Anton Romanovich Zhebrak (Belarusian: Антон Раманавіч Жэбрак; 27 December 1901 – 20 May 1965) was a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

botanist Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

, geneticist and professor.

Career

He was born in to a peasant family. Zhebrak received his undergraduate degree from

Timiryazev Agricultural Academy Timiryazev (russian: Тимиря́зев, links=no; masculine) or Timiryazeva (russian: Тимиря́зева, links=no; feminine) is a Turkic Russian last name. It may refer to: People * Arkady Timiryasev (1880-1955), Soviet physicist and philo ...

in 1925, then pursued a four year program in graduate studies at the

Institute of Red Professors An institute is an organisational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations (research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body. In some countries, institutes can ...

, graduating in 1929. The Institute of Red Professors was created by the

Communist Party of the Soviet Union "Hymn of the Bolshevik Party" , headquarters = 4 Staraya Square, Moscow , general_secretary = Vladimir Lenin (first) Mikhail Gorbachev (last) , founded = , banned = , founder = Vladimir Lenin , newspaper ...

to address a shortage of

Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

professors, Zhebrak was one of just 236 graduates during the period 1924 to 1929. Zhebrak received a

Rockefeller Fellowship The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, after the Carn ...

, pursuing post-graduate studies at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 1930–31. From 1935 to 1948, Zhebrak was head of the genetics department at Timiryazev Agricultural Academy. Over the 1948–49 academic year, Zhebrak was a professor of botany at the Moscow Institute of Timber Industry. In 1949 he moved to the Academy of Medical Science's Institute of Pharmacology in Moscow, where he was a professor of botany until his death, in 1965. Zhebrak had joined the Communist Party in 1928, during his graduate studies. As his scientific achievements continued through his career, this party membership reduced possible roadblocks within the Soviet academic community; by example, he had witnessed that 62 of the 69 professors at the Institute of Red Professors, during the last year of his graduate studies, were members of the Communist Party. In 1940, Zhebrak was granted membership in the Academy of Sciences of the Byelorussian SSR (serving as its president in 1947), and he served as an official of the Science Department of the

Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, – TsK KPSS was the executive leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, acting between sessions of Congress. According to party statutes, the committee direct ...

in 1945–46. In 1996, Nikolai Krementsov published the book ''Stalinist Science'', in which he cites Zhebrak, and others, as forces who found ways to bypass and even exploit the Party's political systems, creating more academic freedom than would otherwise have been allowed. This was not without its dangers. Zherbak was the president of the Academy of Sciences of the Byelorussian SSR from May to October 1947 but was removed from his office as he was one of numerous scientists targeted by an anti-cosmopolitan campaign in the immediate period after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zhebrak, Anton Romanovich 1901 births 1965 deaths 20th-century biologists 20th-century Russian botanists People from Zel’va District Academicians of the Byelorussian SSR Academy of Sciences Institute of Red Professors alumni Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour Recipients of the Order of the Red Star Russian botanists Russian geneticists Soviet botanists Soviet geneticists Burials at Vvedenskoye Cemetery