Zhores Medvedev

Zhores Medvedev studied at Russian State Agricultural University. The recorded working language is English and Russian. The field of work recorded is biology. Places of work recorded in the authority are Greater London. Employment is recorded with Nikitsky Botanical Garden, Russian State Agricultural University and Medical Radiological Research Center. Distinctions recorded are Messenger Lectures.

• Native Name — Жорес Медведев • Birth Name — Zhores Aleksandrovich Medvedev • Born — 14 November 1925 • Birthplace — Tbilisi, Transcaucasian SFSR, USSR • Died — 15 November 2018 • Place of death — London, England • Field — Agronomy, biology, gerontology • Education — Russian State Agricultural University • Known for — Human rights activism and participation in dissident movement in the Soviet Union

Zhores Medvedev and his twin brother Roy were born on 14 November 1925 in Tbilisi, Transcaucasian SFSR, USSR. Their mother Yulia (nee Reiman), was a cellist, and their father, Alexander Medvedev, was a philosopher in a military academy in Leningrad. Zhores, named after French socialist leader Jean Jaurès (his twin was named after Indian revolutionary M. N. Roy), was drafted into the Red Army in 1943, but was soon discharged after being seriously wounded in a battle on the Taman Peninsula. He then began his studies in biology at the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy in Moscow. In December 1950, Zhores was awarded a PhD degree for his research into sexual processes in plants.

He became a junior research scientist in the Agrochemistry and Biochemistry Department at Timiryazev Academy and he was promoted to senior research scientist in 1954 and remained at the academy until 1963. Beginning in 1952, Medvedev had focused his attention on the problems of aging, concentrating on the turnover of proteins and nucleic acids. In 1961, he published the first paper suggesting that aging is the result of an accumulation of errors in the synthesis of proteins and nucleic acids. In 1962, Medvedev wrote his book on the history of Soviet genetics, which passed an editorial review but was withheld by state censors. It was later published in the United States in 1969 as The Rise and Fall of T.D. Lysenko. In 1963, Medvedev moved to Obninsk to the Institute of Medical Radiology, where he was appointed head of the molecular radiobiology laboratory. He published two books, Protein Biosynthesis and Problems of Heredity Development and Ageing and Molecular Mechanisms of Development.

In 1972, Medvedev was invited for one year's research by the National Institute for Medical Research in London at its new Genetic Division. In August 1973, however, his Soviet passport was confiscated and he was stripped of his Soviet citizenship. He remained in London and worked as senior research scientist at the National Institute for Medical Research until his retirement in 1991.

In 1977, Medvedev published Hazards of Nuclear Power, which mentioned the Kyshtym nuclear disaster in passing. At the time, the disaster was essentially unknown, and his work was dismissed as baseless propaganda even by his Western colleagues. Medvedev responded by publishing Soviet Science in 1978, which assembled evidence from Soviet publications that taken together comprised conclusive evidence of the disaster's occurrence. He followed this with the book The Nuclear Disaster in the Urals in 1979, and a further critique The Legacy of Chernobyl (1990), which connected the two disasters as being a product of the same attitudes toward science and engineering in the USSR.

In London, Medvedev acted as his brother Roy's representative, managing his publishing contracts and financial affairs. In 1975 he created a small publishing house, "T.C.D. publications", for the purpose of publishing the Russian-language version of Roy Medvedev's samizdat journal XX Century. The two brothers also coauthored Khrushchev: The Years in Power (1978) and several other books, the last one The Unknown Stalin (2007). Medvedev died in London on 15 November 2018, one day after his 93rd birthday, with his family by his side. In 2019, his memoirs posthumously appeared in Russian under the title A Dangerous Profession.

• Protein Biosynthesis and Problems of Heredity, Development and Ageing. New York: Plenum Press, 1966. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd Ltd, 1966 • Unknown Stalin: His Life, Death, and Legacy (with Roy Medvedev, Ellen Dahrendorf - Translator) (Overlook Press, 2005), • Legacy of Chernobyl (W. W. Norton & Co Inc, 1992), • Soviet Agriculture (W. W. Norton & Co Inc, 1988), • Gorbachev (W. W. Norton & Co Inc, 1987), • Andropov (W. W. Norton & Co Inc, 1983), • Nuclear Disaster in the Urals (1980), • Gorbachev (1986), • Molecular-Genetic Mechanisms of Development (1970), • Medvedev Papers: Fruitful Meetings between Scientists of the World (1971), • Ten Years after Ivan Denisovich (1974), • Hazards of Nuclear Power (with Alan Roberts) (1977), • Secrecy of Correspondence Is Guaranteed by Law (1975), • Soviet Science (1978), • Stalin and the Jewish Question: New Analysis (2003, in Russian), • Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov: Two Prophets (with Roy Medvedev) (2004, in Russian) • The Rise and Fall of T. D. Lysenko (translated by I. Michael. Lerner) Columbia University Press (1969), • Medvedev Papers: The Plight Of Soviet Science, • A Question Of Madness (with Roy Medvedev), • Nuclear Disaster In The Urals (trans. George Saunders), • Khrushchev: The Years In Power (with Roy Medvedev), • National Frontiers / International Scientific Cooperation (Medvedev Papers), Spokesman Books, 1975, • Nutrition and Longevity (2011, in Russian), publ. "Vremya" Moscow, • Nutrition and Longevity (in Russian), 2007, • Polonium in London (in Russian), 2008, Molodaya Gvardia, Moscow:

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