E ...

of the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

(especially the

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historically ...

, to the European part of the USSR,

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...

and the republics of

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

), flora of other countries and to the history of the flora. Among the

families Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Ideall ...

studied by Fedorov, we can distinguish those of ''

Campanulaceae The family Campanulaceae (also bellflower family), of the order Asterales, contains nearly 2400 species in 84 genera of herbaceous plants, shrubs, and rarely small trees, often with milky sap. Among them are several familiar garden plants belon ...

'' and ''

Primulaceae The Primulaceae , commonly known as the primrose family (but not related to the Onagraceae, evening primrose family), are a family (biology), family of Herbaceous plant, herbaceous and woody flowering plants including some favourite garden plants ...

''. He was also interested in

phytogeography Phytogeography (from Greek φυτόν, ''phytón'' = "plant" and γεωγραφία, ''geographía'' = "geography" meaning also distribution) or botanical geography is the branch of biogeography that is concerned with the geographic distribution o ...

. Fedorov was a regional adviser for the Soviet Union on the international ''

Flora Europaea The ''Flora Europaea'' is a 5-volume encyclopedia of plants, published between 1964 and 1993 by Cambridge University Press. The aim was to describe all the national Floras of Europe in a single, authoritative publication to help readers identify ...

'' project, published in five volumes in 1964-1980. He was also co-author of ''The Flora of the USSR'', international edition published in four volumes between 1964 and 1976, and co-editor of ''The Flora of the European part of the USSR'' (1974-1979) . He died 5 March 1987 in Leningrad and was buried at

Serafimovskoe Cemetery Serafimovskoe Cemetery (russian: Серафимовское кладбище) is a historic cemetery in northwestern Saint Petersburg, in Primorsky District. It was established to meet the need for the growing population in the early twentieth c ...

, also in Leningrad.

Honours

Order of the Red Banner of Labour The Order of the Red Banner of Labour (russian: Орден Трудового Красного Знамени, translit=Orden Trudovogo Krasnogo Znameni) was an order of the Soviet Union established to honour great deeds and services to th ...

(twice) * in 1991, botanist Alfred Kolakovski published '' Theodorovia'', which is a

monotypic genus In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispec ...

s from Iran and Turkey, belonging to the family

and named in honour of Andrey A. Fedorov.

Selected publications

* Andrey Fedorov, История высокогорной флоры Кавказа в четвертичное время (''The history of alpine flora of the Caucasus in the

Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million years ...

'') // Материалы по четвертичному периоду СССР (''Materials on the Quaternary period in the USSR''): collection Moscow, 1952, Т. 3. * Andrey Fedorov and Moïsseï Kirpichnikov, Справочное пособие по систематике высших растений (''Handbook on taxonomy of higher plants''): vol. I: Сокращения, условные обозначения, географические названия ('' Abbreviations, symbols, place names'') / edited by B. K. Schischkin; Botanical Institute. Komarov Academy of Sciences. - Leningrad: Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1954. - 110 p. * Andrey Fedorov, O флористических связях Восточной Азии с Кавказом (''On the floristic links between East Asia and the Caucasus'') // Материалы по истории флоры и растительности СССР (''Materials on the history of the flora and vegetation of the USSR''), Moscow-Leningrad, 1958, Т. 3. * Andrey Fedorov, Диптерокарповый экваториальный влажнотропический лес Цейлона (''The tropical rain forest of ''

Dipterocarpaceae Dipterocarpaceae is a family of 16 genera and about 695 known species of mainly tropical lowland rainforest trees. The family name, from the type genus ''Dipterocarpus'', is derived from Greek (''di'' = two, ''pteron'' = wing and ''karpos'' = fru ...

'' in

Ceylon Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

)'' // Тр. Моск. общества испытателей природы. Отдел биологический. (''Proceedings of the

Moscow Society of Naturalists Moscow Society of Naturalists (russian: Московское общество испытателей природы (MOIP)) is one of Russia's oldest learned societies. In 1805 it was founded as the Imperial Society of Naturalists of Moscow (''So ...

, Department of Biology''). - 1960. - T. 3. * A. L. Takhtajan and Andrey Fedorov, Флора Еревана (''The flora of

Yerevan Yerevan ( , , hy, Երևան , sometimes spelled Erevan) is the capital and largest city of Armenia and one of the world's List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Y ...

''), Leningrad, Nauka, 1972, 396 pages. * Определитель высших растений Крыма (''Key to the higher plants of the

Crimea Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a pop ...

'') / edited by Andrey Fedorov, Léningrad, Nauka, 1981, 380 pages. * Andrey Fedorov, Семейство охновые (Ochnaceae). Семейство чайные (Theaceae). Семейство тетрамеристовые (Tetrameristaceae). Семейство боннетовые (Bonnetiaceae). Семейство диптерокарповые (Dipterocarpaceae) (''The families

Ochnaceae Ochnaceae is a family of flowering plants in the order Malpighiales.Vernon H. Heywood, Richard K. Brummitt, Ole Seberg, and Alastair Culham. ''Flowering Plant Families of the World''. Firefly Books: Ontario, Canada. (2007). . In the APG III syst ...

;

Theaceae Theaceae (), the tea family, is a family (biology), family of flowering plants comprising shrubs and trees, including the economically important tea plant, and the ornamental camellias. It can be described as having from seven to 40 genus, genera ...

;

Tetrameristaceae Tetrameristaceae is a family of flowering plants. The family consists of five species, of trees or shrubs, in three genera: * ''Pelliciera'' in Central and South America * ''Pentamerista'' in the Guyanas * ''Tetramerista'' in Southeast Asia The ...

;

Bonnetiaceae Bonnetiaceae is a family of flowering plants, consisting of 4 genera and 41 species. The family is Neotropical, with the exception of the genus ''Ploiarium'', which is found in Malesia. It is sister to the family Clusiaceae The Clusiaceae or ...

;

'') // Жизнь растений (''The life of plants''), in six volumes. / edited A. L. Takhtajan, Moscow, Prosvechtchenie, 1981. — Т. 5. part. 2. Цветковые растения (''Flowering plants''). / ed. A. L. Takhtajan, pp. 18–19, 21—25, 27, 123—126; 512 pages

Works translated into English

Books: * 2000. Flora of Russia: v. 3: The European Part and Bordering Regions: vol. 3. Ed. Taylor & Francis. 370 pp. * 2001a. Flora of Russia: v. 4: The European Part and Bordering Regions: vol. 4. Ed. Taylor & Francis. 532 pp. * 2001b. Flora of Russia: v. 5: The European Part and Bordering Regions: vol. 5. Ed. CRC Press. 532 pp. * 2002a. Flora of Russia: The European Part and Bordering Regions 6. Ed. Taylor & Francis. 992 pp. * 2002. Flora of Russia: The European Part and Bordering Regions vol. 7. Ed. Taylor & Francis. 320 pp. * 2003. Flora of Russia: Vol. 8: The European Part and Bordering Regions: vol. 8. Ed. Taylor & Francis. 704 pp. Articles: * Fedorov A. A. 1966. The structure of the tropical rain forest and speciation in the humid tropics. Journal of Ecology 54: 1-11 * Fedorov, A. A. d.1969. Chromosome numbers of flowering plants. Komarov Botanical Institute, Academy of Sciences, URSS, Léningrad

References

External links

Фёдоров Андрей Александрович

Great Soviet Encyclopedia The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; ) is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias, published in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1990. After 2002, the encyclopedia's data was partially included into the later ''Bolshaya rossiyskaya e ...

(in Russian)
Andrey Fedorov: IPNI author details
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fedorov, Andrey 1908 births 1987 deaths Soviet botanists Corresponding Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Tver State University alumni Burials at Serafimovskoe Cemetery