Science in the New Russia

Abstract

The 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union precipitated one of the greatest crises in the history of science. The Soviet Union had heavily supported science, but the new Russian state had few funds to do so. Graham (MIT and Harvard), the leading historian of modern Russian science outside Russia, and Dezhina (Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Moscow), a leading research scholar, collaborate to tell how Russian scientists, the Russian state, Russian institutions, and foreign funding agencies interacted to help Russian science recover from virtual bankruptcy. The story is more complex than merely finding new funds, difficult though that was. Science in the Soviet Union had been very authoritarian, but not especially productive. Science in the US, Germany, and France was more democratic and more productive, and those three models provided guidance for restructuring Russian science to provide scientists with more freedom so they could become more productive. The social structure of science underwent a revolution, with a few powerful scientists becoming losers and many formerly restricted scientists becoming winners of better working conditions, if not better pay. This remarkable story is told concisely and clearly with ample documentation. A valuable resource for historians of modern science and post-Soviet Russia. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduate through professional collections.

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