Boris Balinsky

Borys Balinsky Борис Балінський
Born	(1905-09-23)23 September 1905 Kyiv, Russian Empire
Died	1 September 1997(1997-09-01) (aged 91) Johannesburg, South Africa
Nationality	Russian Empire (1905–1917) Ukrainian People's Republic (1917–1921) USSR (1922–1941) Germany (1941–1949) South Africa (1950–1983)
Alma mater	Kyiv University
Spouses	Catherine Singaiivska Elizabeth Stengel
Children	John Balinsky, Helen David
Scientific career
Fields	Embryology, entomology
Institutions	Kyiv University I. I. Schmalhausen Institute of Zoology, NAS of Ukraine University of the Witwatersrand
Doctoral advisor	Ivan Schmalhausen

Borys Ivanovych Balinsky (23 September 1905 – 1 September 1997) was a Ukrainian-South African biologist, embryologist, entomologist.

A professor at Kyiv University and later the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg,^[1] Balinsky was a pioneer researcher in the field of experimental embryology, electron microscopy and developmental biology and the author of a popular textbook in embryology An Introduction to Embryology.^[2][3]

Balinsky was born 23 September 1905, in Kyiv,^[3] then part of the Russian Empire (now the capital of present day, Ukraine). His father, Ivan Balinsky, was a historian, lawyer and teacher at Galen College. His mother, Elizaveta Radzymovska was a biology teacher. Her aunt, Valentyna Radzymovska, was a biologist who was involved in Ukrainian independence movements. His parents loved English literature and spoke Ukrainian, Russian and English at home.^[4] His love of etymology began with a book he received in 1916 on collecting butterflies, as well as with the summers he spent in the village of Severinovka, where his grandfather kept bees.^[5]

He was a student of the Soviet zoologist and evolutionary biologist, Ivan Schmalhausen,^[1] and one of the first people to conduct experiments inducing organogenesis in amphibian embryos. His distinguished himself by having his first scientific paper published while he was only 20 and still an undergraduate.^[5]

Balinsky became a full university professor at Kiev University in 1933 at age 28 and the deputy director of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences two years later in 1935.^[5] He became a recognised expert in fish and amphibian development.

His wife was arrested October 7, 1937 for engaging in counter-revolutionary propaganda and was sentenced to ten years in a gulag.^[5] Therefore Balinsky lost his post as professor and as deputy director of the Institute

A victim of Soviet repressions, Balinsky remained in Kiev under German occupation during World War II while others evacuated. He and his family fled to Poznań, Poland after the German evacuation and later Munich, Germany.^[1][3] Balinsky also briefly worked in Scotland in Conrad Hal Waddington's laboratory on mice embryology.^[3] Later, in 1949, he migrated to South Africa where he become one of the founders of South African experimental bioscience.^[1]

Balinsky also worked in entomology and described new species of Plecoptera, Odonata and moths from the family Pyralidae, mainly from Caucasus and South Africa.

He died at home in Johannesburg on 1 September 1997, aged 91.^[1] His son John Balinsky was also a scientist.

• Balinsky, Borys (1988). Digital Surrogate of Boris Balinsky Memoir. University of Illinois Archives.
• Korzh, Volodymyr (2005). "Borys Balinsky: transition from embryology to developmental biology" (PDF). BioEssays. 27 (9): 970–977. doi:10.1002/bies.20253. PMID 16108077. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 September 2015.
• Willis, C.K.; Samways, M.J. (2011). Waterdancers of South Africa's National Botanical Gardens (PDF). SANBI Biodiversity Series. Vol. 21. Pretoria, South Africa: South African National Biodiversity Institute. p. 108. ISBN 978-1-919976-68-6.
• Fabian, B. (December 2009). "Balinsky's Darwinian roots". South African Journal of Science. 105 (11–12): 410–414. doi:10.4102/sajs.v105i11/12.149.
• E.S. Grossman (2005). "Borys Balinsky 10 September 1905 — 1 September 1997". South African Journal of Science. 101 (May/June): 309–312. hdl:10520/EJC96417.
• Desnitskiy, A. G. (2014). "On a contribution of Borys Balinsky to the comparative and ecological embryology of amphibians". Russian Journal of Developmental Biology. 45 (2): 101–104. doi:10.1134/S1062360414010032. ISSN 1062-3604. S2CID 5635200.