Nikolai Vavilov
publication date: Tuesday, September 26, 2023 (part of October 2023)
category: 
Science
clue: For the crime of storing and studying seeds so that he could feed millions of people, he was given a decades-long sentence to prison, where he died of starvation.
explanation: Vavilov was a Soviet scientist whose work in genetic manipulation of plants and whose founding of the Leningrad seedbank could have fed millions of starving citizens. A rival scientist with ideas that Vavilov characterized as dangerously ineffective became friendly with Josef Stalin, who was persuaded to sentence Vavilov initially to death and later to a twenty-year prison term. Vavilov officially died of heart failure two years later, but accounts from within the prison indicate that he was deliberately starved to death. more…
intended difficulty: hard
solved by: Russ Wilhelm and Steve West
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