Science in Russia and the Soviet Union
Science in Russia and the Soviet Union

Author: Loren R. Graham

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 9780521287890

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By the 1980s the Soviet scientific establishment had become the largest in the world, but very little of its history was known in the West. What has been needed for many years in order to fill that gap in our knowledge is a history of Russian and Soviet science written for the educated person who would like to read one book on the subject. This book has been written for that reader. The history of Russian and Soviet science is a story of remarkable achievements and frustrating failures. That history is presented here in a comprehensive form, and explained in terms of its social and political context. Major sections include the tsarist period, the impact of the Russian Revolution, the relationship between science and Soviet society, and the strengths and weaknesses of individual scientific disciplines. The book also discusses the changes brought to science in Russia and other republics by the collapse of communism in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Science and Russian Culture in an Age of Revolutions
Science and Russian Culture in an Age of Revolutions

Author: Kendall E. Bailes

Publisher:

Published: 1990

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13:

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" . . . scholarship of the highest order. . . . Kendall Bailes's book is destined to become a most valuable contribution to our knowledge of Russian and Soviet culture. It is insightful and eloquent." —Douglas R. Weiner " . . . an insightful, richly researched portrait of Vernadsky's life and times . . . " —American Scientist "This biography . . . not only tells a story full of human drama but also one rich with insights into Russia's higher-education and scientific-research establishments." —Washington Post Book World "[This] concise book, with references that stop short of the Gorbachev era, will be the foundation for all future scholarship in English on Vernadsky." —Nature "In this insightful exploration of Vernadsky's legacy, Kendall Bailes unveils a creative scholar-activist whose life and work speak more clearly about his time than our own." —Science "The Bailes book . . . is fascinating . . . Read it!" —World Affairs Report "Kendall Bailes has left us with a vivid portrayal of the life and times of Vladimir Vernadsky." —The Russian Review "It offers a penetrating analysis of social realities in twentieth-century Russia, which helped create an intellectual culture dominated by ideological extremes." —American Historical Review This first full-length English-language biography of Vladimir Vernadsky (1863–1945), one of the leading Russian intellectual figures of the twentieth century, focuses on the interaction between science and politics during Russia's revolutionary age.

Biological Science and Biotechnology in Russia
Biological Science and Biotechnology in Russia

Author: Russian Academy of Sciences

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2006-02-27

Total Pages: 156

ISBN-13: 0309181348

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In July 2005, the National Academies released the report Biological Science and Biotechnology in Russia: Controlling Diseases and Enhancing Security. The report offered a number of recommendations that could help restore Russia's ability to join with the United States and the broader international community in leading an expanded global effort to control infectious diseases. A proposed bilateral intergovernmental commission could play a pivotal role toward that end as cooperation moves from assistance to partnership. The report proposed the establishment of two model State Sanitary Epidemiological Surveillance Centers in Russia, more focused support of competitively selected Russian research groups as centers of excellence, the promotion of investments in biotechnology niches that are well suited for Russian companies, and expanded opportunities for young scientists to achieve scientific leadership positions in Russia. Also, the report highlighted the importance of U.S. programs that support the integration of former Soviet defense scientists with civilian researchers who had not been involved in military-related activities.

Ivan Pavlov
Ivan Pavlov

Author: Daniel Philip Todes

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 897

ISBN-13: 0199925194

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This is a definitive, deeply researched biography of Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) and is the first scholarly biography to be published in any language. The book is Todes's magnum opus, which he has been working on for some twenty years. Todes makes use of a wealth of archival material to portray Pavlov's personality, life, times, and scientific work. Combining personal documents with a close reading of scientific texts, Todes fundamentally reinterprets Pavlov's famous research on conditional reflexes. Contrary to legend, Pavlov was not a behaviorist (a misimpression captured in the false iconic image of his "training a dog to salivate to the sound of a bell"); rather, he sought to explain not simply external behaviors, but the emotional and intellectual life of animals and humans. This iconic "objectivist" was actually a profoundly anthropomorphic thinker whose science was suffused with his own experiences, values, and subjective interpretations. This book is also a traditional "life and times" biography that weaves Pavlov into some 100 years of Russian history-particularly that of its intelligentsia--from the emancipation of the serfs to Stalin's time. Pavlov was born to a family of priests in provincial Ryazan before the serfs were emancipated, made his home and professional success in the glittering capital of St. Petersburg in late imperial Russia, suffered the cataclysmic destruction of his world during the Bolshevik seizure of power and civil war of 1917- 1921, rebuilt his life in his 70s as a "prosperous dissident" during the Leninist 1920s, and flourished professionally as never before in 1929-1936 during the industrialization, revolution, and terror of Stalin. Todes's story of this powerful personality and extraordinary man is based upon interviews with surviving coworkers and family members (along with never-before-analyzed taped interviews from the 1960s and 1970s), examination of hundreds of scientific works

Life of Permafrost
Life of Permafrost

Author: Pey-Yi Chu

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 1487501935

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By tracing the English word permafrost back to its Russian roots, this unique intellectual history uncovers the multiple, contested meanings of permafrost as a scientific idea and environmental phenomenon.

Moscow Stories
Moscow Stories

Author: Loren R. Graham

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2006-03-31

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0253000742

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"Graham has brilliantly encapsulated and interwoven the major features of Soviet and post-Soviet history in his riveting stories.... a splendid and extraordinary work." -- Edward Grant, author of God and Reason in the Middle Ages "A very lively read, indeed a real page turner... Graham's discussion of pressing ethical dilemmas displays a sureness of hand and a refreshing candor about his own struggles with the issues." -- Susan Solomon, University of Toronto The distinguished American historian of Russian and Soviet science Loren R. Graham recounts with warmth and wit his experiences during 45 years of traveling and researching in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia, from 1960 to 2005. Present for many historic events during this period, Graham writes not as a political correspondent or an analyst, but as an ordinary American living through these years alongside Russian friends and critics. Graham befriended some of the leading scientists and politicians in Russia, but his most touching stories concern average Russians with whom he lived, worked, suffered, and exchanged views. Graham also writes of the ethical questions he confronted, such as the tension between independence of thought and political loyalty. Finally, he depicts the ways in which Russia has changed -- visually, politically, and ideologically -- during the last 15 years. These gripping, sometimes humorous, always deeply personal stories will engage and inform all readers with an interest in Russia during this tumultuous period of history.

The Estate Origins of Democracy in Russia
The Estate Origins of Democracy in Russia

Author: Tomila V. Lankina

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-12-16

Total Pages: 497

ISBN-13: 1009080393

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A devastating challenge to the idea of communism as a 'great leveller', this extraordinarily original, rigorous, and ambitious book debunks Marxism-inspired accounts of its equalitarian consequences. It is the first study systematically to link the genesis of the 'bourgeoisie-cum-middle class' – Imperial, Soviet, and post-communist – to Tzarist estate institutions which distinguished between nobility, clergy, the urban merchants and meshchane, and peasants. It demonstrates how the pre-communist bourgeoisie, particularly the merchant and urban commercial strata but also the high human capital aristocracy and clergy, survived and adapted in Soviet Russia. Under both Tzarism and communism, the estate system engendered an educated, autonomous bourgeoisie and professional class, along with an oppositional public sphere, and persistent social cleavages that continue to plague democratic consensus. This book also shows how the middle class, conventionally bracketed under one generic umbrella, is often two-pronged in nature – one originating among the educated estates of feudal orders, and the other fabricated as part of state-induced modernization.

Russian Mathematicians in the 20th Century
Russian Mathematicians in the 20th Century

Author: Yakov Sinai

Publisher: World Scientific

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 716

ISBN-13: 9789812383853

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In the 20th century, many mathematicians in Russia made great contributions to the field of mathematics. This invaluable book, which presents the main achievements of Russian mathematicians in that century, is the first most comprehensive book on Russian mathematicians. It has been produced as a gesture of respect and appreciation for those mathematicians and it will serve as a good reference and an inspiration for future mathematicians. It presents differences in mathematical styles and focuses on Soviet mathematicians who often discussed “what to do” rather than “how to do it”. Thus, the book will be valued beyond historical documentation.The editor, Professor Yakov Sinai, a distinguished Russian mathematician, has taken pains to select leading Russian mathematicians — such as Lyapunov, Luzin, Egorov, Kolmogorov, Pontryagin, Vinogradov, Sobolev, Petrovski and Krein — and their most important works. One can, for example, find works of Lyapunov, which parallel those of Poincaré; and works of Luzin, whose analysis plays a very important role in the history of Russian mathematics; Kolmogorov has established the foundations of probability based on analysis. The editor has tried to provide some parity and, at the same time, included papers that are of interest even today.The original works of the great mathematicians will prove to be enjoyable to readers and useful to the many researchers who are preserving the interest in how mathematics was done in the former Soviet Union.

State Ideology, Science, and Pseudoscience in Russia
State Ideology, Science, and Pseudoscience in Russia

Author: Baasanjav Terbish

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2022-02-25

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 1666905690

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This book recounts the entangled stories of three distinctly Russian movements—state ideology, Russian cosmism, and Eurasianism—from their inception at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century until now. Despite harboring pseudoscientific and mystical ideas specific to Russia, all three movements were propagated by their followers as “universal sciences,” and all three vied for scientific supremacy and universal acceptance. Suppressed by the Bolsheviks and their state ideology as “unscientific” in the 1920s, Russian cosmism and Eurasianism led an esoteric underground existence during the Soviet period and re-emerged in the dying years of the Soviet Union, seeking not only to reclaim their “scientific” status but also to potentially fill the perplexing vacuum left by the ensuing demise of Soviet state ideology. This study relates the post-Soviet search for a new state ideology, or new National Idea, at the federal and regional levels, based on the Kremlin’s projects and the case of the ethnic Republic of Kalmykia in south-west Russia.