April 17 marked the 130th anniversary of the birth of Mykola Oleksandrovych Tyulenev (1889–1969), corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, one of the outstanding graduates of the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, who made a significant contribution to the establishment and development of drainage reclamation in Ukraine, better known in the world as wetland culture. According to the Resolution of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the anniversary of M.O. Tyulenev is celebrated at the state level.
Mykola Tyulenev was born on April 17, 1889, in the village of Hannivka, Katerynoslav Province, into a family of civil servants. After graduating from high school in Poltava, he studied at the agricultural department of the Emperor Alexander II Kyiv Polytechnic Institute (now the National Technical University of Ukraine “Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”) from 1907 to 1911. His scientific interests were shaped primarily by the influence of Professor P.R. Slyozkin. On his recommendation, during his last two years of study, he participated in collective experiments with corn in the Katerynoslav and Kharkiv provinces under the guidance of future academician B.M. Rozhestvensky. After graduating, he specialized in “cultivation technology” or “agronomist-meliorator.”
In 1911–1912, Mykola Tyulenev was an intern at the Department of Agriculture, and then an agrochemist at the Minsk Marsh Research Station, the first of its kind in the Russian Empire, established in August 1911. In 1912, he attended courses on marsh culture for graduates of special agricultural educational institutions, introduced by the Department of Agriculture. After graduating as one of the three best students, he interned with the department in Sweden, Denmark, and Germany. Upon his return, he worked as a specialist in the agricultural section of the Department of Agriculture, a lecturer on marsh cultivation and meadow farming at the St. Petersburg Agricultural Museum, and an assistant editor of the magazine Zemlerobets. At the end of 1915, he became a senior specialist in the agricultural section of the Department of Agriculture and head of training courses for masters of marsh and meadow cultivation in the city of Ryazan. In 1915–1917, he was a specialist in marsh cultivation at the Volodymyr-Ryazan Department of Agriculture and State Property of the Vladimir Provincial Land Department. For the next two years, he was a senior specialist in marsh cultivation in the Volodymyr Province.
From 1919 to 1921, Mykola Tyulenev was a senior specialist in wetland cultivation at the Kyiv Provincial Land Department and assistant director of the Torf company (Proskuriv). In 1921–1922, he worked as a senior technical inspector for the Ukrtorf company (Kyiv). From 1923 to 1932, he was the first director of the Rudnia-Radovelvskyi Marshland and Land Reclamation Research Station of the NKZS USSR, which was established in 1923 on the initiative of the Agricultural Scientific Committee of Ukraine (now the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences of Ukraine – NAAS). Under his leadership and with his participation, hydrographic studies were conducted, work was carried out on the installation of a number of open and closed drainage systems, as well as water gauging wells. Research on peat decomposition was initiated. Studies were conducted on various grass mixtures for meadow and pasture use, as well as on the cultivation of oats on marshy soils.
The results of his systematic research, conducted at the Rudnia-Radovelskyi marsh research station between 1923 and 1932, formed the basis of the state program for the development of Ukraine's marshes. He was well acquainted with the problems of the Ukrainian Polissya and the great Dnieper and several times initiated and developed relevant land reclamation projects for rational nature management.
Mykola Tyulenev initiated and headed the organizing committee for the First All-Union Congress on Wetland Culture, held on September 24–26, 1927. Together with D.O. Giovani (also a 1911 graduate of KPI), he represented the Ukrainian SSR at the second congress, held on October 15–18, 1927, in Minsk. He was among the speakers at the First All-Union Conference of Meadow Researchers at the State Meadow Institute named after Professor V.R. Williams, which took place on February 23–March 1, 1928. The institution he headed, through its branches, became the main one for studying industry issues. From 1930 to 1934, he was a full member of the Higher Scientific and Technical Council of the USSR People's Commissariat of Agriculture on the reclamation of marshlands. From 1932 until the beginning of World War II, he was a senior researcher, head of the agro-reclamation and drainage sector, and scientific director of the marsh research network of the Ukrainian Research Institute of Agricultural Reclamation (now the Institute of Water Problems and Reclamation of the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences). In 1934, he organized the Sulsk Experimental Marsh Field (Romny District, Sumy Region). Together with M.N. Shevchenko and A.M. Yanghel, in 1935 he initiated the transfer of the Pidstavska Marsh Research Station, established in 1916, from the Zolotonosha district of the Poltava region to the Yahotyn district of the Kyiv region. It was he who chose the current location of the station. In accordance with the order of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture of the Ukrainian SSR, in 1936 he became the scientific director of the entire range of research at the Panfilo-Yagotinsky Central Marsh Support Point of the Ukrainian Research Institute of Agricultural Melioration. Mykola Tyulenev also personally founded the Kazarovetskaya Meadow and Sagaydatska Irrigation Research Stations.
Mykola Tyulenev's report “Drainage and Development of Wetlands in the Ukrainian SSR” at the VII Plenum of the Session on Land Reclamation and Hydraulic Engineering of the All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences, July 4–8, 1938. effectively summarized the achievements of Ukrainian scientists in the field of drainage reclamation in the pre-war period under the coordination of the Ukrainian Research Institute of Hydrotechnics and Reclamation and the site of implementation at the Panfilsky stronghold.
On September 21, 1940 at a meeting of the specialized academic council at the V.R. Williams Moscow Institute of Hydromelioration, Mykola Tyulenev defended his dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Agricultural Sciences on the topic “Growing sugar beets on drained peat soils of the Ukrainian SSR.”
From 1941, M. Tyulenev was the dean of the agromeliorative faculty of the Kyiv Hydromeliorative Institute (now the National University of Water Management and Nature Resources Use in Rivne). As the front approached Kyiv, he moved to the village of Panfily. During the occupation of the Yahotyn region, Mykola Oleksandrovych continued his research under the relevant program and topics of the Panfila experimental field, which made it possible to maintain full continuity for further research work.
In 1944–1948, M.O. Tyulenev concurrently headed the drainage department of the Ukrainian Research Institute of Agricultural Melioration. On July 2, 1948, he was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR in the field of agricultural sciences. That same year, he moved to work as a senior researcher at the Institute of Plant Physiology and Agrochemistry of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, where he worked until 1955. In 1956, by decision of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, he became a member of its academic council. By decision of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR in 1951, he was elected a member of the editorial board of the journal of the Academy's Department of Agricultural Sciences, “Visti Sels'kogospodarskoi Nauki” (News of Agricultural Science). At another meeting, dated March 9, 1951, the mole-drainage machine developed by M.O. Tyulenev received high praise, as its use on drained soils contributed to an 18-30% increase in the yield of various agricultural crops. The government of the Ukrainian SSR decided to launch its serial production. In 1955, by decision of the Higher Attestation Commission under the Ministry of Higher Education of the USSR, M.O. Tyulenev was awarded the academic title of professor in the specialty of “agromelioration.”
Throughout 1958, Mykola Tyulenev, together with other leading scientists of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR and the Ukrainian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, gave presentations and took an active part in cluster seminars -meetings on the topic “On providing assistance to collective farms and state farms in the development and implementation of a proper system of agriculture,” which were held in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Odesa, and Lviv.
He was repeatedly recognized by the Ministries of Agriculture of the USSR and the Ukrainian SSR and other institutions for his successes in the development of land reclamation science and agriculture on reclaimed lands.
Due to his deteriorating health, in 1961 he first transferred to the position of senior research fellow, and from 1964 he worked as a scientific consultant for the department of floodplain land development at the Ukrainian Research Institute of Hydrotechnics and Land Reclamation.
Mykola Tyulenev died on December 12, 1969, and was buried in Kyiv, at the Baikove Cemetery. The creative legacy of this scientist consists of 218 scientific works for the period 1911–1964. Among his students were a whole galaxy of famous scientists and agricultural engineers who worked on Ukrainian lands: M.S. Proskura, A.V. Bakulin, Yu.V. Shelestov, V.R. Gimbarzhevsky, and others.