Dalmatov and the history of bison. Archive of deals with prices of antique books and second-hand books

Elizaveta Perepenko

Several generations of my ancestors honestly worked for the good of the Fatherland in various fields of activity. Among them were the military, lawyers and teachers, engineers and scientists - all of them, regardless of ranks and titles, were worthy people, never lost their honor, enjoyed the respect of the people around them. Not only in the surviving archival documents, but also in various literary sources, their impeccable service is noted, awards “for outstanding success” are mentioned. Many people can say the same words about their ancestors, since Russia was created precisely by the actions of many Russians. However, immediately after the October revolution that ruined our country, their work and honesty, knowledge and abilities became unnecessary, and they themselves were declared "alien class elements." The "Red Wheel", hyped by Lenin and his like-minded people, quickly rushed across Russia, crushing not only the above-mentioned "elements", but also workers, and peasants, and even former comrades-in-arms - revolutionaries. People were not only physically destroyed ... Their graves were wiped off the face of the earth, their names (and even "Personal Affairs"), as a rule, were withdrawn from circulation, and the remaining orphans were sent to special orphanages and colonies, where they were often given other surnames so that relatives couldn't find them. I was “lucky”: left without parents at a conscious (seven-year-old) age, I remembered my last name, but, like thousands of compatriots, I grew up “without roots”. As a result of repressions, war, (in particular, the Leningrad blockade), no documents and photographs have been preserved. When my father returned from the camps and exile, he also never talked about anything or anyone: apparently, he did not want to complicate my life with “excessive” knowledge about my ancestors. Many of my colleagues in the Russian Geographical Society and the IRO say the same thing: “My parents didn’t tell me anything.” Just like all of them, I consider it my first and most important duty to return from oblivion the names of my ancestors worthy of respect and memory. Starting, practically, "from scratch", has already "got to the bottom" until the beginning of the XVIII century. Now I am not a "rootless orphan" - behind my back are more than one hundred and fifty of my relatives.

The Dalmatovs are my maternal ancestors. This is the least studied branch of my family tree - only four generations. According to the service records, my great-grandfather, Dmitry Yakovlevich, came from "chief officers' children." According to Peter's "Table of Ranks", chief officers are ranks from ensign to captain. That's why for a long time I thought that the fathers of "chief officers' children" should have been military men. As a result of this erroneous opinion, she unsuccessfully dug up a lot of files in the military archive ... It turned out, however, that they could also be civil officials of the corresponding class (8 - 13, according to the same "Table of Ranks"). It is possible that this information will help someone avoid my mistakes. In any case, the first of the Dalmatovs known to me, my great-great-grandfather Yakov (1) was a service man. The family lived in Saransk, Penza province, in their own stone house. The years of birth and death are unknown, as well as the name of his wife.

Yakov's son - Dmitry (2/1) - was born in 1814. (The date is from archival documents, although it raises some doubts. It turns out that when my great-grandfather graduated from the Forest Institute, he was only sixteen years old). Orthodox religion. He graduated from the full course of sciences at the St. Petersburg Forestry Institute and in August 1830 was assigned to the drawing department of the State Property Department with the rank of XIV class. In 1832 he was appointed as an intern in the forest section of the Penza province. In August 1833 he was awarded the rank of provincial secretary. On November 7, 1835, by order of the Department of State Property, he was transferred to the county forester in the Nizhny Novgorod province, in the 1st district. In 1841, special thanks were expressed to him for restoring statistical information about the forests of the Semenovsky district and the project of maintaining a proper economy in them. In February 1842, he was appointed to the position of a scientist forester of the Grodno Chamber of State Property (in Belovezhskaya Pushcha). For distinction in service in 1842 he was promoted to lieutenant, in 1843 to staff captain, in 1845 to lieutenant colonel, in 1850 to colonel. In 1848 he was awarded an annual salary for excellent service. Dmitry Yakovlevich, “having studied Belovezhskaya Pushcha well during his service in it, submitted to the ministry a detailed and comprehensive description of it along with a project for profitable forestry” . He was the initiator of research work in Belovezhskaya Pushcha, in particular, from 1846 he was engaged in the domestication of bison. “In the scientific world, he gained fame as an authoritative researcher of the Bialowieza bison. For his works on the natural history of this animal - "Belovezhskaya Pushcha and the history of the bison" - in 1848 he was elected a Full Member of the Russian Geographical Society, and also received a gold (according to other sources - silver) medal from the London Zoological Society with the inscription "To Mr Dalmatof in aknowledgment of services rendered to the society” (“To Mr. Dalmatov in gratitude for the services rendered to the society”). For compiling the "History of the Bison" in October 1849, he was thanked by the Minister of State Property (Russia) and issued 250 rubles. silver . The results of the scientific work of Dmitry Yakovlevich were published in 1846 - 1878. in "Forest Journal" and other periodicals.

Since 1848, Dmitry Yakovlevich was the Perm provincial forester, and for the last twenty-two years he served as the manager of a post office, first in Ufa, and from March 1871 in Vyatka. In addition, he was a member of the committee of the Orthodox missionary society and the Vyatka local administration of the society for the care of the wounded and sick soldiers. Dmitry Yakovlevich died in 1876, shortly after the death of his eldest son Nikolai (3/2) in Serbia - in January of that year. He was awarded the orders of St. Anna 2nd class, St. Art. 2nd st. with a crown to wear around the neck, St. Vl. 4th st. for the XXXV years of impeccable service, as well as insignia for the 15th and XX years of impeccable service and a medal in memory of the war of 1853-56. , but I read about the highest, in my opinion, award in the newspapers of that time. “... He (Dalmatov) deserved the high nickname “friend of mankind” for the fact that he treated / with homeopathy * / poor patients in Ufa: workers, peasants, who even came from distant villages, seminarians, and was a true comforter, especially the latter who saw in Dalmatov a good mentor and leader. Many of the seminarians owe their careers to him, his heart lay most of all to them, the deceased directed his spiritual warmth, which he was so rich in, to them ... and helped. Peace to your soul, noble man, “friend of mankind”!!”

* In the Department of Manuscripts of the National Library of Russia there is a letter from D. Ya. Dalmatov to V. V. Grigoriev (from Ufa - dated January 28, 1860) with a proposal to translate a homeopathic manual into the Kyrgyz language. .

D. Ya. Dalmatov was married three times.
1st wife - Ekaterina Ivanovna Zvereva. After the death of his wife, Dmitry Yakovlevich and his son Nikolai - (3/2) - inherited the hereditary estate of Ekaterina Ivanovna in the Gorbatovsky district. (They are included in the second part of the Noble genealogy book of the Nizhny Novgorod province)
The second wife is Yulia Alekseevna. In the track record for 1852 - "widows by a second marriage." From this marriage there were two children - Konstantin, 4/2, and Alexandra, 5/2.

3rd wife, since 1853, - Varvara Petrovna, (1835 -1903), a graduate of the Moscow Orphanage. The marriage took place in Perm. Despite the household chores of raising eight children, she was also engaged in "social work" - she was a member of the Vyatka charitable society. After the death of Dmitry Yakovlevich, she moved with her younger children to the city of Petrokov, where she worked in a women's gymnasium, passing the test for the title of home teacher. It is noted that she is “in service since August 1, 1879, in office since January 1, 1886.”

In total, Dmitry Yakovlevich had twelve children: three sons and eight daughters (one of them died in childhood) - this is the third generation of the Dalmatov family. The fate of the sons is the most interesting; it is not for nothing that their activities are reflected in various literary sources. However, two of the daughters (Mary and Elizabeth) were also extraordinary personalities.

The eldest son, the first-born - Nikolai, 3/2, - was born on January 13, 1841. Baptized according to the Orthodox rite on January 19 at the Ascension Cathedral in the city of Semenov, Nizhny Novgorod province. (After the death of his mother, Nikolai Dmitrievich left 96 male souls in the village of Zemenki, Semenovsky district, Nizhny Novgorod province). “He received his primary education at home under the direct guidance of his very enlightened father, who had an influence on the whole way of life of his son - a remarkable personality with energy, a remarkable mind and an honest good heart, ready for self-sacrifice for the common good. Dalmatov, the son, owes his further development and acquisition of knowledge to one engineering colonel, a talented publicist, whose excellent library Nikolai constantly used. After serving a little in military service, during which he was distinguished by rare humanity towards his subordinates, Nikolai Dmitrievich retired with the rank of second lieutenant and left for Nizhny Novgorod to take part in zemstvo affairs. In 1859, without concluding any conditions with his peasants, he gave them full freedom and donated all 1000 acres of land received by will from his mother, but left nothing for himself. In the future, sometimes he himself needed the most necessary, because he often gave his money to those in need. . “At the end of the 60s, he, without any means, went to Bulgaria to fight for freedom against the Turkish enslavers together with the Slav brothers.” The uprising did not take place. Nicholas was forced to look for work. In Belgrade, he entered the cartridge factory, where he became close friends with some patriots of the Danubian Slavs. Two years later, having learned Serbian and Bulgarian, he returned to his homeland, where he worked in various positions and provinces, mainly in factories. He was engaged in literature and placed in the "Russian Word" a number of articles on serious issues. “An eternal worker, deeply gifted, honest, energetic, he always remained true to his spiritual ideal ... He was a “man” in the beautiful sense of the word, a person worthy of both surprise and imitation.” “With the beginning of the Herzegovina uprising in 1875, the thirst for struggle for a holy cause woke up in him again: he went to Belgrade almost as the first Russian volunteer.” On January 8, 1876 he was killed in Bosnia. A letter from Stoyan Ugrinich (one of the leaders of the national liberation struggle) to his father Dmitry Yakovlevich Dalmatov tells about his courage and courage. - “... We and the entire Serbian people mourn Nikolai Dmitrievich as one of the most generous victims and a courageous fighter for the liberation of the Serbian people from the Turkish yoke. ... Your son is buried with full military honors. The Serbian people remember his merits so well that they want to erect a special monument to him.” * The letter of Stoyan Ugrinich is in the Public Library (RNL, in St. Petersburg), in 1963 it was handed over by Nikolai Dmitrievich's niece - Natalia Aleksandrovna Dalmatova - .*

The middle son, Konstantin, 4/2, was born on April 6, 1850. Orthodox religion. He was educated in the military corps. From 1871 he served in the Ministry of State Property. In 1883 he had the rank of titular councillor. Artist, collector (he collected the richest collection of old embroideries, lace, fabrics, etc., “both Russian and Little Russian, Chuvash, Mordovian, Votyak, Cheremis and others, giving an idea of ​​the national ornament of these peoples.” Part of it was acquired the Ministry of Finance for the Stroganov School in Moscow, the other - the Russian Museum for the ethnographic department), the publisher (published seven albums of embroidery patterns), arranged five exhibitions on the same subject; in 1889 he made patterns ... for decorating the “Russian tower” in the Danish royal park of Fredensborg.

Wife - Akilina Mintyevna Petukhova, "a girl from the peasants, listed in the petty bourgeoisie of the city of Vyatka." Their two daughters - Nadezhda and Yulia - were not born in marriage, although from the day of birth they lived inseparably with their parents and were brought up at the expense of their father. On October 27, 1883, according to the petition, “daughters were allowed to take the father’s surname and enter into the rights of legitimate children” - since “in view of approving morality and official activity”, “royal mercy was rendered on his family business”.

* In the future, the spouses, in all likelihood, broke up, since in 1915 they lived at different addresses. *
In the 1900s, Konstantin Dmitrievich had the rank of collegiate assessor. Lived and worked in St. Petersburg.

2nd wife - (in 1917) - Ekaterina Mikhailovna.
After 1917, his fate is unknown.

The youngest son, Alexander Dmitrievich, 14/2, was born on June 19, 1873. He was of the Orthodox faith. He received a military education. In 1896 he was a cornet of a dragoon regiment, from 1910 he was a headquarters captain at the Officers' Cavalry School, in 1917 he was a colonel of the guards. In addition, he was a highly skilled photographer. At the request of Georgy Kartsov, he took part in illustrating his book about Belovezhskaya Pushcha - it contains more than two hundred photographs of bison. “Thanks to A. D. Dalmatov, the fauna of the Pushcha is presented in the publication with snapshots of wild animals in their daily lives. These photographs are so valuable for the hunter that the animal is captured in them in its real, unpainted setting. . In 1914, he published the Army and Navy magazine, and he himself was an editor, a publisher, an author of many articles, and a photojournalist. He shot not only on the ground - “Laying of the regimental church of l - guards. 1st Infantry Regiment of Catherine the Great in Tsarskoye Selo on March 11, 1914", but also in the air - Sikorsky's Ilya Muromets over St. Petersburg", as well as "View of St. Petersburg from the Ilya Muromets and the internal view of the aircraft" - (in 6). In addition, he was also the author of several books and ... musical works. * In one of the newspapers for February 1905 there was a brief message about the waltz "Pacific Waves" by A. Dalmatov and that "the income from the sale will be directed to the development of the navy" *

Wife - Elizaveta Ivanovna, daughter of Ivan Ivanovich Dernov, hereditary honorary citizen, merchant of the 1st guild, vowel of the St. Petersburg Duma, member of the Mariinsky Society for the Care of the Obukhov Hospital. Ivan Ivanovich died on August 22, 1905, and was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in St. Petersburg. Alexander Dmitrievich and his family lived on Tavricheskaya Street in house number 35, built by I. I. Dernov in 1905. It is known as the "house with a tower", one of the apartments of which entered the history of the "Silver Age" of Russian culture. Since 1918, Alexander Dalmatov - one of the organizers (or the head? - according to his daughter N. Dalmatova) of the "red" cavalry school, earned gratitude from S. M. Budyonny, but later, despite his services to the Soviet authorities and the Red Army, was fired, worked at a film factory. .

Alexander Dmitrievich was repressed in the 30s. Even positive reviews about his work did not save him. Rehabilitated posthumously. His wife died in evacuation in 1941-43. .

Since Dmitry Yakovlevich Dalmatov himself was a great worker, he believed that his daughters should also work. The information found shows that they worked, following the advice of their father. Let me remind you that the daughters are also the third generation of the Dalmatovs.

Alexandra Dmitrievna, 5/2, was born on March 11, 1852. Orthodox religion. Not earlier than March 25, 1879, she married NN Miller.

In 1898, the widow, D.S. With. Alexandra Dmitrievna Miller lived in St. Petersburg. She worked as a teacher's assistant in a Sunday girls' school on Vasilyevsky Island (Bolshoy pr., 69) in 1902 and lived at the same address. .

Nadezhda Dmitrievna, 6/2, was born on January 25, 1855 in Ufa, of the Orthodox faith. She was an artist. . She married no earlier than September 7, 1875. She died in Moscow after 1917.

1st husband - Sergey Alekseevich Kitovsky, in 1880 was a provincial surveyor in Vyatka. In 1910 he was a member of the board of the Moscow Land Survey Office.

2nd husband - Alexander Konstantinovich Pozharsky, in 1910 - captain of the Rostov Grenadier Regiment (Moscow).

Maria Dmitrievna, 7/2, born September 27, 1853 in Perm, died after 1917 in Petrograd (Leningrad). Orthodox religion.

From 1871 she lived with her parents in Vyatka. She got married there. After the death of her husband, Maria Dmitrievna Senyavina, widow of Dr. s., moved to St. Petersburg (not earlier than 1886). She worked first as an assistant inspector of the Higher Women's Courses (in 1892), then (no later than 1900) as an inspector at the Women's Medical Institute. After 1910, she lived with the family of her younger brother Alexander - on Tavricheskaya street, house 35. .

Husband - Apollon Nikolayevich Senyavin (son of Nikolai Dmitrievich Senyavin, born in 1798, a graduate of the Naval Cadet Corps, grandson of the Russian Admiral Dmitry Nikolayevich Senyavin) - in 1862 he graduated from St. Petersburg University "in the category of legal sciences". On November 25, 1870, he was appointed assistant prosecutor of the Samara District Court, and on December 5, 1874, he was appointed prosecutor of the Vyatka District Court. In 1880 he was a collegiate adviser, a full member of the provincial statistical committee in Vyatka. Awards: Order of St. Art. 2nd st. with the Imperial crown, St. Anna 3rd class. . They have a son Nikolai (*1877) and a daughter Maria (*April 5, 1886 in Vyatka). Nikolai Apollonovich graduated from St. Petersburg University, was a lawyer. * Had a son Cyril. His descendants - Nikolai Kirillovich (*1932) and Kirill Nikolayevich (*1960) Senyavin - live in St. Petersburg*. Maria Apollonovna was a surgeon - traumatologist, worked in 1914 at the clinic of the Women's Medical Institute, in 1915 - as an assistant at the hospital. Peter the Great, then in the Vreden clinic. * Roman Romanovich Vreden (1867 -1934) - surgeon, one of the founders of orthopedics in Russia, director of the Orthopedic Institute in St. Petersburg, professor at the First Leningrad Medical Institute. * After 1917, she also worked in one of the clinics, but in 1935 she was sent to Saratov, where she fell ill and died in 1937.

Olga Dmitrievna, 8/2, in the marriage of Shestakova, was born on June 11, 1856 in Ufa. In 1875, D.S.S. Pavel Andreevich Shestakov. Dmitry Yakovlevich Dalmatov, Olga's father, was also a member of the aforementioned department, so it can be assumed that she was the wife of Pavel Andreevich. (The surname - Shestakova - is known from the inscription on the surviving photograph of Olga Dmitrievna). In 1880 he was a justice of the peace, then a fellow prosecutor of the Vyatka District Court. On April 1, 1887, he was appointed a member of the Petrokovsky District Court. * Apparently, the move of Varvara Petrovna Dalmatova to the city of Petrokov was connected with this appointment. *

Varvara Dmitrievna, 9/2, was born on November 24, 1858. Orthodox religion. She died in 1892. Her husband, Ludwig Stanislavovich Dravert, graduated from the law faculty of Moscow University. He entered the service in January 1871. In 1879 he was a collegiate adviser. By 1881 he was a fellow prosecutor of the Vyatka District Court. On June 15, 1881, the general meeting of the court elected him as its member. In 1906 he was chairman of the Vyatka district court. then became a senator. It is surprising that with such a father, their son Peter "hit" into revolutionary activity - he became a "socialist". . * However, he was not the only one in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century who fell into madness. Truly, they did not know what they were doing. * Their grandson Leonid Petrovich, who was born in 1901 in Kazan, from his youth "went" even further: he became a member of the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party. In 1925, he was sentenced for three years to imprisonment for a political isolator for Left Socialist-Revolutionary activities, in 1928 to exile for three years in Kazakhstan, in 1931 to exile for three years in the Urals, then in Bashkiria. In February 1937 he was arrested on charges of anti-Soviet terrorist activities, on April 25, 1938 he was sentenced to death by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court. Rehabilitated. .

*Although the Draverts are not blood relatives of the Dalmatovs, but only their “in-laws”, it should still be noted that in addition to Ludwig Stanislavovich, other representatives of this family also worked in Vyatka: Ludwig’s father, Stanislav Ivanovich, in 1857 was a collegiate assessor, ruler office of the civil governor of Vyatka, his father's brother - Ignatius Ivanovich - was a titular adviser, a member of the Vyatka provincial government and manager of the chamber of state property. In 1880 - Stanislav Ivanovich Dravert, p. s., was the head of the economic department of the Vyatka State Property Administration; Adolf Stanislavovich Dravert, collegiate assessor, was a doctor in Urzhum, Vyatka province; court adviser Ignatius Ivanovich Dravert was an assistant to the ruler of the governor's office . *

Elena, 10/2, was born in Ufa on April 10, 1865. After the death of her sister Olga, she married the widowed L. S. Dravert.

Elizabeth, 12/2, my grandmother, was born on May 27, 1870 in Vyatka. In the 80s she lived in Petrokov. She worked with her mother, Varvara Petrovna, at the gymnasium as a class lady, then as a teacher. In the early 1900s she lived in Dagestan - at the place of service of her husband - Ivan Ivanovich Reiman. He was born on August 30, 1850, of the Orthodox faith. He was educated at the 2nd Military Konstantinovsky School. He entered service on September 1, 1869. After graduating from college, he was assigned to the First Rifle Battalion, in Tsarskoye Selo, where, starting with the rank of ensign, he served for fourteen years - up to major. Then he served in various command positions, including commander of the 6th Infantry Battalion (from 1887 to 1889). The aforementioned battalion lodged in the mountains. Tomashov, Petrokov province, and at that time Elizaveta lived with her relatives in Petrokov. There she met her future husband. However, Ivan Ivanovich was married, so their marriage took place only eleven years later, in 1900. On March 6, 1900, Ivan Reiman, with the rank of major general, was appointed head of the 64th infantry reserve brigade, whose headquarters was located in Temir-Khan-Shura (Dagestan). In the same place, in 1902, their daughter Irina, my mother, was born. Ivan Ivanovich died in 1903, leaving a widow with a young daughter. * In addition to Irina, my grandfather had four more minor children from his first marriage. Studying my grandfather's track record, I found very interesting information about how the military authorities were busy with the possibility of raising the widow's pension and, in general, improving her financial situation (not only two sons were placed in the cadet corps, but there was other help). In a word, the needy family of the deceased officer was not left to the mercy of fate.* Elizaveta Dmitrievna, after the death of her husband, did not give up, but continued her “career” as a teacher. It is not known when she left Dagestan, but she did not give up in the face of difficulties. In the pre-revolutionary years, she was already the headmistress of a private gymnasium in Minsk. In the 30s she lived in Leningrad with the family of her daughter, who graduated from the university in Minsk and worked as a referent at the Institute of Experimental Medicine in Leningrad. In 1935, after the arrest of her husband, Dmitry Pavlovich Shcherbov - Nefedovich (1906 - 1981), she was fired "due to redundancy." Then she was again hired at the same institute, but only as a librarian. Fearing reprisals as "members of the family of an enemy of the people", they moved to the city of Pushkin (the former Tsarskoye Selo, then it was a suburb). Grandmother ended her teaching career in the same city where long before that her late husband had started his military career. A month after the start of the Great Patriotic War, their daughter Irina was arrested on a false denunciation by her colleague. Only 52 years later it became known that she died in "places of deprivation of liberty" on July 25, 1946. She was buried in the village of Yagdynya Verkhne - Bureinsky district of the Khabarovsk Territory. Elizaveta Dmitrievna, starved to death in July 1942 in besieged Leningrad.

The youngest daughter of Dmitry Yakovlevich Dalmatov - Natalya, 13/2, was born on February 20, 1872. Died in childhood. .

The fourth generation of the Dalmatovs includes the children of Konstantin (4/2) and Alexander (14/2), since the descendants of the daughters, although they are Dalmatovs by blood, but, like me, have other surnames.

Nadezhda, 15/4, was born on September 2, 1875 in Vyatka. They were baptized on September 7 according to the Orthodox rite in the Resurrection Cathedral in Vyatka. Receiver - Nadezhda Dmitrievna Dalmatova; priest - Onesifor Vadikovsky. .

Julia, 16/4, was born on March 14, 1879 in St. Petersburg. Baptized March 25th. Godparents: Collegiate Councilor Ludwig Stanislavovich Dravert and the daughter of the State Councilor, Alexandra Dmitrievna Dalmatova.

George, 17/14, was born in St. Petersburg on April 6, 1909, died no later than 1934, in Leningrad. He was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery, but the grave has not been preserved.

Natalya, 18/14, was born on January 5, 1911 in St. Petersburg. She studied at the art school, which was located in her grandfather's house, known as the "House with a tower."
1st husband - Boris Bobrischev - Pushkin - was repressed.
2nd husband - Anatoly Korolkov.
3rd husband - Luigi NN (Italian, pilot),
4th husband - Konstantin Fedorovich Sukhin, journalist, correspondent for the Izvestia newspaper, died in the early 70s.
Son - Vladimir (Bobrishchev - Pushkin), born in 1929, + 1976.
Daughter Ariadna Anatolyevna Korolkova - 1932 - 1995.

Vladimir, the son of Natalia Alexandrovna, having been evacuated with his grandmother, Elizaveta Ivanovna Dernova, from besieged Leningrad, went to the front as a thirteen-year-old boy. (The mother considered the flight to the front to be the cause of her grandmother's death, she could not forgive him and refused to meet with her son). Vladimir was the “son of a regiment” in a tank brigade, a cabin boy on the boat “Sea Hunter”, was awarded orders and medals, including the Order of the Patriotic War II degree. About his fate, Valentin Multatuli wrote the story “Bobrishchev - Pushkin. A boy from besieged Leningrad.

Used sources.

1. RGIA. F. 1343, op. 20, d. 2701. About the nobility of the Dalmatov family
2. RGIA. F. 1405, op. 545, d. 14950, 1869, Composition of the Vyatka region. court.
3. RGIA. F. 1405, op. 545, d. 15995, 1880, Composition of the Vyatka region. court.
4. RGIA. F. 1412, op. 5, d. 39,1883, on petitions filed in the name of the EIV.
5. RGVIA. F. 1720, op. 4, d. 59, 1903, about the track record of Ivan Reiman.
6. Address - a calendar of persons serving in the Vyatka province, on ..., Vyatka, 1857 - 1880.
7. Address - calendar. General painting of commanding and other officials ... in the Russian Empire on ..., St. Petersburg, 1846 - 1888
8. Biographies. Ed. "Russian Encyclopedia", M., 1993, v.4, p. 503.
9. All Leningrad on .... L. 1932 - 1934.
10. All Petersburg on ..., St. Petersburg, 1892 - 1913,
11. All Petrograd is on ..., Pgr, 1914 - 1917.
12. All Moscow on ..., M., 1903 - 1910.
13. "Vyatka provincial sheets", 1877, No. 16.
14. Grigoriev V.V. Imperial St. Petersburg University during the first fifty years of its existence. St. Petersburg, 1870.
15. "They tell at home." Compiled by Lisaevich I., Lenizdat, 1991, p. 164.
16. Magazine "Army and Navy", St. Petersburg - Pgr. 1914, Nos. 1 - 12.
17. Magazine "Istochnik", 1988, No. 1, p. 83.
18. Illustrated magazine "Niva", 1876, No. 43, p. 729.
18a. Historical cemeteries of St. Petersburg. St. Petersburg, 1993, pp. 205, 249, 403.
19. Kartsov G. Belovezhskaya Pushcha. St. Petersburg, 1903, p. 59, 85, 153, 154, 220.
20. Kovalkov M.P., Balyuk S.S., Budnichenko R.I. Belovezhskaya Pushcha. Annotated bibliographic index of domestic literature (1835 -1983), Minsk, ed. "Urajay", 1985, ann. 458 - 467, 882, 1421.
21. "Forest Journal", St. Petersburg. 1877, No. 1, p.157.
22. Leningradskaya Pravda, August 24, 1963, p. 3.
23. Multatuli V.M. "Bobrishchev - Pushkin, a boy from besieged Leningrad." Literary - artistic. almanac "Sphinx", St. Petersburg, no. 8 - 10.
24. Murzanov N. A. List of judicial figures of the first call. (To the fiftieth anniversary of judicial reforms) Pgr., 1914, p.82
25. "Father and son." Orenburg sheet, 1877, No. 10.
26. Commemorative book of the Petrokovskaya province for 1890. Petrokov, 1890, p.86, 104
26a. RNB. Department of Manuscripts. F.608, op.1, No. 2358.
27. Report from the St. Petersburg Prosecutor's Office, February 1994, family archive.
28. Message from the information center of the Main Department of Internal Affairs of St. Petersburg, March, 1995, family archive.
29. Oral communication by N. A. Dalmatova.
30. Oral communication by N. K. Senyavin.

Among Russian antique hunting books, there are not many publications that would be included in the annals of Russian culture and would serve as a source of special pride for any serious bibliophile who collects Russian illustrated books. “Hunting in Belovezhskaya Pushcha” with drawings by Mihai Zichy belongs to such publications.

A lot of things come together in this book. A magnificent artist, excellent printing, a story about the Highest hunt for the royal beast in places that, without fear of exaggeration, can be safely called hunting grounds on the entire European continent. To top it all, the value of the publication is increased by the fact that the book was not published for sale, but was intended solely as a memorable gift for members of the Russian Imperial Family, members of other Sovereign Houses, the first persons from their retinues, as well as for the Ambassadors and Envoys of various states accredited in Russia. I would even say that this book was not so much intended to perpetuate a memorable and truly unique hunt, but to demonstrate to the world the wealth, power and potential of the Russian Empire, as well as the brilliance and valor of its worthy Monarch, who was just on the eve of the Great Reforms, which peacefully transformed the vast country and immortalized him in the memory of the people as the Tsar-Liberator. All these circumstances make this book an interesting phenomenon of national culture.

Due to the fact that the book was presented to the highest circle of people, before the revolution, it practically did not appear on the antiquarian second-hand book market. This circumstance has always allowed second-hand booksellers to declare in their sales catalogs that "Hunting in Belovezhskaya Pushcha" is an exceptional rarity, printed in just a few copies only for members of the Imperial Family and persons participating in the hunt. However, this was not a conscious deception by book dealers of gullible buyers. This was their conscientious delusion, since second-hand booksellers did not know the true circulation of the book, and the rarity of this or that antiquarian book was estimated by its occurrence. It must be said that this, at first glance, purely subjective criterion is quite accurate, but only in relation to books that are completely included in second-hand books. However, this book did not enter into circulation before the revolution, firmly settling in private libraries, from which it came out only in exceptional cases. After the revolution, the situation changed dramatically. The book began to constantly appear on sale, since in terms of its circulation (which will be discussed below) it has never been a true rarity in the classical bibliophile sense.

"Hunting in Belovezhskaya Pushcha" is dedicated to the hunting of Emperor Alexander II, which took place on October 6-7, 1860. The reader learned about how this hunt was prepared and passed from the text of the book placed above, but I will continue my story about it. But first I would like to make a few remarks about hunting in menageries.

In the minds of most modern Russian hunters, the impression is that hunting in a menagerie is, at best, not a hunt, and at worst, a slaughter. This belief is very strong. In fact, hunting in a menagerie differs from ordinary raids only in that the hunter's meeting with the beast, which is by no means domestic and not tamed, as many believe for some reason, is guaranteed here. We agree that this is an important factor in the organization of hunting for the Highest Persons. Therefore, the very sensations of hunting in a menagerie in terms of the intensity of passion are in no way inferior to the sensations experienced by a hunter on an ordinary raid. The number of killed game and the fact that it was killed in the fence is not the absolute criterion that allows us to attribute this or that hunt to slaughter. The line here is much thinner and lies mainly in the aesthetic plane, i.e. is a matter of taste. Therefore, this has nothing to do with hunting passion. Just like a preference: whether to eat fried chicken now or a pork chop - to a feeling of hunger. It's a matter of personal taste and possibilities.

The fortified standard, which we can see in one of Zichy's drawings in this book, also always evoke sarcastic remarks, but this time about the Tsar's personal courage. However, for some reason, it is never taken into account here that risking one's own life for a head of state, especially an autocratic one, is an unforgivable luxury. Therefore, the necessary security measures for his life are certainly justified and not dictated by the cowardice of the Sovereign.

I made this digression in defense of hunting in menageries, not only so that the reader would look at the hunting of Alexander II in Belovezhskaya Pushcha precisely as a simple hunt, although somewhat different from other types of hunting. I also wanted the reader to see the other side of this hunt - hunting as a cultural phenomenon. The fact is that in the life of any Highest Court, hunting in a menagerie was a secular, protocol event. Exactly the same essential attribute of high society life, which, for example, is golf or tennis now. Therefore, everything here, down to the smallest details, was regulated and obeyed the time-honored rules and traditions. The Russian Imperial Court was no exception, whose national cultural basis was largely enriched by the European tradition. This gave us that hunting culture, which we call Russian. I would even say that in general the whole history of the Imperial Court hunting is our main cultural heritage. And if we want to remain within the framework of the national hunting culture, then this heritage must be carefully collected, stored and studied. Therefore, considering the hunt of Alexander II in Belovezhskaya Pushcha from this point of view, one cannot help but appreciate it as an outstanding event in the history of Russian hunting, which was of great importance for the further fate of Pushcha.

Belovezhskaya Pushcha became part of the Russian Empire in the reign of Catherine II in 1794. Let's pay tribute to the Russian Sovereigns. They were well aware of the historical and cultural significance of Pushcha. As well as the need to protect both the Pushcha itself and the relic of the European fauna - the bison. Already in 1803, by the Highest Decree, the bison was declared a reserved animal. His capture and shooting was allowed only with a nominal Imperial permission, mainly for natural science purposes: to replenish zoos, menageries, parks, collections of zoological and natural history museums in Russia and Europe. And since 1820, logging was also prohibited.

Prior to the transition in 1888 to the Specific Office, i.e. into the ownership of the Imperial Family in exchange for the same amount of land in the Oryol and Simbirsk provinces, Belovezhskaya Pushcha was in the State Administration. However, for many years the Treasury simply did not have the strength and energy to manage the huge Russian state property. Often she did not even imagine that she was really under her control. Only in the reign of Nicholas I, when a special Ministry of State Property was created in 1838, did the long and difficult process of bringing all state property to the public, creating an effective system of its state administration, and training specialists begin. Belovezhskaya Pushcha did not go unnoticed either. In 1843-47, the first complete forest management was carried out here, and the Treasury finally got a real understanding of what this unique forest area of ​​Europe really is. At the same time, a special detailed report of the scientist forester D.Ya. Dalmatov, who served in Pushcha, was submitted to the Ministry of State Property on its current state, historical significance and the creation of profitable forestry here. In the autumn of 1847, in connection with the completion of the construction, the Minister of State Property, Count P.D. Kiselev, visited Pushcha for inspection purposes in order to assess the possibilities and ways of further development of the Pushchino economy on the spot. The hunt was also not left without the attention of the Minister.

It should be noted that Emperor Nicholas I did not approve of the hobby of his son, the future Emperor Alexander II, winter hunting for bears and elks, reasonably fearing for the safety and health of the Heir. For several years, the Tsarevich could not get permission from his father to participate in winter animal hunts. The decisive role in obtaining his father's consent to these hunts was played by Count Kiselev, who enjoyed great authority and respect from Nicholas I, and guaranteed the complete safety of the Heir on the hunt in the Lisinsky Educational Forestry, subordinate to the Ministry of State Property and the Count's favorite brainchild. With a successful elk hunt on December 21, 1844 in this forestry, which by that time had already gained fame for its exemplary hunts, the countdown of the winter animal hunts of Alexander II begins. Apparently, it was the success of Lisin's bear and elk hunts that prompted Kiselev to pay attention to bison hunting in Belovezhskaya Pushcha, in order to subsequently be able to offer it to Alexander. Therefore, during the inspection trip of 1847, a bison hunt was organized especially for the Minister. But either due to the complexity of organizing the hunt itself, or due to the insufficient level of security for the Tsesarevich, or, most likely, due to the failure to obtain the permission of the Emperor, the idea of ​​organizing a hunt in Belovezhskaya Pushcha for the Heir was postponed. However, this idea itself, apparently, never disappeared from the minds of the ministerial authorities, eventually materializing in the hunt of 1860.

The initiative to organize the hunt itself, as well as the initiative to publish a book about this hunt, belonged to Alexander Alekseevich Zeleny. At that time, to the Comrade (i.e., assistant - O.E.) and Major General of the retinue of His Imperial Majesty. Zelenoy was a constant companion of Alexander II on winter animal hunts. The initiative could not fail to meet with full understanding on the part of the Emperor, who had already declared himself as a passionate hunter, and with whose accession the intensity and variety of imperial hunts reached an unprecedented scale. The organizational side of the matter could no longer raise doubts with the Ministry, since by 1860 Belovezhskaya Pushcha was fully organized and staffed with specialists who, over the past decade and a half, had studied Pushcha and its possibilities quite well. The desire of the Ministry to surprise the Sovereign with a unique and inimitable hunt was spurred on by the hunting that took place in 1858, organized by Count M. Tyshkevich for Alexander II, not far from. The slightly wounded Ministry of State Property hastened to organize its own hunt for the Sovereign. Moreover, the capabilities of the Ministry and the Belovezhskaya Pushcha under its control, with its main trump card - the bison, were immeasurably higher than the capabilities of some Polish Count, who so unceremoniously dared to seize the initiative to organize the first hunt of the Russian Emperor in the ancient Lithuanian Principality. Therefore, the main task set by Zeleny before his subordinates, together with the rangers of the Imperial Court hunting attached to them under the command of Unter-Jägermeister I.V. Ivanov, was not only to surpass the hunt organized by Count Tyszkiewicz, but also to surpass the hunt taken as a model in Belovezhskaya Pushcha 1752 year of the Polish King August III of Saxony. Let's give credit to the Ministry of State Property - it coped with the task brilliantly.

In memory of this hunt, also in imitation of August III, the Greens were asked to erect a monument in Belovezhskaya Pushcha. The Emperor liked the idea and a monument in the form was erected. By order of Alexander II, seven reduced gilded ones were cast from the model of this monument, which were donated to: - the organizers of the hunt: Zeleny and Count P.K. Ferzen (the latter at that time was the Jägermeister of the Imperial Court); and five to the German Princes participating in the hunt.

Shortly before the hunt in Belovezhskaya Pushcha, in 1859, Alexander II invited Mihai (or, as he was called in Russia, Mikhail Alexandrovich) Zichy, a Hungarian by nationality, who had been working in Russia for more than ten years and earned himself the fame of the best Russian watercolorist, for which he was awarded the title of Academician of watercolor painting by the Russian Academy of Arts. The main task for the artist in this position was to keep a picturesque chronicle of the life of the Supreme Court. Naturally, Zichy was invited by the Emperor to make sketches about hunting in Belovezhskaya Pushcha.

Probably already at the beginning of 1861, at one of the evening hunting meetings with the Sovereign, which was usually attended by all the constant hunting companions of the Emperor, Zichy presented a series of sheets devoted to hunting in Belovezhskaya Pushcha. It was then, apparently, that the idea of ​​the book was born in Zeleny.

With the beginning of the regular hunts of Alexander II in the Lisinsky Educational Forestry, Count Kiselev ordered that a special book be kept in the latter, where each hunt in the Highest Presence could be recorded, and also that a brief report about it be personally presented to him. This tradition in the Ministry was preserved under the next Minister. Similar reports were submitted to the Minister in the case of the Sovereign's hunts in other state estates.

Hunting in Belovezhskaya Pushcha was no exception. The idea of ​​linking the ministerial report with Zichy's watercolors and publishing it as a memento of this hunt was brilliant. To which Elena, apparently, immediately received the highest approval.

In the fund of the Ministry of State Property of the Russian State Historical Archive, I could not find any traces of the case for the publication of this book. And it certainly should have been. The only thing I found is a case with the following name: . Unfortunately, with the exception of a few pages, this case has nothing to do with hunting in Belovezhskaya Pushcha and the publication of the book. Of particular interest are only two pages - sheets 123 and 124. The first of these will be discussed further below. And sheet 124 is a list of cases compiled at the beginning of November 1860 that are transferred from the General Office of the Minister to. In this list, under number 9 is: “The case of the HIGHEST hunting in Belovezhskaya Pushcha on October 6 and 7, 1860. 48 pp." Against it is a pencil mark: "will be given separately." So, it was. But by belonging to the Forestry Department from the General Office of the Minister in November 1860, it was not transferred. With a fairly high degree of certainty, it can be assumed that later all the documents on the publication of the book "Hunting in Belovezhskaya Pushcha", including its draft text, should have been included in this file. These documents, despite all the imperfections of the then departmental archives, the absence of any clear understanding of what kind of files are still subject to eternal storage, should not have been destroyed, as they contained materials that told about one of the brightest episodes in history departments, moreover, associated with the Highest Name. And the fact that the file nevertheless turned out to be lost may mean that either it did not fall into the archive of the Ministry at all, remaining in the hands of Zeleny or the official who prepared its text; or, more likely, due to an oversight, it fell into the composition of other cases of the Minister's Office under the general cover, on which, due to bureaucratic forgetfulness, its name was not issued separately. And the fate of such cases was sad.

Due to the chronic lack of free space, departmental archives were periodically cleared of deposits of unnecessary files. Moreover, the need or uselessness of a particular case was determined only by the current interests of the department. There was no way to look at all the cases accumulated at a tremendous speed by the efforts of only archival officials on the subject of whether the given case was subject to destruction or not, not to mention genuine archeographic research, there was no way. Therefore, when selecting cases to be destroyed, they were guided only by the name, without looking.

That this case has been lost for a long time is also confirmed by the fact that the author of a huge work dedicated to G.P. Kartsov, who worked in the collection of materials for his work in the archive of the Ministry of State Property, reported about the hunt of Alexander II, in fact, only what had already been published in the book "Hunting in Belovezhskaya Pushcha", the text of which he reproduced in full in his work. And this means that already at the end of the 19th century, no materials about this hunt, as well as about the publication of a book about it, were preserved in the archives of the Ministry. Moreover, Kartsov even incorrectly indicated the year of publication of the book -. By the way, this year usually appears in all bibliographic data about this one.

About the author, Kartsov said only that he, apparently, was not a hunter, and that the historical essay on Pushcha in this book was taken last from the report submitted to the Ministry by Dalmatov. Based on this remark by Kartsov, who saw Dalmatov’s report, which has not been preserved to date in the fund of the Ministry of State Property, it can be assumed that an unknown author, apparently an official of the Ministry (more on that below), expanded the usual hunting report for the Minister, reworking and adding to it the material available in the Ministry on the history of hunting in Pushcha. Thus the text of the book was born.

The order for printing the book was placed by the Ministry of State Property in the printing house of the Academy of Sciences. The choice of this printing house was not accidental. And the point here was not even that it was completely natural for the state department to place its order in the state printing house. In this case, the Ministry could manage with its own departmental printing house. But the fact was that the oldest academic printing house in Russia was one of the best, possessed the richest body of fonts, which made it possible to publish a book in any language of the world and with the most pretentious formulas and tables; had in its staff highly qualified specialists capable of fulfilling the most complex orders, which, in fact, were all orders of the Academy of Sciences. And although this particular order was not particularly difficult for the academic printing house in technical terms, it was nevertheless completed at the highest level.

Considering "Hunting in Belovezhskaya Pushcha", it is impossible not to note, first of all, the highest artistic level of the publication. The book is not overloaded with illustrations or text. Everything in it is harmonious: format, volume, font and placement of text on the sheet; illustrations, their selection and placement in the book - you can feel the hand of the book's outstanding graphics in everything. But, most likely, the layout of the publication was completely developed by Zichi himself, who already had practical experience in illustrating and designing books. There is no such class of fiction publication in Russian hunting literature anymore. The cult four-volume book by Kutep in terms of artistic culture, and not in terms of the richness of the publication, does not even come close to the level of "Hunting in Belovezhskaya Pushcha", in which, along with a high artistic level, it is also striking how simple means this is achieved. It's really true that genuine aristocracy is always distinguished by good quality, elegance and simplicity. The book was printed on ordinary thick, well-bleached paper, although of high quality, but not related to any of its expensive varieties used at that time. It is typed in an inexpensive font of the simplest style, the so-called . The font is beautiful precisely in its simplicity, besides it is well readable. Thus, the high printing culture of the academic printing house, multiplied by the highest class of its specialists and the talent of an outstanding artist, created this masterpiece. In my opinion, in terms of collection value, only tray copies of hunting publications of the 18th century can be put on a par with The Hunt in Belovezhskaya Pushcha.

Zeleny's choice of an academic printing house as the executor of the ministerial order turned out to be not only successful, but also very far-sighted. Although the Comrade Minister did not even suspect about the latter. The fact is that the Russian Academy of Sciences, as it should be for a truly scientific institution, treated its archival fund very reverently. Thanks to this, the archive of the printing house of the Academy of Sciences has come down to us in its entirety since its foundation, i.e. even from the times of Peter the Great. If not for Zeleny's unexpected foresight, we would still be talking about the imprint of "Hunting in Belovezhskaya Pushcha" only in the subjunctive mood. And so, in the "Book of accounts for printing publications of third-party institutions" for 1862, we find an exhaustive one.

Here we read that "Hunting in Belovezhskaya Pushcha" began printing in the printing house in January 1862 and was completed in August 1862. Thus, 1862 should be considered the year of its publication. Consequently, the printing house received an order for its printing, most likely, in the second half of 1861. The book was printed in the amount of 210 copies in Russian and 60 in French. The total cost: for material, typesetting, printing, and an addition for incidental expenses, amounted to only 373 rubles. To this, however, it would be necessary to add the expenses of the Ministry for printing lithographs (5 in color and 4 in black and white), executed by the lithoprinting house “R. Gundrieser and Co., for which we do not have exact data. But such a number of high-quality lithographs should have increased the cost of the book by at least 2-3 times. The remuneration of the artist's labor was not included in the cost of the publication, because. Zichy received a salary from the Ministry of the Imperial Court and the work was done by him as part of, let's say, a service assignment. Thus, it can be assumed that on average one copy of the book cost the Ministry from 2.5 to 4 rubles. For a publication of this class, it was very, very inexpensive.

Zelenoy could be pleased with such a magnificent and quick implementation of his idea. The book has become an excellent gift for the Ministry for the right people. This is evidenced by the following fact. On the copy, located in the Library of the Academy of Sciences, in the upper right corner of the flyleaf there is a very remarkable entry: “Received this October 1st. 1878 (Due to an official requirement)." For 16 years, the Academy of Sciences could not obtain from the Ministry of State Property a copy of the book for its library, not only simply due to it by right, but also printed in its own printing house!

A few words must also be said about the format of the publication. The book has the size of a quarter of a sheet, the so-called. This format was usually used when it was necessary to emphasize the significance of the publication. He gave the book a certain solidity and solemnity. The form, in this case, perfectly matched the content, setting the reader up for the perception of the described hunt as an outstanding event. And indeed it is. I will not be afraid to repeat myself, and I will emphasize once again that the hunting of Alexander II in Belovezhskaya Pushcha was an outstanding event in the history of Russian hunting.

Who is the author of the text of the book? Undoubtedly, it could only be one of the officials of the Ministry. In one of the cases, I discovered a very curious fact. To one of the memorandums to the Minister of the Imperial Court from Zichy, the latter is accompanied by a list of his paintings. And here under number 72 we can read:. In the Address-Calendar of the Russian Empire for 1859-60, there are not so many Monsieur Fuchs. And one of them is ours. Consisting at the Ministry of State Property, Collegiate Assessor, Viktor Yakovlevich Fuchs. And here I will return to sheet 123, which I have already mentioned above. It is an attitude from the Forest Department dated November 23, 1860. “To Mr. Officer of Special Assignments at the Department of Agriculture, Collegiate Assessor Fuchs. The Forest Department has the honor to notify Your Excellency that the documents listed in the attached list of papers dated November 10, No. 12, except for the case of the HIGHEST hunting in Belovezhskaya Pushcha on October 7, 1860, have been received in this Department. And this directly indicates that it was Fuchs who supervised this matter in the Ministry. Therefore, it indirectly confirms that this is the Fuchs to whom Zichy attributes the text.

In conclusion of my essay on this wonderful book, I can't resist telling the readers a curious episode connected with one of Zichi's watercolors, which served as an illustration for the book.

The watercolor "Local population and hunting participants are waiting for the arrival of Emperor Alexander II in Belovezh" until 1904 was in the collection of the Lisinsky Imperial Hunting Palace. Together with her, the palace had three more watercolors by Zichy, but already directly depicting scenes of winter hunting in the Lisinsky forestry. Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to establish exactly when and under what circumstances these watercolors by Zichy ended up in the Lisinsky Palace. Undoubtedly, only one thing is that this happened during the life of Alexander II and on his direct orders. Neither Alexander III nor Nicholas II liked Lisino. And under them, the palace was not replenished with a single work of art.

In August 1903, while on maneuvers near Pskov, Emperor Nicholas II suddenly remembered (!?) that at some postal station - either in Lisino, or in Lizcher, where he had once been on a winter bear hunt, he saw Zichy's watercolors. The emperor ordered to find them and present them to him for viewing in the Winter Palace. The highest order was carried out and in mid-September the watercolors from the Lisinsky Palace were delivered to the Winter Palace. In an accompanying note, the Head of the Territorial Administration of the Ministry of State Property wrote: “I have the honor to forward four watercolors by the artist Zichy, who were in the Lisinsky hunting palace, and add that there is no post station in Lisino, but there are watercolors of Zichy at the Yazchery station. It is wonderfully said: "and add". The highlight here is that there was no post station in the Lizard for a long time. Back in 1866, the latter was converted into the Imperial hunting house. But for the Lisinsky patriots, he remained “a postal station of the II class with a hotel for those passing by,” that is, an inn and nothing more. And there was a lot of truth in that.

It is not difficult to understand the poorly concealed annoyance of the departmental authorities. The magnificent hunting palace, a unique monument of Russian hunting culture, which has no equal in terms of class on the territory of Russia, was built and maintained with funds from the forest income of the Ministry of State Property, i.e., with the people's money. But in addition to the palace, the Ministry also maintained a special hunting staff of the forestry with all the property, up to the personal royal hunting sleigh and horse. The latter, for example, was kept only for hunting and was not used for any other work in the forestry. Bear, elk, capercaillie were intended exclusively for hunting the Sovereign and the Grand Dukes. Since the time of Alexander II, an effective system for organizing the protection of hunting grounds has been worked out in the Lisinsky forestry. And the latter, without any exaggeration, were rich. The hunting staff of the forestry, headed by Ober-Jäger, were professionals of the highest class. And all this mechanism, established over many years by the Ministry, after the death of Alexander II, was spinning idle. Alexander III, having become Emperor, was never in Lisino again. Nicholas II visited this place only once in his entire life - in 1892. It was possible to understand Alexander III, who preferred not the Lisinsky Palace, but the unsightly Lizard House during winter trips to bear and elk hunts. After all, the Emperor, even in his beloved residence in the Gatchina Palace, for his residence, chose the most unprepossessing small semi-dark rooms on the mezzanine floor, intended for servants. Tastes could not be discussed. But the fact that Nicholas II confused the palace with the station for the Ministry could only mean one thing: “Sic transit gloria mundi”. The star of Lisino, which shone so brightly under Alexander II, finally set. And as it turned out - forever.

For more than two months, the watercolors from the Lisinsky Palace were in the Winter Palace. And the Emperor never found time to examine them. On November 30, the Minister of the Imperial Court once again reminded the Emperor of them. But this time, Nicholas II did not have time. And the report was followed by a resolution: “The Highest ordered to return Zichy’s watercolors and store them in their original places”. But before the ink had dried, and the watercolors went home, another order followed: to present the watercolors for review to the Emperor “in view of the special interest that watercolors represent. On December 12, the Sovereign finally bothered to examine them. The result of the show was that in February 1904 only 3 watercolors returned to the Lisinsky Palace. A watercolor with a Belovezhskaya plot, by the Highest order, was sent to.

[The manuscript that formed the basis of the book "Hunting in Belovezhskaya Pushcha"] The history of the bison / comp. D.Ya. Dolmatov [Dalmatov]. 1847-1848 141 l. 27×21 cm. In velvet binding of the era. Tears of fabric, loss of fabric on the spine. On the front cover there is a yellow metal overlay with an engraving: “History of the Bison comp. Dolmatov". The back cover completely departs from the block, the front cover partially. Triple gold trim, moire paper endpapers. Faults at the beginning and end of the block. Minor soiling on the pages. Loss of flyleaf 1b. On the last page, the signature of Captain D.Ya. Dolmatova. There are marks and corrections in the text.

The forester of the Grodno Chamber of the Ministry of State Property, scientist, captain (and later - colonel) Dmitry Yakovlevich Dolmatov (in other sources - Dalmatov; 1810-1877) was the initiator of research work in Belovezhskaya Pushcha. In the late 1840s, the captain submits to the Ministry a report lost in the second half of the 19th century, in which he describes the bison and hunting for him. Georgy Petrovich Kartsov referred to this report in his book "Belovezhskaya Pushcha" (1903). In turn, the historian of Russian hunting O.A. Egorov in his essay "Masterpiece of Russian hunting literature" (about the book "Hunting in Belovezhskaya Pushcha") wrote: “Kartsov only said that he, apparently, was not a hunter, and that the historical essay about Pushcha in this book was taken last from the report submitted to the Ministry by Dalmatov. Based on this remark by Kartsov, who saw Dalmatov’s report, which has not been preserved to date in the fund of the Ministry of State Property, it can be assumed that an unknown author, apparently an official of the Ministry, expanded the usual hunting report for the Minister, reworking and adding to it the one available in Ministry of material on the history of hunting in Pushcha. Thus the text of the book was born. The report contains 8 chapters: “Brief outline of the forests of Lithuania”, “Bison”, “Natural history of the bison”, “About the domestication of the bison”, “Hunting for the bison”, “History of Lithuanian legislation regarding the conservation of forests and game”, “On the protection of bison ”, “On the identity of the aurochs and bison”.

Dolmatov's research was studied by the great Russian zoologist, founder of the Siberian school of zoology M.D. Ruzsky in his work "Bison, as an endangered representative of our fauna" (1895). They are included in the "Materials for the geography and statistics of Russia collected by officers of the General Staff" (volume "Grodno province", 1863). The results of the scientific work of Dmitry Yakovlevich were published in 1846-1878 in the "Forest Journal" and other periodicals.

The book "Hunting in Belovezhskaya Pushcha" in 1861 was also was built in a small edition not for sale and only for hunting participants, among whom were directly Alexander II, the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar, Prince Karl of Prussia, the Prince of Hesse-Kassel and many other high-ranking persons.

(N.B. No. 419, Solovyov "Catalog No. 105" No. 296, Vereshchagin No. 644, Klochkov No. 56 - 30 rubles, Gauthier No. 774 - 50 rubles).

For his work on the natural history of the bison in 1848, Dmitry Yakovlevich was elected a full member of the Russian Geographical Society. For compiling the "History of the Bison" in October 1849, he was declared gratitude by the Minister of State Property and was given 250 silver rubles. Later, the Emperor personally presented him with a diamond ring for his services to Russia.

Estimated: 480,000 - 500,000 rubles.

Leopold Walicki's Experiments on Cross-Breeding European Bison with Cattle in the Context of 19th century Biological Sciences

Piotr Daszkiewicz*, Tomasz Samojlik**, Malgorzata Krasinska**

*Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France; [email protected]**Mammal Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, Bialowie a, Poland; [email protected], [email protected]

In this paper we aim at recounting the long-forgotten achievements of Leopold Walicki, Polish landowner and naturalist, who in the years 1847-1860, successfully bred fifteen European bison - cattle hybrids. This experiment has overthrown a misconception, common in 19th-century biological sciences, about the impossibility of cross-breeding these species. Although it was a major mammalian hybridization experiment, it was nearly completely forgotten and not adequately used in the 19th-century scientific discussion, even though Walicki's experiment was mentioned by two prominent 19th-century biologists: Karl Eduard Eichwald (1853) and Franz Muller ( 1859). Surprisingly, head forest manager of Grodno Province, Dmitri Dolmatov, who supplied European bison from Bialowie a Primeval Forest for Walicki’s experiments, was far better recognized in the 19th-century scientific literature for his successful feeding of European bison calves with cow’s milk. Walicki's work was for the first time described in detail by Georgy Karcov (Kap^B, 1903); it is still interesting in the context of current research, as no one has yet been able to reproduce Walicki's success in obtaining a fertile male hybrid in the first generation.

Keywords: European bison, Bialowie a Primeval Forest, hybrids, natural history

European bison Bison bonasus was relatively common in the forests of Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, but in the second half of the 18th century, free-living lowland bison survived only in one place - Bialowie a Primeval Forest (currently straddling the border between Poland and Belarus). In this forest the species enjoyed long-lasting protection as royal game of Polish kings and Lithuanian grand dukes, but it had also been promoted by the traditional utilization of the forest and, since 1700, intentional management (haystacks left for winter on forest meadows offered supplementary winter fodder for bison, see Samojlik, J drzejewska, 2010, pp. 23-31). At the same time it was a species rarely occurring in naturalists' works. Most descriptions of European bison until the 18th century were based on short note published by Sigismund Herberstein1 (1549).

By the end of the 18th century a new description of the species, based on personal observations, was published by Jean-Emmanuel Gilibert2 (Gilibert 1781; 1802, p. 493-495). In sub-

1 Sigismund von Herberstein (1486-1566) was an Austrian diplomat who, in 1517, visited Moscow with a mission from Emperor Maximilian I. On his way, he visited the kingdom of Poland, and had a chance to observe European bison and aurochs ( Bosprimigenius). In Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii, published in 1549, he included a description and illustrations of both of those species.

2 Jean Emmanuel Gilibert (1741-1814), French physician and botanist, was invited to Poland in 1775 by Polish king, Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski. Gilibert's task was to establish veterinary and medical schools in Grodno (100 km from Bialowie a Primeval Forest). Apart from his duties, he engaged himself in scientific work: he organized a botanical garden with around 2,000 species of plants, took

sequent decades, his work became a milestone of the knowledge on European bison behavior. He described his failure to feed European bison calves with cow’s milk (instead, he used goats, which were placed on a table during the time of feeding), and similarly failed attempt to interbreed European bison with cattle. From that point on, the scientific world was strongly convinced that such hybridization was not possible, and that there was a biological barrier not allowing European bison calves to be fed by cows. The fact that only one known population of European bison existed in a remote forest, which, since 1795, became a part of Russian empire (the existence of the Caucasus population was called into question, Daszkiewicz, Samojlik, 2004, p. 73-75 ), and these animals were very rare in zoological gardens and menageries, strongly limited possibilities for such experiments.

A program of research on the status of European bison had already been proposed in the 18th century. Georges-Louis Buffon (1707-1788) described different species of Bovidae in his “Histoire naturelle” and recommended crossing them with each other and with domestic cattle, not only to answer questions about their species status ('true species' or 'climatic forms ') but also to examine the concept of domestic bovine origin, the history of domestication and 'degeneration' (a concept resulting from the observation of the decrease in body size compared with the findings from archaeological excavations and wild animals; Buffon, 1764, p 284-336).

In 1846, head forest manager of Grodno Province Dmitri Dolmatov3 successfully fed European bison calves caught in Biafowie a Primeval Forest with cow’s milk. He observed the bison fed by cows and playing with domestic cattle, and his observations were published in Russia, England, France and Germany (Brehm, 1877, p. 395; Dolmatov, 1848, p. 18-19; 1849, p. 150 -151; Dolmatov, 1849, pp. 220-222; Gervais, 1855, pp. 184-185; Viennot, 1862, pp. 849-850). Animals caught by Dolmatov were transported to London, Tsarskoe Selo, and were also offered to Leopold Walicki,4 a Polish landowner and naturalist, for his experiments on cross-breeding European bison with cattle Bos taurus. In Wilanow near Grodno, he successfully bred fifteen hybrids in the years 1847-1859 (Krasi ska, 1988, p. 15). It is important to mention that Walicki obtained fifteen hybrids, among them one fertile male hybrid from the first generation F1. This achievement - fertile F1 male - was never reached again, including contemporary experiments conducted at

up botanical expeditions to different parts of Lithuania, described several species of Lithuanian fauna, including European bison, brown bear, moose, lynx, beaver, badger, hedgehogs, and even mice.

3 Dmitri Dolmatov (Dalmatov, Dolmatoff; died 1878) was the head forest manager of Grodno Province since 1842. Apart from being a forester by training, he was also a naturalist and a painter. He has published several papers on Bialowie a Primeval Forest and European bison, focusing particularly on the issue of the possibility of domestication of these animals.

4 Leopold Walicki, owner of the Wilanow landed estate and initiator of experiments on cross-breeding European bison with cattle. In 1847, he received two European bison from Bialowie a Primeval Forest, and the year after he managed to get first hybrids. His experiments abruptly stopped in 1857, when he was arrested by Russian authorities for the pro-Polish political activities. In 1860, after returning from prison, he started the cross-breeding trial again, using two new bisons sent from Bialowie a. Contrary to our previous knowledge, based mainly on a short note in Karcov (Kap^B, 1903, p. 225), Walicki did not die in 1861. Latest discoveries in the Russian National Historical Archive in St. Petersburg. Petersburg (PrHA) show that Walicki took part in the Polish national uprising of 1863, was arrested and sent into exile to the Irkutsk province, where he died in the late months of 1875 (PTHA. O. 1286. On. 31. No. 1556 and O. 381. On. 12. No. 7662). The fate of hybrids obtained by Walicki is unknown. In the early 1870s one hybrid bison was seen in Swislocz (80 km from Grodno, currently in Belarus), perhaps it was in some way connected with Walicki’s experiments (Kap^B, 1903, p. 225). Authors are grateful to Anastasia Fedotova for her help in finding new information on Leopold Walicki's participation in the 1863 uprising and his later whereabouts in the Russian State Historical Archive (RGIA. Found 1286. Opis' 31. Delo 1556; Found 381. Opis' 12 .Delo 7662).

Mammal Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences (Krasi ska, 1988). This was undoubtedly one of the major mammalian hybridization experiments in the 19th century.

Obtaining hybrids of European bison with domestic cattle exceeded the typical mid-19th-century interest in inter-species hybridization aimed at obtaining new hybrids, often for practical purposes. This did not answer the question of the origin of domestic cattle (was its ancestor the bison or aurochs? Or perhaps some other species?), and the question of the existence of two distinctive species of Bovidae in historical times, as the difference between European bison and aurochs were still being discussed by zoologists.

Overcoming old prejudice

The belief that it was impossible to cross-breed European bison with cattle lasted for almost seventy years. It is thus a perfect example of how one failed experiment, which reflects the prejudices of an era, can prevent the advance of science for a long time. Very little is known about bison-cattle crossing attempts prior to Gilibert's experiment. Although no descriptions of similar undertakings are known, secondary sources make it likely that such attempts took place.

Jean-Baptiste Dubois de Jancigny (1752-1808), French naturalist and writer, served as professor of natural history and librarian at the School of Knights in Warsaw in the years 1775-1759, the first state school in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In 1776, he published his ‘Essai sur I’histoire litteraire de Pologne..’. in Berlin. The book compiled older facts on Polish and Lithuanian nature, occasionally supplemented by the author’s own observations and comments. He wrote about the European bison as follows:

"When it comes to European bison, it was due to genius, great in the observation equally to the Nature itself, to put it in the Bos family. I must honestly admit that my doubts were not fully dispelled by his argument, as according to information I obtained in Poland attempts at crossing bison with domestic cows were numerous, yet all failed" (Dubois de Jancigny, 1778).

Nevertheless, no documentation concerning hybridization attempts mentioned by Dubois de Jancigny is known. The only known and documented 18th century attempt was the one conducted and described by Jean-Emmanuel Gilibert, who spent eight busy years (1775-1783) in Poland (Commonwealth of Both Nations). Gilibert received four bison calves - two males and two females - trapped by Polish royal forest wardens in Bialowie a Forest. The males died soon after, but Gilibert managed to breed females, although he failed to have them fed by cows. He attempted to cross-breed a three-year-old bison female with a bull of Ukrainian breed without success (Gilibert 1781; 1802, p. 493-495).

In the 18th century, the belief in “hatred” between domesticated and wild animals was common. These beliefs were undoubtedly rooted in folk superstitions, fairy tales of Lafontaine and followers, in which animals bore human traits, and the Enlightenment ideas about the conflict between free and enslaved people transferred to the animal realm. Dubois de Jancigny wrote straight out that “the natural hatred of the free to the domesticated animal” is a “major obstacle” for the hybridization of bison with domestic cattle. Obviously, this concept was particularly close to political exiles, mainly the Polish emigration after the fall of the November uprising against the partitioners of Poland (Chod ko, 1836, p. 54). Gilibert observed this “natural antipathy” and described the aggression of the bison he bred towards Dutch cows grazing next to her. For Gilibert,

European bison fighting in Biafowie a Primeval Forest (drawn by Michaly Zichy, from:

Hunting..., 1861, p. thirty)

this antipathy was an obvious evidence of the species differentiation between bison and cattle: "if the bison is in fact a cattle brought to the state of slavery a Long time ago, why do tamed bison retain such a strong hatred towards cattle?" Belief in “antipathy” was reinforced in the 18th and 19th century by constantly repeating Jan Ostrorog's 15th-century chronicle that bison and aurochs were not to be kept in the same enclosures, as they immediately engaged in lethal fights (Viennot, 1862, p. 850).

The failure of Gilibert's experiment marked the history of biology for many years. In subsequent decades, even after the development of science rejected the naive beliefs in “antipathy”, it was still assumed that the interspecific barrier was too strong for cross-breeding, and that bison could not be fed by cows. It is noteworthy that the belief lasted despite successful attempts to cross-breed buffalo with cattle. It was the desire to correct those misconceptions that drove Dolmatov to his breeding experiments:

"I have turned my attention particularly to refute by experience the erroneous opinion, accredited by all the writers who have treated on this subject, namely that the calf of the Bison cannot be suckled by our domestic cow. This fable has been repeated even in the work of an esteemed writer of our times, Baron de Brinvers , who relying upon the recital of another writer, the learned Gilibert, asserts that two female Bison calves, caught in the forest of Bialowieza, seven weeks old, constantly refused the teats of a M. de Brinvers had not himself the possibility of verifying this fact; and he cites traditions, communicated to him by the old inhabitants of the environs; for if any one of the forest guards, or the peasants who inhabit the forest,

had even met a Bison calf, parted by any accident from its mother, he would rather have left it, than seized and nursed it, in contravention of the severe law, which prohibits the capture or killing of a Bison. It was therefore only the supreme order of His Majesty the Emperor, emanating from the desire expressed by Her Majesty Queen Victoria to possess in her Zoological Garden two living Bisons, which has enabled me to rectify the error above mentioned" (Dolmatov, 1848).

Dolmatov managed to debunk a myth of the impossibility of feeding young bison by a domestic cow. The next step was to test whether hybridization was possible. In the case of Wal-icki's experiments, the practical advantages were also taken into account. As described by Franz Muller (1859, p. 155-166):

"about four years ago under the act of his highness , a number of juveniles were transferred to the surrounding landowners. An attempt to create a new breed by crossing them with cattle was made. The new breed was to be bigger, stronger and thus more useful , as in this area cattle, similar to horses, are small and weak".

Pavel Bobrovski (Eo6opobckhh, 1863) mentioned that the experiment was started to investigate

“1) the possibility to breed and multiply bison in farm conditions, maintaining the natural beauty, health and size of the animal, 2) the possibility to cross them with domestic cattle, and if the strength, size, beauty and wildness is not lost during the process".

It is easy to understand that practical problems posed this way were of more interest to the local administration than finding answers to purely scientific questions about the status of species, boundaries and hybridization, or deliberations on the history of domestic cattle and domestication processes.

Walicki's experiment and the discussion on the concept of species and hybridization

In the 19th century, the relationship between the definition of species and hybridization was still under discussion. The possibility of interbreeding individuals belonging not only to different species but even to different orders, called into question the physiological (that is based on the criterion of inability to obtain fertile interspecific hybrids) definition of species. False information on a successful hare-rabbit cross-breeding and the fertility of the resulting hybrid became the basis for a broad discussion among 19th-century biologists. It is worth to emphasize that this polemic far exceeded the frames of the scientific dispute, as this shift in the species definition justified the recognition of different species of man by some anthropologists (see the discussion in: Blanckaert, 1981).

Already in the 18th century, Buffon allowed for the existence of exceptions to the definition of “physiological” species, such as fertile dog and wolf hybrids. Shortly before Walicki's experiment, in 1840, eminent French physiologist Pierre Flourens (1794-1867) rejected Buffon's definition of species, recognizing that there can be no exceptions to the rule. Based on the criterion of the possibility of obtaining fertile hybrids, he defined not only species, but also genus. Two species of the same genus could produce infertile hybrids, and fertile hybrids could only be the result of crossing individuals belonging to different “breeds” of the same species. Also the view presented by Pierre-Honore Berard (1797-1858) should be mentioned, as he believed that two species can produce hybrids with varying degrees of fertility. hybridization

was undoubtedly one of the most debated issues in biology in the mid-19th century. It is worth remembering that Charles Darwin devoted a separate chapter to this issue in his “Origin of species”, considering that domestication (and thus natural selection) may actually weaken the insulation barrier between species.

What role did Walicki's experiment play in this discussion? Surprisingly, such an important event (obtaining hybrids between different genera) went virtually unnoticed and is absent in the 19th-century discussion on the definition of species and hybridization. Perhaps two reasons contributed to this. The first is simply a low recognition of these experiments in the major research centers leading to the above-mentioned discussion, even though Walicki’s results were publicized by Karl Eduard Eichwald (1853, p. XVIII-XIX) and Franz Muller (1859). Interestingly, Dolmatov’s breeding of bison calves fed by domestic cows was by far more known in Western Europe than Walicki’s hybrids between bison and cattle. The second reason originated probably from the fact that back in that time many authors accounted for European bison to the Bos, not Bison genus, and were thus not interested in hybrids between two species of the same genus.

Bison, aurochs and the degeneration of species

Walicki's successful experiment could also contribute to a better understanding and acceptance or rejection of other important 19th-century biology concepts. These included a dispute on species identity or differences between European bison and aurochs, extending from the second half of the eighteenth century, and a dispute on the history of species domestication. If, according to the 19th-century understanding of species, there is a reproductive barrier between bison and domestic cattle and hybrids are not fertile in later generations, it would be logical to deduce that bison are not the ancestor of domestic cattle. Furthermore, it would be a sound argument for defining the aurochs as a separate species, thus being the probable ancestor of domestic cattle. The dispute was finally closed by August Wrze niowski (1836-1892) in “Stu-dien zur Geschichte despolnischen Tur”, article that originally appeared in 1878, over thirty years after the beginning of Walicki’s experiments (Wrze niowski, 1878). In this discussion, however, Walicki was not even once quoted.

Were Walicki’s results in any way included in 19th-century discussion on the degeneration of the species? Both bison and domestic cattle were used as examples in deliberations on “degeneration” characteristic for zoology of that period, yet Walicki was almost never cited. Only R.T. Viennot (1862) using this concept when he explained the success of Dolmatov versus the failure of Gilibert's attempts:

"Gilibert resided in Poland for a long time and had an opportunity to closely study four of these animals kept in captivity. They had to be fed by goats as a result of their stubborn refusal to suckle on cow which was first brought to them. They maintained this hostility to domestic cattle, and whenever cows were driven to the same enclosure, bison chased them away, despite similar statements by various authors, Mr. Dimitri de Dolmatof, Grodno province forest administrator, in a memo from 1847 stated that events he repeatedly witnessed contradicted this opinion and that young bison were well fed by the domestic cow. Maybe you can reconcile these statements admitting the existence of some kind of degeneration of modern bison compared to their great ancestors".

In the context of 19th-century concepts of zoology, Walicki’s experiments were only discussed as proof that the domestication of European bison was impossible, and even hybrids of domestic cattle and bison were too strong and wild to use them for work in agriculture.

Although Walicki’s experiments overthrew the misconception about the impossibility of cross-breeding European bison with domestic cattle that had been acknowledged for several decades, it was not adequately appreciated or used in the 19th-century scientific discussion on the concept of species and hybridization. Walicki's work was not known in the major research centers in Europe. Interruption of breeding experiments (Walicki was arrested for experiment political reasons) and termination of the caused by Walicki’s death show how political repressions impacted the development of science. The fact that two prominent 19th-century naturalists Karl Eduard Eichwald (1853) and Franz Méller (1859) mentioned Walicki's successful cross-breeding of bison with domestic cattle in their work, did not change the fact that it went almost unnoticed until the twentieth century . The first detailed description of such an important experiment was published by Georgy Karcov (in Russian) in 19G3, over half a century since the end of Walicki’s work (Kartsov, 19G3).

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Experiments of Leopold Walitsky on crossing bison with cattle in the context of 19th century biology

Piotr Daszkiewicz*, Tomasz Samoilik**, Małgorzata Krasińska**

*Museum of Natural History, Paris, France; [email protected]** Institute for the Study of Mammals, Polish Academy of Sciences, Bialowieza, Poland; [email protected], [email protected]

In our article, we describe the forgotten achievements of the Polish landowner and naturalist Leopold Walicki in the hybridization of large mammals. In 1847-1859. he managed to get 15 hybrids between European bison and cattle. Walitsky's experiments refuted the opinion of biologists of the 19th century. about the impossibility of crossing these two species. Later, his significant successes were almost forgotten and rarely mentioned in scientific discussions, although they were referred to by two major naturalists - Karl Eichwald (1853) and Franz Müller (1859). Even the forester of the Grodno province Dmitry Dolmatov, who provided bison from Pushcha for experiments to Valitsky, is more often mentioned in the scientific literature (due to the fact that he was the first to feed the bison with cow's milk). Valitsky's works were first described by Georgy Kartsov (1903) and still deserve the attention of researchers, since so far no one has been able to repeat Valitsky's success - to get a fertile hybrid male in the first generation.

Keywords: European bison, Belovezhskaya Pushcha, hybrids, natural history

Rice. 19. Only in spring, with the beginning of sap flow, bison actively eat tree bark soaked in mineral salts.

Rice. 20. Young bison love to hone their horns, frantically “butting” trees.(photo by E. Arbuzov)

There is no one to stand up for the bison - after all, it is possible to show its role in ecosystems, its necessity in our forests, only by arguing this with conscientious scientific research. And we don't have them yet. There is no support for bison restoration plans on the part of hunting organizations, because this species does not yet have the status of a hunting object - after all, it is listed in the Red Book. The hunting economy would be more willing to populate their lands with bison if they had scientifically developed programs for managing this species. Now there are no such studies, we are just approaching their implementation, and this delay does not allow us to promptly and correctly respond to a conflict between a bison and a villager or a forester. But such experience will still be accumulated, and the bison will have a “place under the sun”! If it is possible to implement plans for the reconstruction of the range of the bison, to restore its natural habits and way of life, then this species will contribute to leveling the balance in nature, which has been shaken by human fault. The necessary result of all the work begun in 1923 by the Society for the Preservation of Bison will be achieved. Of course, we are still far from reaching the final goal, but the path we have traveled inspires hope.

Moreover, such works are also important for us as a methodological guide. The experience gained can be used in measures for the conservation and restoration of other animal species that find themselves in a similar situation. After all, we all know very well that the process of extinction of species has not only not been stopped, but is growing. Increasingly, enthusiasts have to resort to emergency measures to save animals - captive breeding. It is mandatory for species that have disappeared in the wild, but it is necessary even for those that still exist even in small free-living populations. In order to maintain the declining population of the Mauritian kestrel, which consisted of only six birds in 1974, it was necessary to urgently develop measures for breeding in aviaries. Success was achieved only in 1978. And if the last wild individuals could not "hold out" up to this point, it would hardly have been a successful release into the natural environment of the island of Mauritius of captive-born kestrels. Thanks to comprehensive protection and breeding measures in 1984, the number of this species increased to fifty individuals.

Only the well-established breeding of American cranes in the Patuksent nursery helped to increase the reproductive potential of the last two dozen birds remaining in the wild. The population of the Arabian oryx in the Middle East, numbering only a few dozen animals, since 1980 began to replenish with animals born in zoos in North America and Western Europe.

However, it is not always possible to arrange such an influx of new individuals from breeding centers to the last centers of the existence of wild animal populations in a timely manner. The last example is the California condor: despite various conservation measures, the number steadily declined from thirty-five to seventeen individuals from 1978 to 1985; there was a real threat of loss of species. The only hope is to establish breeding in captivity. The last bird was caught in nature in April 1987. Now only the efforts of scientists and zookeepers in San Diego and Los Angeles are able to revive the California condor, having achieved the reproduction of the last twenty-seven birds. Today, the condor is at the beginning of the path that the bison has traveled since the 20s of our century.

Breeding centers - this is the last step, after stepping over which, the species goes into oblivion. Lingering on it, you can avoid the disappearance, but only temporarily. This should be understood as the role of nurseries and zoos - as a haven for rare animals in the struggle to preserve the diversity of nature. The words of William Conway should be well understood: “Captive animal breeding programs cannot serve as a general defense against an extinction epidemic, they only help to eliminate such specific “symptoms” of this epidemic as the loss of higher animals.” Further, their return to nature must be mandatory.

I am sure that the accumulated experience of working with bison is interesting not only as a special case of saving one zoological species. It is also important because the problems that arose at every step along the untrodden road made it possible to work out various aspects of the strategy for the conservation and restoration of endangered representatives of the animal world. The results of this work are the model that can be used to revive other species that find themselves in a similar situation. I would like to hope that this book will also contribute to solving the urgent problems of wildlife protection.

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