Zhores Medvedev

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Zhores Aleksandrovich Medvedev (Russian: Жорес Медведев) (born in Tbilisi, Georgia on November 14, 1925) is a Russian biologist, historian and dissident. His twin brother is the historian Roy Medvedev.

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[edit] Biography

Zhores Medvedev was born on November 14,1925 in Tiflis,Georgia,USSR, the twin brother of Roy Medvedev. From 1926 until 1938 lived in Leningrad. His father Aleksandr Romanovich Medvedev was professor of Military-Political Academy with the military rank of brigade commissar. In August 1938 he was arrested in the wave of political terror of the time and was charged as "Bukharin follower" and sentenced to 8 years of forced labour. He died im March 1941 in one of Kolyma Far Eastern camps. The family, mather Yalia with two sons Roy and Res (Zhores as a name was made in 1941 by addition of Zho to Res) moved to live to Rostov-Don. In September 1941 the family was evacuated to Tbilisi,shortly before the first German occupation of Rostov-Don. In Tbilisi in February 1943 Zhores Medvedev was drafted to Soviet Army and after training was sent as foot soldier to Taman front where he took part in fighting and was wounded and later discharged from the army. In 1944 Zhores Medvedev became a student of Moscow K.A. Timiriazev Agricultural Academy. In December 1950 Zhores Medvedev was awarded a PhD degree (candidat biologicheskikh nauk) for his research inof sexual processes in plants. He was junior and since 1954 Senior research scientist of agrochemistry and biochemistyry department of Timiriazev Academy until 1963.In 1952 he turned his attention to problems of ageing concentrating on the turnover of proteins and nucleic acids. In 1961 he published the first paper suggesting that ageing is the result of accumulation of errors in the synthesis of proteins and nucleic acids. In 1962 Zhores Medvedev did write his book on the history of Soviet genetics (Later published in the USA as "The Rise and Fall of T.D.Lysenko", Columbia Univ.Press,1969) which was widely circulated in manuscript typewritten version known as "samizdat" or "self-publishing" In 1963 Zhores Medvedev moved to Obninsk to the Institute of Medical Radiology where he was appointed as head of laboratory of molecular radiobiology. He did publish two books " Protein Biosynthesis and Problems of Heredity Development and Ageing" 1963 (English translation 1965 Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh) and "Molecular Mechanisms of Development", 1966 (English translation 1968, Plenum Press, New York). Zhores Medvedev was dismissed from his position in 1969 after publication in the USA his book"The Rise and the Fall of T.D.Lysenko".In 1968-1970 Zhores Medvedev did write two more "samizdat"books "International Cooperation of Scientists and National Frontiers" and "Secrecy of Correspondence is garanteed by Law" (about postal cenzorship in the USSR). They been published in 1971 as "Medvedev Papers" by Macmillan, London. These works were widely circulated in the USSR among scientists and this activity was resulted in the Medvedev arrest and forced detention to Kaluga psychiatric hospital in May 1970. However this action did produce many protests of prominent scientists (Academitians Petr Kapitsa, Andrey Sakharov, Nikolai Semyonov,Boris Astaurov and others) well known writers (Solzhenitysyn, Twardovsky, Tendriakov, Dudintsev and oth ) which resulted a release of Medvedev from mental hospital (this experience was reflected in Zhores Medvedev and Roy Medvedev book "Question of Madness" published by Macmillan in London in 1971). In 1971 Zhores Medvedev was given job as Senior scientist of The Institute of Physiology and Biochemistry of Farm Animals in Borovsk, Kaluga region. In 1972 Zhores Medvedev was intvited for one year research by The National Institute of Medical Research in London at its new Genetic Division. While in London with wife Margarita and younger son Dmitry Zhores Medvedev was stripped of his Soviet citizenship and his passport was confiscated. He remained in London and was working as full time Senior Research scientist at the National Institute for Medical Research until retirement in 1991.Medvedev published about 170 research papers and reviews, about 60 of them during his work in London. In 1980 Medvedev received British citizenship. In 1990 his Soviet citizenship was restored by decree of President Mikhail Gorbachev.Received Ageing Research Award of US Association of Biogerontology1984 and Rene Schubert Preis in Gerontology,1985 {Expand-section|date=June 2008}

[edit] Career and dissent

Zhores Medvedev is famous for exposing the Kyshtym nuclear disaster which occurred at Mayak near Kyshtym, Ozyorsk, Chelyabinsk Oblast in the Urals in 1957. He published book "The Nuclear Disaster in the Urals" in 1979, W.W.Norton, New York

Medvedev was one of the earliest victims of official attempts to stifle opposition by detaining dissidents in mental institutions. In London Medvedev was editing samizdat journal "XX Century" jointly with his brother Roy.


His twin brother Roy Medvedev is a historian, they coauthored Khrushchev: The Years in Power released in 1978. The brothers also wrote several other books, the last one "The Unknown Stalin" 2007

He had two sons, one of whom is deceased. The other, Dimitri, ran the "Blue Bridge Café" in Camden, London, before moving to Cornwell where he owns a farm. Two grandchildren, Tom (born in 1997) and Alice (born in 2000).

[edit] Works

[edit] Notes

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