As today a Taxonomists appreciation Day, i would like to use this occasion to give an orbituary to my personal scientific Hero - Dr. Alexy Chernovsky, whose 112 Birthday was just this tuesday. Alexy Chernovsky was Russian hydrobilogist and Diptera taxonomist, working mainly with non-biting midges (Diptera, Chironomidae). He was born in 15 of March 1904 in Samara, Russian Empire. In 1928 he graduated from Petrograd (Now St. Petersburg) State University with major in Hydrobilogy. Next 16 years of his live he spent working on his Opus Magnus - key to Chironomids of Soviet Union. He was traveling through the Siberia, Fennoscandia and Southern Ukraine collecting countless midges, and then sorting them long nights within the shimmering circles of the gas lamps light. He only produce several avaiulable taxa names, but his key becomes a pricles cornerstone for Chironomid taxonomist and hydrobiologist- not only in former Soviet Union but all over the world. He only managed to write first volume of the key - "Identification of larvae of the midge family Tendipedidae (junior synonym of Chironomidae)", which was published post-mortem in 1949. He was working on the second volume- about adults- during the harshest part of the WW2 east-front campaing in 1941-1942, in the St Petersburg, under siege. He has died 11th January 1942, month asfter he finished Introduction to the key's first volume. according to what i heard, he was working with midges till the very end, in the cold St Petersburg, during the coldest, hungriest and most horrible winter of the siege. He never gave up on what he was doing, because he believed it was important. Hovewer, personally I think, he never stop doing taxonomy, even in the hardest of times, because taxonomy is fun, and it helping to cope with bleak and harsh reality.
Chernovsky's photo, taken in mid 1930th.
I saw some of his super slides with Chironomid larvae, when visiting Zoological Institute in St Petersburg, and while watching midges he prepared over 70 years ago, i started feeling how his passion about what he was doing, is reaching me...
So i guess the take-home message from here, is - taxonomy is fun, its helping us to cope with whatever going in our lives and world around, but it is also important, so we HAVE TO keep doing it.
Happy Taxonomist Appreciation Day to everyone!( Go hug yourself, or persuade your buddies to buy you a bier!)
P.S. Here is my old paper about Chernovsky, with some photos, unfortunately it is in Ukrainian
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