Vetukhiv, Mykhailo

Vetukhiv, Mykhailo [Ветухів, Михайло; Vetuxiv, Myxajlo], b 25 July 1902 in Kharkiv, d 11 June 1959 in New York. Biologist, geneticist, and civic figure; member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society from 1947; son of Oleksa Vetukhiv. After graduating from the Kharkiv Agricultural Institute (1923), he taught (1926–34) at the Poltava Agricultural Institute, the Kharkiv Veterinary Institute, and Kharkiv University. In 1934 he was forced to move to Moscow, where he taught at the Moscow Veterinary-Zootechnical Institute and headed the genetics section of the All-Union Institute of Experimental Veterinary Medicine. After returning to Kharkiv in 1941, he was rector of Kharkiv University (1942–3). In 1944 he emigrated (as a displaced person) to Germany and cofounded the Ukrainian Free Academy of Sciences (UVAN). He served in Germany as a minister for the Government-in-exile of the Ukrainian National Republic (1945). Later, in the United States, he was executive vice-president of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (1949–55) and head of UVAN in the United States (from 1950). He prepared analyses of Soviet scientific research for the Institute for the Study of the USSR. His postulate, known as Vetukhiv’s breakdown, notes the substantial loss of breeding potential among second-generation hybrid plants.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]