TANFILEV, GAVRIIL IVANOVICH

(b. Tallinn, Russia, 6 March 1857; d. Odessa, U.S.S.R., 4 September 1928)

geography, phytogeography, soil science.

Tanfilev began to study the flora of the chernozem steppes as a student at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of St. Petersburg University. After graduating in 1883, he worked in the Department of Agriculture of the Ministry of State Lands (1884 – 1892), on an expedition to study methods of forest and water management on the Russian steppes (1893 – 1894), in the St. Petersburg Botanical Garden (1895 – 1904), and on the Soil Commission of the Free Economic Society (1888 – 1905). These activities were accompanied by field investigations of soil and vegetation in European Russia and in western Siberia. Tanfilev participated in the compilation of the soil map of European Russia and was awarded the Great Gold Medal at the Paris World Exhibition in 1900.

In his master’s thesis, Predely lesov na yuge Rossii (“The Boundaries of the Forest in Southern Russia,” 1894), Tanfilev concluded that the absence of forest on the steppe is a result of increased soil alkalinity and bedrock, both due to the dry climate. The lack of forest in the tundra was explained by the marshiness of its soils, the low temperature, and the permafrost, which destroys the roots of trees. In the forest-tundra and forest-steppe border regions, Tanfilev held, there is a constant struggle that results in the dislocation of the zonal boundaries. His conclusions on the battle between forest and steppe and between tundra and forest provoked a heated discussion among geographers, phytogeographers, and soil scientists that has continued unresolved to the present time.

Developing Dokuchaev’s ideas on the zonal structure of the Russian landscape, Tanfilev studied the physicogeographical regionalization of European Russia (1897) and five years later published his classic work Glavneyshie cherty rastitelnosti Rossii (“Main Features of the Vegetation of Russia”), with a brilliant analysis of the broad zones of plant cover on the plains and the vertical belts in the mountains of the Crimea, Caucasus, and Turkistan. The most important feature of this work is the historical approach to the formation of vegetation zones in post-Tertiary time.

For more than twenty years, Tanfilev studied the cultural geography of plants. His research in this area culminated in Ocherk geografii i istorii glavneyshikh kulturnykh vastenii (“Sketch of the Geography and History of the Main Cultivated Plants,” 1923).

The breadth of his geographical outlook and his knowledge of natural history based on personal research resulted in a major work on the physical geography of Russia. Four volumes appeared during his lifetime (1916 – 1924) and the fifth was published posthumously (1931). With its exhaustive bibliography, it was the most detailed and complete collection of information on the natural history of Russia until the early 1930’s.

In addition to his research, Tanfilev taught at the universities of St. Petersburg (1895 – 1903) and Novorossysk, in Odessa (1904 – 1928).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Tanfilev’s Geograficheskie raboty (“Geographical Works”; Moscow, 1953) includes a bibliography of his writings.

II. Secondary Literature. See S. T. Belozerov, Gavriil Ivanovich Tanfilev (Moscow, 1951), which includes a bibliography of his writings and of secondary literature; and “Gavriil Ivanovich Tanfilev,” in Otechestvennye fiziko-geografy i puteshestvenniki (“Native Physical Geographers and Travelers”; Moscow, 1959); L. S. Berg, “Gavriil Ivanovich Tanfilev,” in Priroda,17, no. 10 (1928); and A. A. Borzov, “Professor Gavriil Ivanovich Tanfilev,” in Zemlevedenie,30, no. 4 (1928).

A. I. Soloviev