Miklós Müller
A Martyr of Science
Ervin Bauer (1890-1938)
What is life? This remains a perennial
question which has received and
receives hundreds of different answers.
These depend on the developmental state
of science at any given time and on the
beliefs of the person giving it. Ervin Bauer
raised this question in the first third of the
last century and tried not only to give a convincing
answer but also to develop from
first principles a consistent theoretical
framework that would account for all
known manifestations of life. A friend of
his, Boris Petrovich Tokin, who did so much
later to keep Bauer's name alive, said that
Bauer's dream of theoretical biology was
similar to Einstein's goal in physics to create
a single equation that encompasses the
"Essence of Nature," from which all physical
phenomena can be derived.
The sentiment is topical in this Year of
Physics, when we celebrate the centennial
of the publication of Einstein's seminal
papers that changed our view of the World.
As we know, neither Einstein himself, nor
modern physics have reached this Holy
Grail yet. Biology was much less likely to
do so in those remote years. Even today,
however, Bauer is often presented in the
Russian and Hungarian literature as an
outstanding scientist, who was much
ahead of his time and is often regarded as
one of the key founders of theoretical
biology. His fundamental "principle of the
permanent inequilibrium of living matter",
dubbed "Bauer's principle", is often quoted.
What follows is an attempt to retell his
complicated and tragic life and the
curious afterlife of his work. Details of his
elaborate theory and of its significance for
contemporary biology, however, cannot be
discussed in this brief note.
Ervin Bauer, or Ervin Simonovich Bauer,
as he was known in his final years, was
born in 1890 and died in 1938. His life was
that of a typical Hungarian intellectual of
the beginning of the 20th century, framed
by the First World War, the Spanish flu pandemic
of 1918, the short-lived Hungarian
Soviet Republic of 1919, followed by a
search for a new home, where he could live
quietly and fulfill his scientific dreams. The
Wanderjahre took him, together with his second wife, Stefánia (Stefi) Szilárd, to Göttingen,
Prague, Berlin and finally in 1925 to
the Soviet Union, to Moscow and Leningrad,
where, after receiving much scientific
recognition, the Stalinist terror swallowed
up both of them.2 Today he is remembered
both in his native and in his adopted country,
the Soviet Union and its successor
states, although for a long time he was a
"non-person" and his name was not to be
mentioned. Elsewhere in the world he is
essentially unknown.
Ervin Bauer was born into an educated
family. His father taught in a gimnázium, he
was a linguist who translated German
classics into Hungarian and also published
papers on linguistics. His mother was
also highly gifted. Ervin was the youngest
of three. His older brother, Herbert, became
a well known literary figure and film
theore-tician under the name Béla Balázs.
(See Nicholas Vázsonyi's article, pp.
141-153) His sister, Hilda, also older
than Ervin, studied languages.
Living in such an environment, Ervin
movied in literary circles. Among his
many friends was the young Georg
Lukács, the philosopher. Ervin
wanted to study mathematics, but at
the request of his mother, he studied
medicine in Budapest and
Göttingen. Already as a student he
was engaged in research and had
his first original paper published
before obtaining his medical degree.
He passed his accelerated final
examinations in the fall of 1914, to
be drafted immediately into the
Austro-Hungarian army.
In the spring of 1914, the
medical student Ervin fell in love
with a well-known writer and poet,
Margit Kaffka, who was 11 years his
senior. His feelings were ardently
reciprocated. While travelling in
Italy in August, they learned in
Venice that war had broken out,
returned quickly to Hungary and got
married. Their marriage was happy
although it was difficult for them to spend
time together. Ervin was soon posted to the
eastern front and served later in a military
hospital in Temesvár (Timis¸oara in
Romania) far from Budapest. Letters
expressing their love and longing for each
other make poignant reading. In Temesvár
Ervin was able to do some research and
published several papers. He became interested
in general problems of the living
world and began formulating his concepts
of theoretical biology at that time. From a
letter to his wife dated October 28, 1918:
...I am deep in work... If we just could be together
in Pest... It is true that I am handicapped,
because I constantly keep thinking about
biology [...] I accumulated many ideas and would
like to work on all of them at the same time.
From the memoirs of Bauer's
sister, Hilda:
Ervin read his paper to Margit and
when I visited them... Margit
opened the door. I immediately
noticed that something extraordinary
happened. Her eyes were
shining and instead of greeting me,
she blurted out: "Hilda, I married a
great man." She was so taken by
what she has heard.
Their happiness did not last
long. The Spanish flu swept
through Europe and Margit died
on December 1, 1918. Margit's last
hours are described by her attending
physician. Margit asked
her to
"tell my husband, whom I adored
and who made me so happy... that
he should not mourn me. He
should marry soon again, but only
to a woman... who will guide him to
great heights, just as I did..."
The year 1919 was as difficult for Bauer,
as it was for most Hungarians. After the fall
of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, he had to
find a new country to live in. He married
Stefánia Szilárd, who fullfilled all that
Margit prophesied. She was a loving companion
and a gifted mathematician, who
contributed decisively to the development
of Bauer's theoretical concepts. In the difficult
years of their exile they tried
to settle somewhere in a tolerant environment.
They lived briefly in Göttingen, then
some years in Prague, where Ervin worked
in the medical faculty. Their life was far
from luxurious. As their Prague friend,
the Hungarian poet and physician Imre
Forbáth describes,
their poverty and modesty were proverbial.
Bauer had a single worn suit, two shirts and
a few books. But we were often together in
their friendly home, a single room in the
building of the Institute, where we helped to
prepare a simple supper and discussed politics
and science."
This period was, however, scientifically
productive. In addition to several shorter
papers, the first version of Bauer's theoretical
work appeared in Germany during
this time, with the telling title of Fundamentals
of a Pure Scientific Biology.7 This
was an amazing achievement for someone
who had practically no time to do his work.
After Prague, they moved to Berlin in
search of a better post. It remains unknown
whether they wished to settle there
permanently or, as Forbáth implies, they
regarded Berlin as a temporary home, until
they obtained permission to move to the
Soviet Union. At any rate, Bauer found no
long term position and worked first in a cancer research institute and subsequently
for a pharmaceutical company looking for
a treatment for cancer.
Eventually, in 1925, invited by Semashko,
the Peoples' Commissar for Health, the
Bauers moved to the Soviet Union, the
country of their dreams. This was not an
unusual choice for a Communist scientist in
the mid 20s. Bauer probably became committed
to communism during the Hungarian
Soviet Republic. His correspondence with
Margit reveals him as a pacifist but not a
politically engaged man, while Forbáth
describes his Prague years already as those
of a person who faithfully fulfilled all tasks
set by the leadership of the party in exile.
His biographer, Tokin, sketches an
idyllic life for the Bauers in the Soviet
Union, which is probably not entirely true.
Certainly they found employment in leading
institutions, and his work seems to
have progressed well, as shown by the
numerous experimental papers he wrote in
these years. Yet Bauer spent even his
relatively short time in the Soviet Union
in three different institutions and in two
different towns. Until 1931 he worked in
the Obukh Institute of Work Hygiene as
head of the Department of Experimental
Pathology and General Biology. Published
papers from this period describe mundane
improvements in routine blood tests, but
Bauer also achieved here the publication of
the second version of his magnum opus,
The Physical Principles in Biology.
Soviet science, and biology in particular,
saw some immense battles in the late
20s and early 30s among scientists interpreting
differently the role of dialectic
materialism in biology. The end of the New
Economic Policy and the beginning of the
Great Breakthrough, (in simpler terms, the
establishment of Stalin's absolute authority
in all areas of life, including science)
pushed much of the old guard into the
background (or into something worse) and
a young generation took over.
We do not know what role, if any, Bauer
played in these changes. His early acceptance
of dialectic materialism as a guiding
principle in scientific research is clear from
a number of his general papers. Just as an
example, a 1928 paper of his bears the title,
"Dialectics and Natural Sciences". I would
not dwell on this topic, were it not for an
interesting coincidence. One of the "Young
Turks" was the already mentioned Tokin,
who was an active leader of the new trend.
He was named the new director of the
Timiryazev Institute of Biology of the
Communist Academy, with the task of
introducing a new regime into biological
research. In retrospect, this institute, and
Tokin himself, played a positive role in the
development of experimental biology in
the Soviet Union. One of Tokin's first
actions in 1931 was to invite Bauer to
organise a team for general biology. Bauer
moved from the Obukh Institute and
successfully established a productive
research team. This new place also provided
him with the environment needed for
intense work on his great monograph.
Motivations for the invitation and its
acceptance remain hidden.
In 1933 Bauer moved to Leningrad to
head the Department of Cancer Research
and subsequently the Department of
General Biology of the Leningrad Division
of the All-Union Institute of Experimental
Medicine, the most prestigious medical
research institute of the Soviet Union.
The names linked to it, such as I. P. Pavlov,
L.A. Orbeli, K.M. Bykov, S.J. London,
A.S. Speransky bear witness to its importance.
Bauer organised an active team and
it was at this new, stimulating place that he
finished and published his major monograph.
Their son describes a harmonious,
busy but friendly family environment, so
tragically shattered in 1937.
Bauer was highly respected and was
regarded as a major authority by his colleagues
in the Soviet Union. He was asked
to contribute, in collaboration with two
young scientists, the entry "Life" to the
Large Soviet Encyclopedia, intended to be
the definitive summary of knowledge for
the Soviet Union.9 The text was also prepublished
in a major ideological journal to
solicit comments, but it seems that no
major objections were raised. A further testimony
to his authority was the commission
to edit a textbook of General Biology
for Teachers' Colleges.
This period was the high point of his life
as a scientist. In 1935 the third version of
his major work, Theoretical Biology was
published in Leningrad in 5200 copies, and
quickly sold out. This volume represents a
detailed development of his "principle of
the permanent inequlibrium of living matter."
Starting from this principle, he derives
the characteristics of various phenomena of
life, e.g. metabolism and assimilation, multiplication,
adaptability, excitability and
even evolution. His theses were by no
means uncontroversial. An article anouncing
the publication of this book and briefly
outlining its content was published in the
journal Socialist Reconstruction and
Science.11 The editors preceded it by a commentary
that is worth quoting:
Prof. E.S. Bauer developed his ideas over
15 years, beginning with the publication of
the Grundprinzipien der rein naturwissenschaftlichen
Biologie in 1920. These ideas
are to be presented in detail in his
Theoretical Biology, which will leave the
press this summer [...] These ideas are of
great theoretical interest, providing a completely
new and original concept of living
substance, based on the principle of permanent
inequilibrium [...] [The author's] views
are often in contradiction with those generally
accepted. Suffice it to mention the paradox,
well argued by Prof. Bauer, that 'the raw
material for the evolutionary process is provided
by the losers and not by the victors in
the struggle for life.' These views deviate
from the accepted ones, they are bold and
unexpected [...] Many ideas of Prof. Bauer
will provoke opposition, many will require
experimental verification, but what is the
most important in this work is the consistent
application of a dialectic approach to solving
the main problem of biology, the problem of
living matter.
Bauer's monograph clearly represented
an outstanding contribution to the biological
sciences of his time. The systematic development
of a self-consistent theory of living
matter and life in general, however controversial
it might have been, should have
stimulated extensive further work and extensive
discussion. That it did not enter the
pool of widely known scientific ideas and did
not exert its deserved major impact on biology
was due to two circumstances. Its publication
in Russian certainly kept it out of
the hand of most biologists. This problem
still persists and even today the book is
accessible only to those who read Russian
or Hungarian. It looked likely that after its
appearance a translation into English or German
would have been published soon. The
political situation in the Soviet Union and
the tragic fate of the author resulted, however,
in the complete disappearance of the
book from circulation and no reprint or translation
could be considered for a long time.
The Bauers were arrested by the KGB on
August 4, 1937, during their summer
vacation, accused of spying for a foreign
country and condemned to death. This was
the time of the great purge when trumped
up charges were used against just about
everybody who had migrated to the Soviet
Union from the West, with only few surviving.
The Bauers were shot on January 11,
1938 by Senior Lieutenant A.R. Polikarpov of
the Leningrad NKVD and interred in a mass
grave. Until recently all references implied
that the Bauers were sent to the Gulag and
that Ervin died in 1942, sometime during the
war. In 1954 both were rehabilitated with all
charges withdrawn. In spite of their innocence
being officially declared, the fact and
date of the execution was kept secret. The
family learned the truth only in early 1992.
Ervin Bauer's sons were only children
when the parents were taken away, Mikhail
twelve and Karl only two. Mikhail was old
enough to retain memories of the arrest.
Both children were raised in orphanages
run by the NKVD, were eventually separated
and Karl was given a different family
name. The two brothers found each other
only after many years and both now live in
St. Petersburg. Their tragic and adventurous
fate deserve retelling but this is beyond
the scope of this article.
Bauer's Russian books shared the fate
of their author. Like other books by "enemies
of the people," the copies were
removed from all libraries and pulped. Only
a few copies were kept in special collections
of selected libraries and in the
personal collections of a few brave souls.
I quote from a book by S. E. Shnol:
I heard the name of Ervin Bauer from my
teacher, Sergey E. Severin. We were discussing
some central questions of biology.
I was curious whether the basic facts of
biology could be deduced from a few fundamental
principles. [My teacher] kept quiet for
a while and then said in a low voice - we
were alone in his office - "You know, it
seems as if I heard somebody else [...] It was
a long time ago and people hardly understood
his thinking. Please do not mention my
name but try to get Ervin Bauer's Theoretical
Biology from somebody." I found the book.
at a friend of ours and I was much
impressed."
Shnol became a champion of Bauer
when it was still forbidden to utter this
name.
Bauer's name reappeared in Hungary in
the 1960s. Tokin, a friend and superior
of Bauer in the 1930s and later a professor
at the Leningrad State University, regarded
it as his duty to revive the memory of a
scientist cut down in the most promising
and productive period of his life. Tokin visited
Hungary repeatedly and used his visits
to reacquaint the Hungarians with Bauer.
He collected documents and interviewed
family members, friends and colleagues of
Bauer, both in the Soviet Union and in
Hungary, and wrote a small biography with
an overview and evaluation of Bauer's scientific
achievements.
In Hungary Bauer, first an exile, then
persecuted in the Soviet Union, was
remembered only as a mythical figure by a
few people but certainly not known as a scientist.
In the autumn of 1962 Tokin gave a
talk on Bauer and his work at the Hungarian
Academy of Sciences. This was the beginning
of the renaissance of Bauer in his
native country, soon to be followed by the
publication of a biography by Tokin in
Hungarian in 1965. These events were
reported in the periodical press and the
name of Ervin Bauer slowly emerged from
obscurity. Even the head of the Party, János
Kádár, thanked Tokin in a personal note, as
mentioned in a brief report in the newspaper
of Leningrad University.
The Hungarian Academy of Sciences
decided to publish a Hungarian translation
of Theoretical Biology soon after the publication
of Tokin's book. The translation
appeared in 1967. Indicating the rarity of
the original edition, the translator had to
work from a photocopy and never even saw
the original. The Hungarian press published
some comments on the appearance
of the book. The published Hungarian version
was more a homage to Bauer than an
attempt to contribute to scientific discourse.
Scientists in Hungary welcomed
the book, however.
Shnol regarded Theoretical Biology as so
important that for years he kept doing
everything possible to have the book
reprinted in the Soviet Union, without success,
however. Finally he sought the help of
the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and
enlisted a small team of Soviet and
Hungarian Scientists for this project. It took
many years, but finally these efforts were
crowned with success. In 1982, quite a few
years after the publication of the Hungarian
translation, a book appeared that contained
the facsimile of the Russian original but only
an extended summary in English. Curiously
this edition does not even mention the existence
of the previous Hungarian version
and contains a bibliography that ignores
the significant amendments made in the
Hungarian version of Tokin's biography.
A few copies reached scientists in the
Soviet Union. A former colleague of Bauer's,
G.G. Vinberg gave a warm welcome to this
volume in the largest Russian popular science
magazine.15 Tokin devoted his 1988
book to it, (see note 1) in which he analysed
Bauer's views in detail and challenged
Shnol's interpretation of Bauer's theory.
Both reviews address a Russian readership
and do not even presume that the book will
reach its intended target. Another mishap
happened in the fate of this work. The central
foreign trade company, Mezhdunarodnaya
Kniga (International Book) did not distribute
the book in the Soviet Union, and
essentially all copies remained in Hungary.
It will remain a mystery whether the book
was simply not ordered by Mezhdunarodnaya
Kniga or, as Shnol assumes, the company
exerted excess vigilance. Whatever
happened, in contrast to their Hungarian
colleagues, Russian scientists had still no
access to the work of this outstanding scientist,
rehabilitated years earlier by the
Supreme Court of the Soviet Union.
Shnol and others did everything possible
to keep Bauer's work alive in the Soviet
Union. They organised a symposium in
Pushchino on the centenary of his birth.
Among the guests of honour were both of
Bauer's sons and his granddaughter,
Svetlana. Bauer's work was discussed and
commented on in a number of lectures. The
published proceedings contain 22 papers.
A special feature of this volume is the publication
of a stenographic transcript of a
lecture Bauer gave in May 1935 the material
of which was recently discovered in the
archives of the Academy of Medical
Sciences of the Soviet Union.
The adventurous fate of this book came
to a full circle in 2002, almost three quarters
of a century after its original publication,
when a reprint of Bauer's chef d'oevre was
published in the town now again named St.
Petersburg. The volume was edited by Yurii
Pavlovich Golikov, head of the Museum of
the Institute of Experimental Medicine,
Ervin Bauer's last place of work. Historical
justice was thus served and the book finally
reached its originally intended readership.
The world scientific community, however,
still has no easy access to this historical work.
The 1982 reprint with its extended summary
in English has remained essentially unknown.
I am aware of only one review in an
East German journal and none in English.
Since Bauer's time the face of biology
has undergone a sea change. Our current
understanding of living matter has made
obsolete most specific aspects of Bauer's
theoretical constructions. It would be futile
to try to imagine how Bauer himself would
have accommodated the new paradigms.
The historical and linguistic barriers to the
dissemination of his ideas when they were
developed were tragic, as was his personal
fate. None of this should, however, obscure
the memory of a great original thinker.
Miklós Müller
is Professor Emeritus at the Rockefeller University in New York, NY, USA
and Senior Fellow at the Collegium Budapest, Hungary
