Alexander Chizhevsky (1897–1964) was an outstanding Russian thinker, a giant of his country’s science, and a Soviet gulag prisoner. He was the founder of heliobiology, studying the influence of solar activity on biological and social processes and psychic powers, and worked in the areas of experimental biophysics and hematology. He also wrote poetry and literary criticism and taught history and archeology. His unpublished manuscripts are kept in the Archives of the Russian Academy.

Chizhevsky described life on Earth as “an echo of the Sun.” The Sun, our nearest star, contains approximately 99.8 percent of the mass in the solar system, and has the strongest thermal, electromagnetic, and gravitational influence on our planet. Chizhevsky found many links between sunspot activity and general health issues. He made intensive studies of the correlation between solar-induced changes in the Earth’s magnetic field and the occurrence of physical events, such as epidemics of cholera, diphtheria, typhus, and smallpox. He also firmly believed that signs of human unrest or “mass excitement,” such as revolutions and mass migrations, followed the sunspot cycle.

Using immense historical and statistical material, Chizhevsky showed that solar activity acts as an accelerator and moderator upon the whole biosphere, which manifests in the frequency and magnitude of events of population growth and decline: births, deaths, harvests, heart attacks, emergencies, bank crashes, catastrophes, suicides, and more ...