Remembering Roy Clark, Zhores Medvedev and the Lysenko Affair

Roy Clark is best known for being one of the hosts of Hee Haw, the countrified television variety show (1968-1997). This overshadowed his genius as a guitar player, banjo player and violinist (although in his case it is more accurately called a fiddle). He was among the world’s top guitar players and banjo players, and he was good enough to play violin at Carnegie Hall. Considering all the instruments he could play at a virtuoso level he was probably the world’s greatest string musician. Zhores Medvedev was the Soviet biologist and historian who documented some of the Soviet regime’s most closely held secrets. He was branded a dissident, imprisoned, and declared insane before having his reputation partially restored. His most notable revelations were about Trofim Lysenko, the Soviet biologist whose unscientific theories were championed by the Stalin regime but caused millions to die of starvation and set back Soviet biology for decades.