PARIS-Soviet officials have begun a campaign to restore the reputation of biologist Nikolai I. Vavilov, a victim of the Lamarckian theories of T.D. Lysenko, in an apparent effort to promote glasnost and improve the status of Soviet science.
Moscow's Central Concert Hall was packed November 24 to celebrate the centenary of Vavilov's birth. From morning until evening, members of the Academy of Sciences and others reviewed his work and his efforts to protect his genetics and agriculture
On the following day, Pravda ran two long articles on Vavilov, praising his work and his courage. Acad-emy member V. Sokolov and professor A. Zacharov wrote of Vavilov's arrest in 1940 on trumped-up-charges, and quoted some of the scientist's last words: "We'll go into the fire and burn, but we won't renounce our convictions." Even Galileo, they said, didn't go this far.
A Pravda editorial attributes Vavilov's death 1943 to Lysenkoism, "which arose ...