ROUND TABLE "THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ACADEMICIAN ALEXANDER ALEXANDROVICH NIKONOV (1918-1995)"

Abstract

The round table at the Center for Agrarian Studies of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration was dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the academician Alexander Alexandrovich Nikonov (1918-1995) and focused on the milestones of the biography of this prominent agrarian scientist, his intellectual and organizational contribution to the Russian agricultural science. A.A. Nikonov, a heroic participant of the Great Patriotic War, took part in the organization and development of agriculture in Latvia, the Stavropol Region and Moscow, held many senior positions from the Minister of Agriculture of Latvia to the President of the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences, was known not only for outstanding organizational and intellectual but also personal qualities. The participants of the round table recognized the contribution of the academician Nikonov to the development of the agrarian reforms’ strategy in the USSR of the 1980s and to the creation in the years of perestroika of the Agrarian Institute a scientific organization of a fundamentally new type, which is now named after the scientist Nikonov VIAPI. The round-table discussions emphasized that A.A. Nikonov was not working in safe conditions, and scientific activities often demanded from him civil courage and political responsibility. It is to A.A. Nikonov that the Russian agrarian science should be grateful for the consistent desire to rehabilitate the names of A.V. Chayanov and his colleagues from the organization-production school and to re-introduce into scientific discourse the forbidden and forgotten heritage of these outstanding scientists. Finally, the discussions emphasized the importance of the last work of the scientist, his book The Spiral of the Century-Old Drama: Agrarian Science and Policy of Russia (18-20 centuries). The participants of the round table consider this book as a still unique and relevant guide for the scientific and moral search for the ways of decent rural development of Russia.