A close friendship connects our great scientist with Albert Einstein
April 29 marks the 140th anniversary of the birth of Acad. Metodi Popov. The great Bulgarian biologist was born in 1881 in Shumen, and his brother was the mathematician Acad. Kiril Popov. Both are individuals with broad interests in science and the arts. They were involved in classical music since childhood, playing the cello and the violin.
Acad. Metodi Popov graduated in biology at Sofia University, and later specialized in biology, comparative anatomy and parasitology in Munich with the world-famous scientist Richard Hertwig. He held a PhD from the University of Munich and worked as an assistant professor of zoology and comparative anatomy. He continued his specialization in microbiology at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin and at the Pasteur Institute in Paris.
In his research, Acad. Popov considered problems in the field of general biology, cytophysiology, anthropology and microbiology. For years he was researching general cell stimulation and methods for its practical application. In 1919, he wrote the first Bulgarian textbook in general biology, which is the second such textbook in the world. His scientific works are more than 170 in number.
In the 1930s he conducted anthropological studies of the racial affiliation of the Bulgarian people and summarized them in “Heredity, Race and People”. Academician Popov was a clear opponent of racism in the first half of the twentieth century. On this occasion, he returned to the German Embassy in Bulgaria all his scientific awards presented to him in Germany.
In Bulgaria, Acad. Popov taught zoology at Sofia University, and in 1920 became its rector. During the Balkan and the Second Balkan Wars in 1913 he organized the Bacteriological Anti-Cholera Laboratory in Lozengrad. The discovery he made under severe military conditions was about the killing effect of water-soluble and volatile fractions of garlic on cholera embryos.
In the 1920s he was sent as Bulgaria’s ambassador to Germany. In 1927, at the suggestion of the Swiss physiologist and chemist Emil Abderhalden, he was elected a member of the German National Academy of Sciences “Leopoldina”.
During his 6-year diplomatic mandate, Acad. Popov assisted in establishing contacts between the scientific circles in Bulgaria and Germany. Common interests in the field of science and music connected the great Bulgarian scientist and his brother with Albert Einstein. Their close acquaintance allowed the sending of a young Bulgarian scientist as Einstein’s assistant.
Acad. Metodi Popov became a full member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in 1947, and from 1948 until his death he headed the Institute of Biology of BAS. Today the institute is renamed the Institute of Plant Physiology and Genetics. The office with the library of the great scientist and an exposition dedicated to Acad. Popov are preserved.
Manuscripts, letters and books from the private collection of Acad. Metodi Popov are stored in the Scientific Archive of BAS. All archival documents can be viewed here: http://archiv.cl.bas.bg/pdf/opisi/F.74k,op.1-2.pdf
