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Boris Balinsky

Borys Ivanovych Balinsky (23 September 1905 – 1 September 1997) was a Ukrainian-South African biologist, embryologist, entomologist.

A professor at Kiev University and later the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, Balinsky was a pioneer researcher in the field of experimental embryology, electron microscopy and developmental biology and the author of a popular textbook in embryology An Introduction to Embryology.

Early life and education

Balinsky was born 23 September 1905, in Kiev, then part of the Russian Empire (now the capital of present day, Ukraine). His father, Ivan Balinsky, was a historian, lawyer and teacher at Galen College. His mother, Elizaveta Radzymovska was a biology teacher. Her aunt, Valentyna Radzymovska, was a biologist who was involved in Ukrainian independence movements. His parents loved English literature and spoke Ukrainian, Russian and English at home. His love of etymology began with a book he received in 1916 on collecting butterflies, as well as with the summers he spent in the village of Severinovka, where his grandfather kept bees.

He was a student of the Soviet zoologist and evolutionary biologist, Ivan Schmalhausen, and one of the first people to conduct experiments inducing organogenesis in amphibian embryos. His distinguished himself by having his first scientific paper published while he was only 20 and still an undergraduate.

He married his first wife Katya Syngayevskaya in 1928, after meeting her during an embryology seminar. Balinsky's son John Balinsky was born in 1934.

Career

Balinsky became a full university professor at Kiev University in 1933 at age 28 and the deputy director of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences two years later in 1935. He became a recognised expert in fish and amphibian development.

His wife was arrested October 7, 1937 for engaging in counter-revolutionary propaganda and was sentenced to ten years in a gulag. Therefore Balinsky lost his post as professor and as deputy director of the Institute. His wife, Syngayevskaya would die of peritonitis in 1943.

A victim of Soviet repressions, Balinsky remained in Kiev under German occupation during World War II while others evacuated. He and his family fled to Poznań, Poland after the German evacuation and later Munich, Germany. From 1945 to 1947, he worked as a professor of Histology at the temporary UNRRA University in Munich. After the closing of the UNRRA University in 1947, Balinsky also briefly worked in Scotland in Conrad Hal Waddington's laboratory on mice embryology from 1947 to 1949.

Later, in 1949, he migrated to South Africa where he become one of the founders of South African experimental bioscience. In 1949, Balinsky accepted a lecturer position at the University of the Witwatersrand. He was appointed Head of Zoology at the school, serving from 1954 to 1973. In 1960, drawing from the courses he taught at Witwatersrand, Balinsky published the An Introduction to Embryology, which became one of the most widely used Embryology textbook worldwide and served as a foundational textbook in the field for years to come. He also served as Witwatersrand's Dean of the Faculty of Science from 1965 to 1967 He served as the President of the Entomological Society of Southern Africa in 1966.

Balinsky also worked in entomology and described new species of Plecoptera, Odonata and moths from the family Pyralidae, mainly from Caucasus and South Africa.

Death and legacy

He died at home in Johannesburg on 1 September 1997, aged 91. His son John Balinsky also studied and became a scientist. John Balinsky went on to work for the University Witwatersrand and served as the chairman for the Department of Zoology at Iowa State University.

Insects described

Plecoptera

Dragonflies

Lepidoptera

New species

New genera

References

Sources