Vartan Ter-Oganezov

Vartan Ter-Oganezov (10 October 1890-1963) was a Soviet pseudoscientist. He is best known for his ideologically motivated pseudoastronomy and denial of the theory of general relativity and the Big Bang theory on the grounds that they contradicted the Soviet state ideology of dialectical materialism, and for his involvement in the persecution of Soviet astrophysicists and cosmologists during the Great Purge. Ter-Oganezov's ideological fringe theories and leading role in the arrest and execution of Soviet astrophysicists have led him to be dubbed "the Lysenko of Soviet astronomy". He began teaching at the Moscow Geological-Prospecting Institute in 1918 and helped organise the reform of Kazan University in 1919.

Pseudoscientific views Throughout his career, Ter-Oganezov was involved in politically motivated advocacy of alternate theories to the theory that the universe was expanding, on the grounds that this theory contradicted the official Soviet ideology of Marxist-Leninist dialectical materialism. He is known to have opposed Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity since at least 1922. In 1930 occurred the arrest and exile of D. O. Sviatskii, the editor of the astronomy journal Mirovedenie, by Soviet authorities for his ideological unreliability; Ter-Oganezov took over as the editor, turning Mirovedenie into an ideological pseudojournal and a vehicle for spreading dialectical materialist pseudoscience throughout the field of astronomy. In 1934, he helped to found the All-Union Astronomical-Geodesical Society (VAGO). His death went unremarked by the astronomical community, which likely found him extremely odious and unpleasant, and he did not receive an obituary in any astronomical journal, amateur or professional.