The Forbidden Garden: The Botanists of Besieged Leningrad and their Impossible Choice

Speaker: Simon Parkin, author and journalist

Simon Parkin will recount the story of the people who defended the world’s first seed bank during the siege of Leningrad, which began in 1941 and lasted for 872 days.  As Leningrad starved, the botanists chose to protect a collection of quarter of a million seeds, gathered across decades to combat famine, rather than to plant and consume them to save their own lives and any others.  Their sacrifice preserved genetic material that went on to transform Russian agriculture and remains unparalleled in global science.  Simon will explore this tale of courage and conviction, and reflect on its urgent contemporary resonance in an era of climate crisis, political distortion of science, and the rise of authoritarianism.

Simon Parkin is an author, journalist for The Observer newspaper, and fellow of the Royal Historical Society. His recent book, The Forbidden Garden of Leningrad, was a finalist in the Orwell Prize, and shortlisted for the Royal Society Book Prize. A previous work, The Island of Extraordinary Captives, was also the subject of an HLSI lecture.

Members: Free, Online or Victoria Hall
Non-Members: £10, Online or Victoria Hall. To attend in person, please pay on the door
Please book, for online link only, by 1pm on the day of the event

Please join us for a drink in the Members’ Room after the lecture