Tesha Zohidov

Tesha Zohidovich Zohidov (Russian: Tisha Zakhidovich Zakhidov) was born on 10 May (23 May in the new style) 1906 in Kokand into a poor family; some sources give Tashkent as his birthplace. In 1926 he entered the Central Asian State University (SAGU) in Tashkent, graduated in 1931 and stayed on there. He worked as a researcher from 1931 to 1949 and was elected professor in 1949; according to the National Encyclopedia of Uzbekistan he took the degree of Doctor of Biological Sciences in 1948 and at various times acted as the university’s rector.

From 1941 to 1945 he headed the sector of higher education and science at the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan. In early 1943 the People’s Commissariat of Agriculture of the Uzbek SSR asked SAGU to survey the pastures of the south-eastern Kyzylkum. The South Kyzylkum Complex Expedition, led by the botanist E. P. Korovin and the zoologist Zohidov, carried out field work without a break from 15 March to 10 December. The expedition’s materials appeared as theses in 1945 and, about ten years later, in the collection “Southern Kyzyl-Kum: an area for karakul sheep farming”.

From 1946 to 1952 Zohidov was deputy director of the Institute of Botany and Zoology of the Academy of Sciences of the Uzbek SSR. In 1952 he became an academician and president of the Academy of Sciences of the Uzbek SSR, a post he held until 1956. He also headed the Institute of Zoology and Parasitology; the sources give the dates of that post differently.

Zohidov’s main research concerned the vertebrate fauna of the deserts of the Uzbek SSR, in particular the composition and ecology of the animal world of the Kyzylkum and Karakum. His results were used in the zoogeographical division of Uzbekistan’s deserts into regions. He took part in preparing the multi-volume “Zoological Encyclopedia” and in 1971 published the book “Biocenoses of the Kyzylkum Desert”. According to the Academy of Sciences, he wrote more than 300 scientific works, including about 50 monographs, and trained 5 doctors and 25 candidates of science; from 1961 he was a member of the International Academy of Zoology (Agra, India).

Zohidov was an Honoured Scientist and Technologist of the Uzbek SSR (the sources give 1947 or 1950) and a laureate of the Beruni State Prize of the Uzbek SSR (1970); he received the Orders of Lenin and of the October Revolution, three Orders of the Red Banner of Labour and the Order of the Badge of Honour. He died in Tashkent on 21 August 1981 and was buried at the Chigatai cemetery.