“We cannot even guess, How our word will echo…”Fedor Tiutchev, 27 February 1869 The two men whose names appear in the title of this book — British polymath Francis Galton and Russian gynecologist Vasilii Florinskii — were contemporaries. Although they never met and likely never even heard of one ano...

6. Resonance: Euphenics, Medical Genetics, and Rassenhygiene

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Nikolai Krementsov (21 mars 2019)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

“True eugenics can only be a product of socialism.”H. J. Muller, May 1936 Volotskoi’s reprint gave Florinskii’s book a new lease on life. This time, Human Perfection and Degeneration found a receptive audience. The book proved influential in shaping not only discussions around eugenics and its “step...

3. The Book: Darwinism and Social Hygiene

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Nikolai Krementsov (21 mars 2019)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

“She married (I forget the pedigree)With an hidalgo, who transmitted downHis blood less noble than such blood should be;At such alliances his sires would frown,In that point so precise in each degreeThat they bred in and in, as might be shown,Marrying their cousins, nay, their aunts, and nieces,Whic...

8. Science of the Future: With and Without Galton

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Nikolai Krementsov (21 mars 2019)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

“If blind, opportunistic, and automatic natural selection could conjure man out of a viroid in a couple of thousand million years, what could not man’s conscious and purposeful efforts achieve even in a couple of million years, let alone in the thousands of millions to which he can reasonably look f...

1. The Author: Vasilii Florinskii

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Nikolai Krementsov (21 mars 2019)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

“Now I have the only heart-felt desire — to bring to my Fatherland as much benefit as possible, specifically, by acting in that area where I could be most useful.”Vasilii Florinskii, 6 October 1861 The English and Russian progenitors of “eugenics” were born on the same day, twelve years — and a whol...

2. The Publisher: Grigorii Blagosvetlov

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Nikolai Krementsov (21 mars 2019)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

“The Crimean War has convinced us that Russian society lacks a lot [of things] to stand on the same level with Europe. [The war’s] failures and losses have forced us to look closely at what exactly we are lacking, and it turned out that we lack knowledge.”Nikolai Shelgunov, 1865 Florinskii’s treatis...

5. Rebirth: Eugenics and Marxism

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Nikolai Krementsov (21 mars 2019)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

“[It] cannot be uniform: every [social] class must create its own eugenics.”Alexander Serebrovskii, 12 January 1926 For sixty years since its first publication, Vasilii Florinskii’s Human Perfection and Degeneration remained apparently unread and its major ideas dormant. In 1926, however, the book w...

Apologia: The Historian’s Craft

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Nikolai Krementsov (21 mars 2019)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

“…habiendo y debiendo ser los historiadores puntuales, verdaderos y nonada apasionados, y que ni el interés ni el miedo, el rancor ni la afición, no les hagan torcer del camino de la verdad, cuya madre es la historia, émula del tiempo, depósito de las acciones, testigo de lo pasado, ejemplo y aviso...

4. The Hereafter: Words and Deeds

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Nikolai Krementsov (21 mars 2019)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

“...Every new endeavor has to wait for its time, only then will it come into its own and fulfill its highest purpose.”Veniamin Portugalov, 1870 After the appearance of “Human Perfection and Degeneration” on the pages of Russian Word, their author and their publisher parted ways as suddenly as they h...

7. Afterlife: Medical Genetics and “Racial” Eugenics

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Nikolai Krementsov (21 mars 2019)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

“Eugenics has to wait for its hour, and nobody knows how soon that hour could arrive.”Vladimir Polynin, 1967 After the 1948 banishment of “classical” genetics in the Soviet Union, eugenics and its founder Galton became a practice target for “Marxist” philosophers and party ideologues, while any ment...

With and Without Galton

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Nikolai Krementsov (21 mars 2019)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

In this lucid and insightful work, Nikolai Krementsov argues that the concept of eugenics brings together ideas, values, practices, and fears energised by a focus on the future. It has proven so seductive to different groups over time because it provides a way to grapple with fundamental existential...

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Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

(12 févr. 2021)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

In 1865, British polymath Francis Galton published his initial thoughts about the scientific field that would become ‘eugenics.’ The same year, Russian physician Vasilii Florinskii addressed similar issues in a sizeable treatise, entitled Human Perfection and Degeneration. Initially unheralded, Flor...

Nikolai Krementsov, A Martian Stranded on Earth

Recensions

Grégory Dufaud (3 déc. 2012)

Recensions

Centré autour de la figure d’Alexandr Bogdanov, le nouvel ouvrage de Nikolai Krementsov, s’il est court, n’en est pas moins passionnant. Ni véritable biographie, ni monographie au sens strict, il chemine entre ces deux genres afin de décrire, à travers sept chapitres, ce qui était qualifié de « scie...

Nikolai Krementsov, The cure

Recensions

Alain Blum (19 juin 2009)

Recensions

Voici un livre intrigant, qui aborde une histoire presque aussi profondément oubliée qu’elle a agité, en son temps, le monde médical, scientifique et diplomatique. C’est l’aventure d’un biologiste soviétique, Grigorij Roskin, qui pense avoir découvert un remède efficace contre le cancer. C’est aussi...