Botanists in Lithuania during the Michurinist Campaign

•After VASKhNIL session in summer 1948 Michurinist biology took centre stage at Soviet Union scientific institutions.•Scientists from all of the former Soviet Republics participated in the Michurinist campaign.•From 1948 until 1963 Lithuanian botanists were engaged with Michurinism.•In Lithuania campaign was sluggish and long lasting without clear leadership and opposition.

The meeting of the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences (VASKhNIL) that occurred from July 31 to August 7, 1948, declared Michurinism to be the only “correct theory” of biology in the Soviet Union. As of that moment, Michurinist biology officially took center stage in Soviet scientific institutions, and it was further developed over the next fifteen years. Scientists from all of the former Soviet Republics participated in the Michurinist campaign. In Lithuania, this campaign started in the autumn of 1948. From 1948 until 1963, the Department of Michurinist Biology was active at Vilnius University. Studies in this field were performed at Lithuanian scientific institutions, and scientists were engaged with this theory. This essay illustrates the realization of the Michurinist campaign in Lithuania using details from botany. It describes the investigations of plant genetics in Lithuania before World War II, depicts the general situation of scientists in Lithuania during the first years of the Soviet occupation, explores the involvement of botanists in propagating Michurinist biology, and in summary, reveals the peculiarities of this campaign in Lithuania.