Source - Wikipedia
Lev Semyonovich Berg
Date of birth: March 14 (26), 1876
Place of birth: Bendery, Bendery district, Bessarabian province, Russian Empire
Date of death: December 24, 1950 (aged 74)
place of death: Leningrad
Country: Russian Empire > USSR
Scientific field: ichthyology, evolutionism
Academic title: Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR
Alma mater: Imperial Moscow University
Famous students: Isachenko A. G.
Physical geographer and biologist, academician, president of the Geographical Society of the USSR (since 1940). He developed the doctrine of landscapes, was the first to carry out the zonal physical-geographical zoning of the USSR. In 1922, he put forward the evolutionary concept of nomogenesis.

Awards and prizes

Order of the Red Banner of Labor
Medal "For the Defense of Leningrad"
Medal "For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945"
Stalin Prize - 1951
Konstantinovsky medal

Researcher who described a number of zoological taxa. To indicate authorship, the names of these taxa are accompanied by the designation "Berg".

Lev Semenovich (Simonovich) Berg (March 14 (26), 1876 - December 24, 1950) - Russian and Soviet zoologist and geographer.
Corresponding member (1928) and full member (1946) of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, president of the Geographical Society of the USSR (1940-1950), laureate of the Stalin Prize (1951 - posthumously). Author of fundamental works on ichthyology, geography, theory of evolution.

Born in Bendery in a Jewish family. His father, Simon Grigoryevich Berg, was a notary; mother, Klara Lvovna Bernstein-Kogan, was a housewife. They lived in a house on Moskovskaya street.
The first wife of L. S. Berg (in 1911-1913) is Paulina Adolfovna Katlovker (March 27, 1881-1943), the younger sister of the famous publisher B. A. Katlovker. Children - geographer Simon Lvovich Berg (October 23, 1912, St. Petersburg - November 17, 1970) and geneticist, writer, doctor of biological sciences Raisa Lvovna Berg (March 27, 1913 - March 1, 2006). In 1922, L. S. Berg remarried a teacher at the Petrograd Pedagogical Institute, Maria Mikhailovna Ivanova.
In 1921-1950. Berg occupied a residential service wing of the former palace of Alexei Alexandrovich (Leningrad, Prospekt Maklina, 2).
He died on December 24, 1950 in Leningrad. He was buried on Literatorskie mostki at the Volkovskoye cemetery.
Education and scientific career[edit | edit source]

1885-1894 - studied at the second Chisinau gymnasium, which he graduated with a gold medal. In 1894 he was baptized into Lutheranism in order to obtain the right to higher education within the Russian Empire.
1894-1899 - student of the natural department of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the Imperial Moscow University. (His thesis was devoted to fish embryology and was awarded a gold medal)
1899-1902 - superintendent of fisheries in the Aral Sea and the Syr Darya.
1903-1904 - superintendent of fisheries in the middle reaches of the Volga.
1905-1913 - head of the fish department of the Zoological Museum of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.
1913-1914 - acting professor of ichthyology and hydrology at the Moscow Agricultural Institute.
1916-1950 - as a professor of geography, he headed the department of geography of Petrograd, and then Leningrad University.
1918-1925 - professor of geography at the Geographical Institute in Petrograd (Leningrad).
1932-1934 - Head of the Department of Applied Ichthyology at the Institute of Fisheries.
1934-1950 - head of the department in the laboratory of ichthyology of the Zoological Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Leningrad.
1948-1950 - Chairman of the Ichthyological Commission of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
Since 1934 - Doctor of Zoology.
Since 1928 - Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.
Since 1946 - full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
Contribution to science

The scientific heritage of Lev Semyonovich Berg is very significant.
As a geographer, having collected extensive materials on the nature of different regions, he carried out generalizations on the climatic zonality of the globe, a description of the landscape zones of the USSR and neighboring countries, and created the textbook Nature of the USSR. Berg, the creator of modern physical geography, is the founder of landscape science, and the landscape division he proposed, although supplemented, has survived to this day.
Berg is the author of the soil theory of loess formation. His works made a significant contribution to hydrology, lake science, geomorphology, glaciology, desert science, the study of surface sedimentary rocks, issues of geology, soil science, ethnography, and paleoclimatology.
Berg is a classic of world ichthyology. He described the fish fauna of many rivers and lakes, proposed "systems of fish and fish-like, living and fossils." He is the author of the capital work "Fish of fresh waters of the USSR and neighboring countries."
Berg's contribution to the history of science is significant. His books on the discovery of Kamchatka, the expedition of V. Bering, the theory of continental drift by E. Bykhanov, the history of Russian discoveries in Antarctica, the activities of the Russian Geographical Society, etc. are devoted to this topic.
Berg is the author of Nomogenesis, or Evolution Based on Regularities (1922), in which he proclaimed his anti-Darwinian concept of evolution. His followers considered themselves such scientists as A. A. Lyubishchev and S. V. Meyen. Even in our time, that is, a hundred years later, his concept has its adherents. These include, for example, VV Ivanov, a Soviet linguist, semiotician, anthropologist, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences (2000).
Awards, prizes and honorary titles

1909 - Gold medal of P. P. Semenov-Tien Shansky for work on the Aral Sea from the Russian Geographical Society (RGO).
1915 - Konstantinovsky medal from the Russian Geographical Society, elected an honorary member of the MOIP.
1934 - Honored Scientist of the RSFSR.
1936 - Gold Medal from the Asiatic Society of India for zoological research in Asia.
1945 - Order of the Red Banner of Labor and medal "For the Defense of Leningrad"
1946 - Order of the Red Banner of Labor in connection with the 70th anniversary of his birth and the medal "For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945."
1951 - Stalin Prize of the 1st degree for the work "Fish of fresh waters of the USSR and neighboring countries" (posthumously).
Major writings
Only the most important works are listed here. For a complete bibliography, see the book by V. M. Raspopova.
1918. Bessarabia. Country. People. Economy. - Petrograd: Lights, 1918. - 244 p. (the book contains 30 photographs and a map)
1905. Fishes of Turkestan. Izv. Turk. otd. Russian Geographical Society, vol. 4. 16 + 261 p.
1908. Aral Sea: Experience of a physical-geographical monograph. Izv. Turk. otd. Russian Geographical Society, vol. 5. no. 9. 24 + 580 s.
1912. Fishes (Marsipobranchii and Pisces). Fauna of Russia and neighboring countries. Vol. 3, no. 1. St. Petersburg. 336 p.
1914. Fishes (Marsipobranchii and Pisces). Fauna of Russia and neighboring countries. Vol. 3, no. 2. Pg. pp. 337-704.
1916. Fresh water fish of the Russian Empire. M. 28 + 563 p.
1922. Climate and life. M. 196 p.
1922. L. S. Berg, Nomogenesis, or Evolution Based on Regularities. - Petersburg: State Publishing House, 1922. - 306 p.
1929. Berg L. S. Essays on the history of Russian geographical science (until 1923). - L .: Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, State. type of. them. Evg. Sokolova, 1929. - 152, p. - (Proceedings of the Commission on the History of Knowledge / USSR Academy of Sciences; 4). - 1,000 copies.
1931. Landscape and geographical zones of the USSR. M.-L.: Selkhozgiz. Part 1. 401 p.
1940. "System of pisciformes and fishes, now living and fossils". In book. Tr. Zool. Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the SSR, vol. 5, no. 2. S. 85-517.
1946. Discovery of Kamchatka and Bering's expedition. Academy of Sciences of the USSR. (M.-L., 1946. foreword by the author, dated January 1942, circulation 5000, 379 pages)
1946. Essays on the history of Russian geographical discoveries. (M. - L., 1946, 2nd edition 1949).
1947. Berg L. S. Lomonosov and the hypothesis of the movement of the continents // News of the All-Union Geographical Society. - M.: Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1947. - T. No. 1. - S. 91-92. - 2000 copies.
1977. (posthumously). Works on the theory of evolution, 1922-1930. L. 387 p.

Memory
Named after L. S. Berg: a volcano on the island of Urup, a peak in the Pamirs, a cape on the island of the October Revolution (Severnaya Zemlya), glaciers in the Pamirs and the Dzungarian Alatau. His name was included in the Latin names of more than 60 animals and plants.
On February 28, 1996, in the city of Bender, one of the streets of the microdistrict of the city - Borisovka - was named after Berg.

BERG Lev Semyonovich(1876-1950), physicogeographer and biologist, academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1946). He developed the doctrine of landscapes and developed the ideas of V. V. Dokuchaev about natural areas. He was the first to carry out the zonal physical-geographical zoning of the USSR. Capital works on ichthyology (anatomy, taxonomy and distribution of fish), climatology, lake science, and also the history of geography. In 1922 he put forward the evolutionary concept of nomogenesis. President of the Geographical Society of the USSR (1940-50). State Prize of the USSR (1951).

BERG Lev Semyonovich(Simonovich), Russian encyclopedic scientist, zoologist, geographer, evolutionist, historian of science.

Born into a Jewish family, his father was a notary. While studying at the Chisinau gymnasium (1885-94), he was fond of natural science - he collected herbariums, dissected fish, and read scientific literature. In 1894 he was baptized and entered Moscow University. Already a student, he became known for his experiments in breeding fish. The thesis on pike embryology was Berg's 6th published work. After graduating from the university (1898, gold medal), he worked in the Ministry of Agriculture as an inspector of fisheries on the Aral Sea and the Volga, explored steppe lakes, rivers, and deserts.

In 1902-1903, Berg studied hydrology in Bergen (Norway), in 1904-13 he worked at the Zoological Museum of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, in 1913 he moved to Moscow, where he received a professorship at the Moscow Agricultural Institute. In 1916, Berg was invited to the Department of Physical Geography of St. Petersburg University, where he worked until the end of his life.

Berg's first major scientific works were "The Fishes of Turkestan" (1905) and his master's thesis "The Aral Sea" (1908), for which Berg immediately received a doctorate in geography. In 1909-16 Berg published 5 monographs on the fishes of Russia, but geography became the main subject of his scientific interests. He developed a theory of the origin of loess, proposed the first classification of natural areas of the Asian part of Russia. By this time, the scientific style and methods of Berg's work had developed, striking with extraordinary productivity (he owns over 800 works). He was distinguished by iron self-discipline, a tenacious memory, the ability to work without drafts and in any conditions, clarity and clarity of presentation (the text began with a definition of concepts) and conclusions, and an excellent literary language.

Berg stood aloof from politics, but keenly experienced the horrors of war and revolution, interpreting them as a brief triumph of the principle of struggle over the principle of cooperation. Having no conditions for field work during this period, Berg expanded his pedagogical activity (in 1916-18 - in Moscow and Petrograd in parallel) and wrote ("heating freezing ink on the fire of an oil lamp") 3 works on the theory of evolution (1922). They analyze the basic concepts (evolution, progress, expediency, chance, the emergence of a new one, the simplicity of theory, direction), reject the role of the struggle for existence as a factor in evolution (both in nature and in society), sharply limit the role of natural selection (it only protects the norm) and put forward an original theory of evolution - nomogenesis, i.e. evolution based on patterns.

The theory had a number of weaknesses, which colleagues (A. A. Lyubishchev, D. N. Sobolev, Yu. A. Filipchenko) immediately noted, but basically the criticism took on an ideological character, especially after the English edition of Nomogenesis (1926) was released. N.I., who defended Berg from persecution, wrote to him (1927): "We will not let you go from your post. The ship must be steered, no matter what monsters get in the way." Berg did not write more about the mechanisms of evolution. In 1928 he was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (in 1946 - an academician) as a geographer.

In geography, Berg is known as the creator of domestic lake science and landscape theory ("geography is the science of landscapes"). In climatology, Berg gave a classification of climates in relation to landscapes, explained desertification by human activity, and glaciation - "factors of a cosmic order." Berg denied continental drift; following V. I. Vernadsky, he pushed back the emergence of life to the very beginning of geological history.

In zoogeography, Berg offered his own interpretations of the distribution of fish and other aquatic animals, for example, he showed the local origin of the Baikal fauna, and, on the contrary, explained the composition of the Caspian fauna by postglacial migration along the Volga. In ichthyology, the main works of Berg: "The system of fish and fish, now living and fossils" (1940) and the classic three-volume "Fish of fresh waters of the USSR and neighboring countries" (1949, State Prize 1951), which have retained their scientific significance to this day, as well as numerous work on breeding and fishing.

Berg's interest in history and ethnography, which originated in his youth ("Urals on the Syr Darya", 1900), has not been lost over the years. In this area, his works are devoted to the discoveries of Russians in Asia, Antarctica, Alaska ("Essays on the history of Russian geographical discoveries", 1949), old maps, the life of small peoples (Gagauz, Laz, etc.), biographies of scientists. Thanks to Berg, many forgotten names and facts of Russian priority were restored. As an ethnographer, Berg used his knowledge of languages ​​and zoology in his scientific work (eg, "Names of fish and ethnic relationships of the Slavs", 1948).

Lev Semyonovich (Simonovich) Berg(March 2 (15), 1876 - December 24, 1950) - Russian and Soviet zoologist and geographer.

Corresponding member (1928) and full member (1946) of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, president of the Geographical Society of the USSR (1940-1950), laureate of the Stalin Prize (1951 - posthumously). Author of fundamental works on ichthyology, geography, theory of evolution.

A family

Born in Bendery in a Jewish family. His father, Simon Grigoryevich Berg (originally from Odessa), was a notary; mother, Klara Lvovna Bernstein-Kogan, was a housewife. He had younger sisters Maria (April 18, 1878) and Sofia (December 23, 1879). The family lived in a house on Moskovskaya Street.

The first wife of L. S. Berg (in 1911-1913) is Paulina Adolfovna Katlovker (March 27, 1881-1943), the younger sister of the famous publisher B. A. Katlovker. Children - geographer Simon Lvovich Berg (1912, St. Petersburg - November 17, 1970) and geneticist, writer, doctor of biological sciences Raisa Lvovna Berg (March 27, 1913 - March 1, 2006). In 1922, L. S. Berg remarried a teacher at the Petrograd Pedagogical Institute, Maria Mikhailovna Ivanova.

He died on December 24, 1950 in Leningrad. He was buried at the Literary bridges of the Volkovsky cemetery. The tombstone (sculptor V. Ya. Bogolyubov, architect M. A. Shepilevsky) was created in 1954.

Education and scientific career

1885-1894 - studied at the second Chisinau gymnasium, which he graduated with a gold medal. In 1894 he was baptized into Lutheranism in order to obtain the right to higher education within the Russian Empire.

1894-1898 - student of the natural department of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the Imperial Moscow University. (His thesis "Fragmentation and formation of parablast in pike" was awarded a gold medal)

1899-1902 - superintendent of fisheries in the Aral Sea and the Syr Darya.

1903 - study for 10 months at oceanographic courses in Bergen (Norway).

1903-1904 - superintendent of fisheries in the middle reaches of the Volga. Lived in Kazan.

November 1904 - November 1913 - head of the fish department of the Zoological Museum of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. In 1909 he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Geography for his thesis "Aral Sea".

1913-1914 - acting professor of ichthyology and hydrology at the Moscow Agricultural Institute.

January 1917-1950 - Professor of the Department of Physical Geography of Petrograd, and then Leningrad University. Since 1928 - Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

1918-1925 - professor of geography at the Geographical Institute in Petrograd (Leningrad).

1922-1934 - Head of the Department of Applied Ichthyology at the Institute of Experimental Agronomy.

1934-1950 - head of the laboratory of fossil fish at the Zoological Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Leningrad. In 1934 he became a doctor of biological sciences. Since 1946 - full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

1940-1950 - President of the Geographical Society of the USSR.

1948-1950 - Chairman of the Ichthyological Commission of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

Contribution to science

The scientific heritage of Lev Semyonovich Berg is very significant.

As a geographer, having collected extensive materials on the nature of different regions, he carried out generalizations on the climatic zonality of the globe, a description of the landscape zones of the USSR and neighboring countries, and created the textbook Nature of the USSR. Berg, the creator of modern physical geography, is the founder of landscape science, and the landscape division he proposed, although supplemented, has survived to this day.

Berg is the author of the soil theory of loess formation. His works have made a significant contribution to hydrology, lake science, geomorphology, glaciology, desert science, the study of surface sedimentary rocks, issues of geology, soil science, ethnography, and paleoclimatology.

Lev Semyonovich Berg(March 2 (14), 1876, Bendery, Bessarabian province - December 24, 1950, Leningrad) - Russian and Soviet zoologist and geographer. Corresponding member (1928) and full member (1946) of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, president of the Geographical Society of the USSR (1940-1950), laureate of the Stalin Prize (1951, posthumously). Author of works on ichthyology, geography, theory of evolution.

The history of natural science in Russia and the USSR is closely connected with the name of Lev Semenovich Berg. A man of encyclopedic knowledge, amazing capacity for work, inexhaustible creative thought, he left a rich scientific heritage.

Academician L.S. Berg has been called the last encyclopedist of the 20th century. His scientific heritage is not easy to review: over 700 publications, not counting notes and reviews, of which there are more than 200. Their subject matter indicates an amazing breadth of scientific interests (geography, climatology, biology). He developed the doctrine of landscapes and developed the ideas of V.V. Dokuchaev about natural zones, was the first to carry out the zonal physical-geographical zoning of the USSR. In addition to general questions of biology, he created major works on ichthyology (217), fish paleontology, which occupy a prominent place in the list of scientific publications. An extensive three-volume monograph "Fresh Water Fish of the USSR and Neighboring Countries", awarded the USSR State Prize of the 1st degree, was published 4 times. For a long time L.S. Berg was the head of the school of Soviet ichthyologists, the greatest authority among ichthyologists of the whole world, and the president of the Geographical Society of the USSR.

L.S. Berg was widely known not only in his own country, but also abroad. Few modern scientists have covered as many branches of natural science with their research as he did. His works have entered the golden fund of our science. It is important to note a characteristic feature of L.S. Berg: no matter what topic he worked on, he always tried to cover as widely as possible all the issues related to it and draw conclusions that connect the research topic with related branches of knowledge. Therefore, his work is needed and interesting not only for geographers or biologists, but also for climatologists, soil scientists, geologists - naturalists in general. In this regard, his book "The Fish of the Pool" is indicative.

Amur", dedicated to systematics and made as a result of processing the collections of Amur fish that were in the museums of St. Petersburg and Warsaw. In addition to ichthyological materials, in this work the scientist used data from ornithology, entomology, information about the ranges of individual species of mammals and plants. The same can be said for about the works devoted to the unique Lake Baikal, where the historical method in solving complex and controversial issues of the origin of the Baikal fauna helped the author to come to a number of new conclusions.

In 1906, Berg published articles on the ichthyology of lakes Kosogol (now Khubsugul) and Baikal, where he draws attention to the identity of the species composition of the ichthyofauna of these lakes and notes the complete absence of sculpin fish characteristic of Baikal in the fauna of Kosogol.

L.S. Berg developed one of the leading concepts of the origin of the Baikal fauna. The mystery of the living world of this lake interested him back in 1908. At that time, the presence of 92 endemic genera and 10 endemic families was established in Baikal. Lev Semenovich thoroughly and convincingly proved the freshwater origin of the bulk of Baikal animals. In his work "Baikal, its nature and the origin of its organic world" he wrote: "single species of the Baikal fauna are scattered sporadically in separate water bodies of Europe, Siberia, the Siberian Arctic, China, North America. In Baikal, these forms are collected together in large numbers." On the basis of faunistic analysis, the scientist came to the conclusion about the antiquity of the Baikal organic world, its continental origin. L.S. Berg noted that the amazing endemism of the Baikal fauna is a consequence of its antiquity.

L.S. Berg wrote 15 works about Baikal. The specificity and originality of the fauna of Baikal allowed him to single out this lake as the Baikal subregion of the Holarctic in the same biogeographic rank as the European-Siberian subregion. Not everyone agreed with him. However, much later, in 1970, a prominent domestic zoologist Ya.I. Starobogatov proposed to raise the rank of Baikal in the scheme of zoning of continental water bodies according to their fauna even higher - to the level of an independent region.

Feature of L.S. Berga is an extremely simple and intelligible form of presenting the material. Another quality was inherent in Lev Semenovich: among the many facts, comparisons and comparisons, he was able to find and show the most necessary, essential. Few have that kind of talent. L.S. Berg, devoting a lot of time to scientific work, also found an opportunity to popularize scientific knowledge, being published on the pages of Pionerskaya Pravda, the magazines Vokrug Sveta, Priroda, Globus, and other publications. In 1950, he wrote a book for children, The Great Russian Travelers.

L.S. Berg gave lectures very well, full of interesting facts. Students willingly listened to him, the audience was always crowded. Thanks to his excellent memory and knowledge of several languages, the scientist easily quoted primary sources. L.S. Berg made an enormous contribution to Russian and Soviet science, which he passionately loved.

Major writings

Only the most important works are listed here. For a complete bibliography, see the book by V. M. Raspopova.

1. 1918. Bessarabia. Country. People. Economy. - Petrograd: Lights, 1918. - 244 p. (the book contains 30 photographs and a map)
2. 1905. Fishes of Turkestan. Izv. Turk. otd. Russian Geographical Society, vol. 4. 16 + 261 p.
3. 1908. Aral Sea: Experience of a physical-geographical monograph. Izv. Turk. otd. Russian Geographical Society, vol. 5. no. 9. 24 + 580 s.
4. 1912. Vol. 3, no. 1. St. Petersburg. 336 p.
5. 1914. Fish (Marsipobranchii and Pisces). Fauna of Russia and neighboring countries. Vol. 3, no. 2. Pg. pp. 337-704.
6. 1916. Fresh water fish of the Russian Empire. M. 28 + 563 p.
7. 1922. climate and life. M. 196 p.
8. 1922. Nomogenesis, or Evolution based on regularities. Pg. 306 p.
9. 1931. Landscape and geographical zones of the USSR. M.-L. Part 1. 401 p.
10. 1940. "System of pisciformes and fishes, now living and fossils". In book. Tr. Zool. Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the SSR, vol. 5, no. 2. S. 85-517.
11. 1977. (posthumously). Works on the theory of evolution, 1922-1930. L. 387 p.

Literature

1. E. M. Murzaev (1983) M. Science. 176 p. (Series "Scientific and biographical literature")
2. V. M. Raspopova (1952) Lev Semenovich Berg (1876-1950)(Materials for the bio-bibliography of scientists of the USSR. Series of geographic sciences. 1952. Issue 2) M. 145 p.

At Moscow University, among the students of D. N. Anuchin (see p. 426), there were many talented students who later became outstanding scientists. Among them, a prominent place is occupied by the physical geographer Academician Lev Semenovich Berg.

Lev Semenovich Berg was born in 1876 in the county town of Bendery, the former Bessarabian province (now the Moldavian SSR). He graduated from the gymnasium with a gold medal in Chisinau. At that time, in the gymnasium, the main attention was paid to the study of ancient languages ​​- Latin and Greek, while the natural sciences were almost not taught. But, finishing the gymnasium, Lev Semenovich dreamed of studying the natural sciences. And in 1894 he entered the natural department of the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of Moscow University.

Under the influence of university professors A. P. Bogdanov, A. A. Tikhomirov and N. Yu. Zograf, the young man was fond of zoology, especially the section devoted to the study of fish - ichthyology. In senior years, he listened to lectures on geography by prof. D. N. Anuchin, who from that time became his scientific adviser in the field of geography.

Even in his student years, L. S. Berg began to study fish on the river. Dniester, in Bessarabia, and in the Urals. After graduating from the university, in the summer of 1898, he went to explore the lakes of Western Siberia and the surrounding area. As a result of these works, he came to the important conclusion that the level of lakes is gradually rising. Prior to this, scientists believed that the lakes in the southern part of Western Siberia were gradually drying up.

Already at the time when Berg began his scientific career, Anuchin was struck by the versatility and depth of his scientific knowledge.

“And when did he manage to find out all this and think it over so seriously?” Anuchin said.

A deep passion for geography, an amazing capacity for work, a desire for new knowledge and many scientific works allowed Berg to take a prominent place in the ranks of the largest scientists and educators of our time.

Developing the teachings of V. V. Dokuchaev about the zones of nature, L. S. Berg wrote several scientific works, including the books: “Geographical zones of the Soviet Union” (in two volumes) and “Nature of the USSR”. In these works, Berg outlined his doctrine of geographical landscapes. The main goal of geography, according to Berg, is the study of natural landscapes.

Geography establishes natural, natural boundaries separating one landscape from another, and gives a description of landscapes; at the same time, regularities in the development of individual landscapes and their influence on each other are revealed.

Berg distinguished landscapes of lowlands and mountains. He subdivided the entire flat land area of ​​the globe into the following landscape zones: 1) tundra, 2) temperate forests, 3) forest-steppe, 4) steppes, 5) Mediterranean zone, 6) semi-deserts, 7) temperate climate deserts, 8) subtropical zone forests, 9) zone of tropical deserts, 10) zone of tropical steppes, 11) zone of tropical forest-steppe (savannah), 12) zone of tropical rainforests. In addition, he singled out mountain landscapes.

The books Geographical Zones of the Soviet Union and Nature of the USSR give a detailed description of the natural zones located on the territory of the USSR.

Describing landscapes, Berg gave a description of the climate, relief, soil and vegetation cover, and the animal world of each geographical zone.

He wrote many works on climatology. His books "Fundamentals of Climatology" and "Climate and Life" highlight the importance of climate in the life of all nature, as well as man and his economic activity. He gave a new division of the globe into climatic zones and regions.

Studying the issue of climate changes and fluctuations throughout the history of the Earth, Berg argued that at present there is no increase in the dryness of the climate of Central and Central Asia, as some scientists believed.

Many of Berg's works are devoted to the study and writing off of the relief of our country. Traveling in Central Asia, he studied the relief of the deserts and compiled a description of the sandy, clay, saline and rocky deserts of this peculiar part of our country.

For many years, Berg was engaged in the study of Issyk-Kul, Balkhash, Lake Ladoga, the Aral Sea and the lakes of Western Siberia. The result of these studies was the work, which gives a comprehensive geographical description of the lakes.

A particularly outstanding work on lake science is L. S. Berg's book "The Aral Sea", in which he outlined the results of his four-year work. He carried out all the research on a simple fishing boat, boldly setting sail on the waters of the then little-studied large lake-sea. Berg was the first to measure the water temperature at different depths in the Aral Sea, studied the geological structure and relief of its coasts, collected geological, zoological, botanical collections, studied currents, waves, and water composition. For this work, in 1909, Moscow University awarded L. S. Berg the degree of Doctor of Geographical Sciences.

Lev Semenovich owns numerous works on the history of geography.

Having studied ancient Russian geographical works - historical documents and maps, Berg wrote about the first explorers of the Bering Strait, about the discovery of Kamchatka and Bering's expeditions, about the history of the study of Yakutia and Turkmenistan, about the travels and work of N. M. Przhevalsky and N. N. Miklukho-Maklay, P. P. Semenov-Tyan-Shansky and D. N. Anuchin. Berg wrote a general outline of the history of Russian geographical science and the book The All-Union Geographical Society for a Hundred Years. In this last work, Berg, as he himself says, "sought to illuminate not only the external course of events, but also to present in a popular form the scientific results obtained by our great geographers."

Shortly before his death, Berg published a book for children about remarkable Russian travelers, which is useful for all those who are interested in the history and geography of our Motherland to read. The works of L. S. Berg on fish are of great importance for science and economy. For capital works "Fish of fresh waters of the USSR and neighboring countries", "The system of fish, now living and fossils", etc., he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Biological Sciences.

In 1940, Berg was elected president of the All-Union Geographical Society, and at the end of 1946 - an academician.

The scientist did a lot of social work. He often spoke on the radio, at factories, in lecture halls, at the Leningrad Palace of Pioneers.

Lev Semenovich Berg died in Leningrad in December 1950. He left a huge scientific legacy in the geography and history of this science, climatology, geology, and zoology.

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