The year is 1921 (a year prior to the Soviet Union being founded) and, in a place then called Leningrad, the Institute of Plant Industry is established. The set goal: research plant genetics, create better crops, and guarantee more fruitful and resilient harvests by means of Science.
In the young Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Nikolai Vavilov goes on to head the institute, having dedicated his academic career thus far to studying and improving wheat, maize and cereal crops. Nikolai sets out to create the world’s first seed bank, venturing across the globe to expand the institute’s collection.
Over the coming decade, he would lead the effort to create what remains until today the largest collection of seeds in the world. But as the political pressure cooker that the USSR was would have it, his success was short-lived. In a spat over his disbelief in a competing botanist’s pseudo-scientific methods, Vavilov would fall out of favor with Stalin and be sentenced to death. Despite his sentence being reduced, he would die in 1943 after two years in harsh prison conditions.
Nonetheless, his passion and vision lived on at the institute.
When the siege of Leningrad took place between 1941 and ‘44, his former colleagues stood their ground in protection of this irreplaceable treasure of biomaterial. As soldiers were sent to save the art from the institute, it was the remaining botanists that defended their treasure of biodiversity against the elements, starving intruders and rats – all while facing starvation themselves.
During the siege, 28 of them would lose their lives protecting the collection with their lives, from the outside world and themselves.
Now, why am I telling you all this? Because today’s musical subject, Portland-native indie folk rock band The Decemberists, wrote a song about this, as part of their 2006 album, The Crane Wife.
Music & satire magazine The Hard Times once quipped that “The Decemberists Finally Locate Time Portal That Will Return Them to the 1830s”, which doesn’t quite match my above story’s timeline, but gives a good inkling as to the thematic nature of many of the bands hyper-lyrical songs, which often pull from history and folklore. Feel free to google the album title (and listen to the songs dedicated to it on the record) for another example.
If you are like me and enjoy a good story, do give the band a listen – the music isn’t just stellar, but the texts also allow for some nice rabbithole-ing! Enjoy 🙂
Coryphe 