Modest Mikhailovich Ilyin or Iljin (Модест Михайлович Ильин; 17 October 1889,

Góra Kalwaria Góra Kalwaria (; "Calvary Mountain", , ''Ger'') is a town on the Vistula River in the Masovian Voivodeship, in east-central Poland. It is situated approximately southeast of Warsaw and has a population of around 12,109 (as of 2019). The town has ...

- 9 May 1967,

Leningrad Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

) was a Russian botanist. He was keeper of the

Herbarium A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant biological specimen, specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sh ...

of the

Leningrad State University Saint Petersburg State University (SPBGU; ) is a public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter the Great, the university from the be ...

(now the Herbarium of the

Komarov Botanical Institute The Komarov Botanical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences () is a leading botanical institution in Russia, It is located on Aptekarsky Island in St. Petersburg, and is named after the Russian botanist Vladimir Leontyevich Komarov (1869– ...

) for many decades. Ilyin was raised in

Krasnoyarsk Krasnoyarsk is the largest types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and administrative center of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. It is situated along the Yenisey, Yenisey River, and is the second-largest city in Siberia after Novosibirsk, with a p ...

. Influenced by

Arkady Tugarinov Arkady Yakovlevich Tugarinov (; 9 November 1880 – 8 July 1948) was a Russian and Soviet ornithologist who studied the birds of Siberia. He examined bird distributions in the light of climatic history and is considered a pioneer of paleornithology ...

(the director of the Krasnoyarsk Museum) he developed an interest in natural sciences, particularly botany. In 1909, he enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine at

Tomsk University The National Research Tomsk State University, TSU () is a public research university located in Tomsk, Russia. The university, which opened in 1888, was the first university in the Asian part of Russia and, in practice, the first Russian unive ...

. There, he attended botanical lectures by Vasily Sapozhnikov (the university's dean). In 1912, Ilyin moved to

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

, deciding to continue his studies at Saint Petersburg University. He also worked as an assistant to Boris Fedtchenko and Vladimir L. Komarov at the university herbarium. In 1916, he graduated from Saint Petersburg University and became a curator at the herbarium. Ilyin taught botany at Leningrad University for decades and described a large number of new species from a wide variety of plant families, especially from

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

.A full list of species
described by Iljin In 1935, Ilyin was awarded the degree of Doctor of Biological Sciences without defending a dissertation. He was named an Honored Scientist of the RSFSR in 1960. He was buried at the Northern Cemetery in Saint Petersburg. The genus Iljinia and many species of plants were named after him.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ilyin 20th-century Russian botanists Soviet botanists Saint Petersburg State University alumni Academic staff of Saint Petersburg State University