180 years since the birth of scientist-agronomist, plant physiologist, ethnographer, professor Anastasii Yehorovich Zaykevych (1842-1931)

Anastasiy Yehorovich Zaykevych was born in 1842 in the Matyashivskyi farm of the Lubensky district of the Poltava province in a poor family of the secretary of the orphanage, from a noble family. Studied at Lubensk Primary School, Kyiv Military School. He received his matriculation certificate in 1864 at the Kharkiv Gymnasium. During 1864–1870, he obtained a higher professional education at the natural science department of the physics and mathematics faculty of the Imperial Novorossiysk University in Odessa.

After getting to know Western European agronomic science for two years, he did an internship at the Petrovsky Agricultural Academy. Since 1875, Anastasii Yehorovych was a full-time laboratory assistant at the Department of Chemistry of M.M. Beketov, where he completed his master's thesis "Physiological study of root respiration".

Since 1877 A.E. Zaykevych, after being awarded the academic degree of Master of Agriculture, was approved as a private docent and appointed head, and since 1884 – and a professor of the agronomy department of Kharkiv University, where for 38 years he actively and boldly defended the place of agronomy among the natural sciences. He strongly opposed attempts to eliminate agronomy as a science in universities, and considered it necessary to develop it and, in addition, to create a network of special agricultural universities.

Regarding this, his brochure "Agronomy as a general science and a university in particular" is quite characteristic, in which the author developed his progressive views on the meaning of agronomy as a research science designed to help the country in the development of agriculture, and as a field of natural science that has its own theoretical basis. He called for the expansion and specialization of agronomy teaching in universities, for the specialization of university agronomy departments in accordance with the characteristics of the regions of the country where they were located. Scientific activity and legacy of Professor A.Ye. Zaykevycha are very large and diverse in their character. He paved many new paths in various fields of agricultural science. In the "Fund of publications published in the 19th century". on agricultural topics», as well as "Collection of scientific publications of 1901-1917" The NNSGB of the National Academy of Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences contains many scientific works of Anastasii Yehorovich Zaykevych, which are national property. Among them – both individual pamphlets and articles in periodicals of the time, – scientific research on agrochemistry, agricultural techniques for growing various agricultural crops, work on beekeeping, sheep breeding, etc. His works are still relevant for the development of domestic agriculture. First of all, the main result of Anastasia Yehorovych's scientific activity is persistent advocacy and organization of a network of research institutions. On his initiative and active participation, the first experimental fields were organized, first in Kharkiv region, where the influence of fertilizers on the yield of various crops was studied and various agricultural measures were carried out. With the direct participation of A.E. Zaykevych, a number of research institutions emerged, – among them the Poltava Research Field (1884), transformed in 1909 into the Poltava Research Station; research station of medicinal plants in Lubny, Kharkiv breeding station and others. In general, under the leadership of the scientist in the period from 1880 to 1896, there were 33 experimental fields, on which scientific work was carried out for 88 experimental years. He emphasized the need to create a domestic agronomic science based on the results of research in different soil and climate zones. He himself organized experiments, developed their programs and carried out scientific management and processing of research results. He argued that "the experimental field for teaching agronomy, particularly agriculture, is as much a necessary teaching aid as the laboratory for teaching chemistry or the clinic for teaching medicine". This was not only a significant achievement in the development of research work, but also made it possible to solve a number of important issues of domestic agriculture in a relatively short time.

Yes, from the very beginning of his scientific activity A.E. Zaykevych was well aware of the prospects for the development of beet cutting in Ukraine and therefore, first of all, focused his attention on the problem of selection and agrotechnics of sugar beet as the most important technical crop. The great merit of the scientist is the development and introduction into production of the row method of applying mineral fertilizers, which turned out to be more economically profitable than the spreading method. This solved the problem of mechanized application of fertilizers on large sugar beet plantations. He developed the principle of construction of a combined oil seeder; analyzed and summarized research on the effect of various fertilizers. Many successes were achieved by A.E. Zaikevych in improving domestic varieties of sugar beet. These achievements were summarized by the scientist in his brochure "On some aspects of sugar beet culture in connection with the current state of the sugar beet industry". (1889).

When studying "Russian wheat culture" Anastasii Yehorovych came to the conclusion that "we have excellent material for breeding incomparably more resistant wheat than those foreign varieties that come to us from the West". In addition, the wide range of scientific interests of Anastasia Yehorovych captured such rather rare plants at that time as sunflower, soybean and lalemantia, and four years of field research with English mint in the conditions of the Poltava region led to the fact that mint became one of the most important of essential oil plants, and the production of peppermint oil – an important branch of the agricultural industry in Ukraine. Having researched interesting and important facts for the national development of tobacco culture, in 1890 A.E. Zaykevych published the brochure "On the question of the culture of high-grade Turkish tobacco in the Poltava province", in which he indicated ways to improve the culture of local tobacco. An exceptionally large contribution of the scientist to the agronomy of forage crops, and first of all leguminous plants. In 1903, using the method of cross-pollination of wild Ukrainian yellow alfalfa with the blue American alfalfa Grim, he created a hybrid alfalfa, which compared to local alfalfa, gave a much higher yield of hay, was distinguished by good foliage and resistance to fungal diseases.

It should be noted that Anastasii Yehorovych always remained a supporter of the national idea. It is known that he recorded folk songs of Lubenshchyna for Mykola Lysenko and promoted the work of Veliky Kobzar in every possible way.

At the request of the Poltava Provincial Zemstvo, for the first time in Ukrainian ethnic territories, in 1879 he conducted a field ceramicological expedition to survey the pottery centers of Myrhorod, Lokhvytskyi, Zinkivskyi and Poltavaskyi counties Based on its results, he published the scientific work "On Pottery Production" in the following year. With the support of the Poltava Provincial Zemstvo, in 1912 he published the first pictorial album in Ukraine, "Motifs of Little Russian Pottery Ornament". with samples of about 100 ornaments of bowls, pots, jugs, tiles and other clay products. This album became a desk book for the students of the Myrhorod Ceramic School (now a technical school) created with his participation in 1896. In the same year, A.E. Zaykevych was elected to the board of the Ukrainian Literary-Scientific-Ethnographic Society named after G. Kvitky-Osnov’yanenko.

In 1927, in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the scientific and public activity of Anastasii Yehorovych Zaykevych, he was awarded a personal pension, and in 1930, the All-Ukrainian Central Executive The Committee of Soviets awarded him the title of "Hero of Labor" for his significant merits in the organization of agricultural research stations and significant contribution to the development of beet growing.

We invite everyone who wishes to visit the Fund of 19th century publications. on agricultural topics (reading room No. 2) of the NNSGB of the National Academy of Sciences for familiarization with the materials of scientific research of Anastasii Yehorovich Zaykevych – a well-known scientist-agronomist, plant physiologist, one of the founders of agricultural research in Ukraine, initiator, organizer and one of the first theoreticians and methodologists of branch research, Honorary member of the Poltava Society of Agriculture.