Savytsky, Viacheslav

Savytsky, Viacheslav [Савицький, В’ячеслав; Savyc'kyj, V’jačeslav; aka Savitsky], b 1902 in the Kuban, d 16 April 1965 in Salinas, California. Biologist. A graduate of the Kharkiv Agricultural Institute (1924) and Leningrad University (1939), he headed the genetics laboratory at the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of the Sugar Industry (1930–41) and worked in Kyiv (1941–3), Poznań (1943–5), and Halle, Germany (1945–7). After emigrating to the United States (1947) he worked for the Beet Sugar Development Foundation in Salt Lake City, Utah (1947–61), and Salinas. Savitsky and his wife, Olena Savytska, obtained productive monogerm varieties of sugar beet that enabled sugar-beet farming to be mechanized and are in use today throughout the world.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]