Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov

Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov (Russian Илья Иванович Иванов; * 20 Julijul / August 1 1870greg in Schtschigry, Kursk, .. † March 20, 1932 in Alma- Ata, Kazakh SSR ) was a Russian biologist and animal breeders. He is also known for attempts to cross chimpanzees with humans.

Life

Ivanov studied in Kharkiv and was from 1917 to 1921 and from 1924 to 1930 at the National institute for Experimental Veterinary, in the intervening years. Working at a research station, which was concerned with the breeding and reproduction of domestic animals From 1928 to 1932 he worked at the Moscow and the Kazakh Institute of Zoology.

Developed by Ivanov methods for artificial insemination of farm animals were widespread in the Soviet Union.

Ivanov was also able to produce the first hybrid of zebra and horse. Then he tried to produce hybrids of humans and chimpanzees. Its now strange sounding experiments with chimpanzees were intended to test Darwin's hypothesis that chimpanzees are the closest relatives of humans. Plans to experiment ready to fertilize women with chimpanzee sperm, failed due to lack of male chimpanzees. In order to obtain this, he took on in 1926 Contact Rosalía Abreu, on Cuba held a group of chimpanzees for more than 20 years. Of this he had experienced in 1924 when he won the Institut Pasteur in Paris and its field office visited with the financial support of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in Guinea, where he tried to fertilize three female chimpanzees with human sperm; However, they were not pregnant. The Academy supported his research as a confirmation of Darwin's theory of evolution promised to provide arguments in the fight against the Christian doctrine of creation. Regarding the male chimpanzees Abreu expressed first opened up, after a threatening letter addressed to them of the Ku Klux Klan but they withdrew from this project.

1930 Ivanov fell out of favor with Stalin and was sentenced to five years' exile in Alma- Ata, where he died in 1932.