Toward the History of Study of Symbiogenesis: On the English Translation of B. M. Kozo-Polyansky’s \u3ci\u3eA New Principle of Biology\u3c/i\u3e (1924)

We reproduce the text by Victor Fet, which was read on 6 October 2011 at the Moscow Society of Naturalists during the presentation of new book translation (B.M. Kozo- Polyansky. Symbiogenesis: A New Principle of Evolution / transl. by Victor Fet; ed. by Victor Fet & Lynn Margulis. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010. 138 p.) This half- forgotten book by Boris M. Kozo-Polyansky was known only by name to Western biologists. Victor Fet gives a brief history of this new translation, enthusiastically initiated and supported by Lynn Margulis (1938–2011), a famous naturalist who was always eager to gave credit where credit was due. Kozo- Polyansky, along with Merezhkovsky, Portier, and Wallin, pioneered symbiogenetic ideas that were brilliantly developed and vindicated starting from 1960–1970s. It was Lynn Margulis who noticed also that Kozo- Polyansky preceded E. Chatton in recognizing the profound diff erence between prokaryotes and eukaryotes; in fact, he maintained that this difference was due to symbiogenetic, complex nature of the eukaryotic cell! Two “scientistic” poems (in Russian) by Victor Fet are included, dedicated to all the prophets and martyrs of science