In the memory of the first Rector of the Vitebsk Veterinary Institute
Eugene Filippovich ALONOV
(Died in December 22, 1929).
“He created a monument to us in which
we all feel warm and cozy.”
Yevgeny Filippovich Alonov
These words of professor E. F. Alonov on the death of prof. Sadovsky are quite applicable to him. An amaizing personality, a man of a rare kindness and crystal honesty, a comrade in work, an indefatigable, dedicated to the deal of the proletarian revolution, an advanced worker who devoted his entire life to cultural work — Eugene Filippovich Alonov is a major figure in the history of veterinary medicine, especially after the revolutionary period.
Eugene Alonov was born on July 27, 1875. His father was a serf peasant. Eugeny received a secondary education at the Vitebsk Seminary and higher education at the Warsaw Veterinary Indtitute. He graduated from the Institute in 1903; for 6 years he worked in a district of the Vitebsk province, In 1911 he is elected by the Vitebsk regional Council as a district Veterinarian.
Since then he started his creative work begins, that he literally did not leave until the day of his death. In 1913, he organized a veterinary ambulatory, which later grew into the Belarusian Veterinary Bacteriological Institute. He also publishes the journal “Veterinary chronicle”in Belarus. In 1914, on his initiative, under the guidance of Prof. Liskun, the first survey of animal husbandry in Belarus was conducted. In 1916, he organized a mobile veterinary exhibition and in the same year opened a barn for calves diseased with cowpox. In 1918 at the Veteterinary Bacteriological Institute the Pasteur’s Department was opened. In 1918 in Vitebsk, due to the labor of E. F. Alonov, a Veterinary Museum was established, which at the all-Union Agricultural Exhibition in 1923 received a diploma of the II Degree. In 1921 Alonov is appointed as a special representative of the NPC for the fight against rinderpest. In 1924, after the entry of Vitebsk gubernia into the BSSR, E. F. Alonov was appointed the head of the Vet. Department of the NKZ of the USSR. A year later, on the initiative of E. F. Alonov the Veterinary Institute was established in Vitebsk, and he became the first Rector of the institution. In 1926 E.F. Alonov was elected a member of the CEC of the BSSR and a member of the Incult of the BSSR. The Varnita office, the Worker’s University, the Worker’s Faculty, Pharmaceutical courses were opened at the Veterinary Institute.
Within the size of a magazine article it is difficult to cover the entire remarkable life path of E. F. Alonov because this is truly a whole epoch in the history of veterinary medicine of the BSSR and its cultural construction. Before the revolution, E. F. almost have always been under the supervision of the police. His old comrades well remember an episode in 1913, when E. F. Alonov cruised in a carrriage between Nevel and Vitebsk hiding from the pursuit of gendarmes. Not a single meeting of the veterinary district employees took place without his friendly influence oriented to the everlasting struggle and dedication to work at the heavy positions of rural veterinarians — in the bear corners of Belarus.
E. F. Alonov with his great erudition, his amazing gentleness of character, his extraordinary sense of comradeship always helped overcome all the difficulties of work; he was truly a teacher and leader of the veterinary organization of the Vitebsk province. Professor Alonov was ill for a long time. The agonizing disease, the chest toad, had more than once alarmed his friends and workmates. However, every time after the attack, he returned and drowned himself in his work again.
The fear for E. F. Alonov was not in vain: in his bent figure, heavy breathing, in the cyanosis of his face, in his agonizing cough, there were signs of a fatal outcome. However, it is very difficult to come to terms with this loss. Inexorable death took away this major public figure.
Having worked hard E.F. Alonov deserves that one of the institutions created due to his labour should bear his name.
M. Khotin.