90 years ago, a Soviet biologist went to Africa to breed a monkey with a man
In February 1926, 90 years ago, Soviet biologist Ilya Ivanov was sent to Africa to artificially inseminate female chimpanzees with human semen. About how the scientist staged his famous experiments and what does Shostakovich's opera have to do with it.
"Take me as an experiment"
“I dare to contact you with a proposal. I learned from the newspapers that you have undertaken experiments in artificial insemination of monkeys with human sperm, but the experiments have failed. This problem has interested me for a long time. My request: take me as an experiment.
I beg you, do not refuse me. I will happily submit to all experience requirements. I am confident in the possibility of fertilization.
As a last resort, if you refuse, then I ask you to write me the address of one of the foreign scientists-zoologists,”- such a letter was received by biologist Ilya Ivanov from a resident of Leningrad in 1928. This message is not the only one of its kind: after learning that the scientist was trying to cross a man with a monkey, women from all over the Soviet Union wanted to participate in an unprecedented experiment.
Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov (1870-1932), an outstanding Russian and Soviet biologist
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To a modern person, Ilya Ivanov may seem crazy, obsessed with the idea of creating some kind of mutant. In fact, the scientist, who was considered the largest specialist in the field of artificial insemination of animals, back in 1899, began to breed hybrids of mouse and rat, mouse and guinea pig, zebra and donkey, antelope and cow. Inspired by the success, the biologist suggested that it is possible to create a hybrid of a man and a monkey using artificial insemination.
Ivanov spoke about this during his speech before the World Congress of Zoologists in the Austrian city of Graz in 1910.
Inadmissibility of experiments
In 1925, the rector of the Moscow Higher Technical School named after N. E. Bauman Nikolai Gorbunov became interested in Ivanov's ideas. He believed that the created hybrid would be of "great scientific importance" and would attract the attention of all countries to the Soviet Union. Ivanov himself has repeatedly stated that in the West they want to cross a man with a monkey, but they are afraid to conduct such experiments "because of the unacceptability of experiments from the point of view of generally accepted morality and religion."
By the way, the Soviet biologist admitted that he was not the first to get the idea to create an unprecedented hybrid. Ilya Ivanov knew very well that back in 1908 the Dutch naturalist Bernelot Moons argued that it was possible to conduct experiments on inseminating gorillas and chimpanzees with human sperm. Moons even raised money for an expedition to the French Congo (where the coveted crossing was to take place), and also published a thematic brochure “Truth. Experimental research on the origin of man. " According to the Dutchman, monkeys are best crossed with blacks - in his opinion, representatives of the "lower" race.
How the monkeys were stunned
In the fall of 1925, Nikolai Gorbunov got the Academy of Sciences to allocate $ 10,000 for Ilya Ivanov's experiments in Africa. In February of the following year, the biologist went on a business trip to Kindia, the third largest city in French Guinea. Soon after his arrival, Ivanov learned that there were only chimpanzees at the station who had not reached puberty.
Then the scientist entered into correspondence with the governor of Guinea and received permission to conduct experiments in Conakry - the administrative center of the country.
The biologist went to Conakry with his son Ilya, who wanted to help his father in experiments. Ivanov Sr. personally supervised the capture of adult monkeys. “The methods of catching chimpanzees were notable for their open rudeness,” writes documentary filmmaker Oleg Shishkin. - At night, the population of the hunting village hunted down the monkey herd. Then, armed with a pitchfork and a rake, the aborigines drove the chimpanzees onto a lonely tree and made a fire around. After the chimpanzee, seeing no other way out, threw himself down, Africans ran up to him and with the help of truncheons inflicted serious blows. The stunned and crippled animal could not resist the hunters who tied its limbs to two poles. These poles were carried on their shoulders by four Africans."
The experiment failed
In February 1927, Ivanov conducted an experiment on artificial insemination of two female chimpanzees with the semen of unknown human donors. And in the summer, he inseminated another monkey named Black.
In none of the three cases, pregnancy occurred.
The biologist did not lose hope - now he proposed to impregnate female volunteers with the sperm of a male chimpanzee. However, the scientist's colleagues did not welcome this idea with enthusiasm. “All around, except for obvious confusion and even a hooligan attitude, you rarely see even a tolerant attitude towards my unusual searches,” Ivanov wrote in 1927. “However, I don’t give up and, not giving a damn about the antics of our“elders”and their sycophants, I continue to seek the opportunity to bring the experiments started to a more solid number and get an answer to the questions posed. I am negotiating and hope to get support where, if there is no academic cap on the head, there is common sense and the absence of professional intolerance."
Ivanov's plans were not destined to come true - soon the scientist was subjected to political criticism and exiled to Alma-Ata, where he died of a cerebral hemorrhage.
It's stuffy to me, stuffy, it's stuffy under the skin of the beast
The experiments of the Soviet biologist found a cultural embodiment - in particular, the famous composer Dmitry Shostakovich began writing the opera Orango, the protagonist of which was a hybrid of a man and an ape. By the way, Shostakovich was personally acquainted with Ivanov and even visited his scientific station in Sukhumi in 1929, several years before the death of the scientist.
As conceived by the composer, the half-man-half-monkey appeared as a result of a bold biological experiment. But the hero was not kept in the laboratory: he was released, took up journalism, took part in the First World War, got married and even tried himself as a spy.
"Yawn, Orango!"
For unknown reasons, Shostakovich wrote only the prologue of a piece of music.