Siberia's Academic Complex: the History of an Experiment by Evgenii Vodichev
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#258 Siberia's Academic Complex: The History of an Experiment by Evgenii Vodichev Evgenii Vodichev is Senior Researcher at the Institute of History of the Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Novosibirsk and a former Short-term Scholar (March-April1993) at the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies. This work is part of a larger research project conducted by the author concerning the regionalization of science in Russia and the former USSR, in particular, the expansion of science in the eastern regions of Russia. The author is grateful to the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies for its assistance and support, which greatly contributed to the publication of the present work. The Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars The Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies is a division of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Through its programs of fellowships, meetings, and publications, the Institute encourages scholarship on Russia and the former Soviet Union, embracing a broad range of fields in the social sciences and humanities. The Kennan Institute is supported by contributions from foundations, corporations, individuals, and the United States Government. Kennan Institute Occasional Papers The Kennan Institute makes Occasional Papers available to all those interested in Russian studies. Occasional Papers are submitted by Kennan Institute scholars and visiting speakers, particularly those who wish to receive timely feedback on their work. Copies of Occasional Papers and a list of papers currently available can be obtained free of charge by contacting: Occasional Papers Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies 370 L'Enfant Promenade, SW, Suite 704 Washington, D.C. 20024-2518 (202) 287-3400 This Occasional Paper has been produced with support provided by the Russian, Eurasian, and East European Research and Training Program of the U.S. Department of State (funded by the Soviet and East European Research and Training Act of 1983, or Title VIII). We are most grateful to this sponsor. The views expressed in Kennan Institute Occasional Papers are those of the authors. ©March 1995 Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Translated by Kathryn Moore and Peggy Mcinerny, edited by Peggy Mcinerny TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Introduction 1 II. Background: Branches of the USSR Academy of Sciences 2 ill. Choosing a Concept for the Regional Development of Science 7 rv. Realization of the Concept: Initial Results 11 v. Prospects for Developing the Scientific Complex: Changes in Long-Term Strategy 14 VI. General and Particular Factors of Crisis in the Siberian Scientific Process 27 VII. In Place of a Conclusion 30 SIBERIA'S ACADEMIC COMPLEX: THE HISTORY OF AN EXPERIMENT I. INTRODUCTION he development of employs half of all Siberian Division Tacademic science is a personnel. favorite theme among The creation of a comprehensive those who study the growing scientific center in Siberia was an scientific capacity of eastern Russia. innovation not only in Russian, but To specialists and laymen alike, the world scientific organization. To a phrase "Siberia and science" means, significant degree, the Siberian above all, progress in the field of Division of the USSR Academy of fundamental research- Sciences liberated Soviet science traditionally considered the from the dead end to which its prerogative of the Academy of highly centralized system had led it Sciences. Academy science in Siberia by the end of the 1950s. That is revered due to the numerous system-limited to a few, prominent Russian scholars who single-discipline fields and located have worked in the region and the in the center of the country-offered national and international renown little potential for new avenues of their work there has achieved. The scientific research. The creation of Siberian Division of the Russian the Siberian complex fundamentally Academy of Sciences is now the changed the nature of the region's scientific capacity through most promin;nt regional division of quantitative growth in new scientific the Academy. About 11,000 institutions (which strengthened the researchers, or approximately 20 Academy's presence in the east) and percent, of all scientific workers qualitative changes in staff (nauchnye rabotniki) employed by the qualification levels, the structure of Academy work there. The division the institutions themselves, and their includes nine scientific centers principally new orientation. From its located in different cities of Siberia, very beginnings, the Siberian the largest which is the Novosibirsk Division prompted foreign scientific center, more commonly commentators to predict that the known as Akademgorodok. Without development of Siberia would be a doubt, there are important based on cheap energy and science? historical foundations for the Until now, positive evaluations widespread fame of have exclusively dominated analysis Akademgorodok-its very name of the creation and development of often evokes more associations than the Academy's Siberian Division. In that of Novosibirsk, the city to reality, despite numerous which it is adjacent. achievements, the situation was Akademgorodok consists of 33 more complicated. First, as one can scientific research organizations and imagine, far from all proposed plans 1. After the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991, the Russian state assumed responsibility for the administration of those institutions of the USSR Academy of Sciences located within the Russian Federation. The Russian acronym for the Siberian Division was accordingly changed from SO AN SSSR (Sibirskoe otdelenie Akademii nauk Soiuza Sovetskikh Sotsialistzcheskikh Respublik) to SO RAN (Sibirskoe otdelenia Rossiiskoi Akademii nauk). 2. Harrison Evans Salisbury, To Moscow and Beyond: A Reporter's Narrative (New York: 1960), 187. 1 for the Division were successfully as the basic parameters for realized in practice. Real life and evaluating the state of science in the concrete social, economic, and region. political processes led to a series of modifications that fundamentally II. BACKGROUND: BRANCHES changed the original conception for OF THE USSR ACADEMY OF expanding science in the east of the SCIENCES IN SIBERIA country. Second, one cannot from In order to evaluate the scale of today' s perspective view the changes that occurred in the experiment of the Siberian Division Academy of Sciences in connection as unconditionally successful-had with the establishment of the it been so, the Division would not be Siberian complex, it is necessary to facing the multitude of serious examine the state of Academy problems that have, since the institutions in the region before and beginning of the 1990s, cast doubt after its creation. Even before the on its future existence. In fact, second half of the 1950s, when the Akademgorodok veterans recall that Division was created, Siberia was far several of these problems were from a scientific "virgin soil," as is predicted by foreign scholars who sometimes claimed. The idea of visited the Novosibirsk center three enhancing the potential of the decades ago. Finally, the Academy of Sciences in the eastern opportunities the center provided territories of Russia had arisen in the for increasing the efficiency of the pre-war period, but its fulfillment scientific complex in the region as a was fraught with economic, h 1 d ff 1 financial, organizational, and even w 0 e were not use e ective Y. political difficulties} Nevertheless, This paper will analyze the fomlation and subsequent by the mid-1950s academic scientific development of the Academy's institutions were held together by a stable structure that united three Siberian complex, with a principal separate branches (jilialy) of the focus on Akademgorodok. The core SSR A d f Sc of the Siberian Division and at one U ca emy 0 iences. The western Siberian branch time the object of special pride in the was the largest of the three branches. Soviet Union, Akademgorodok now Created in 1944, it consisted of four presents the Russian government scientific research institutes by the with a major headache. This study mid-fifties (the Mineral-Geological, has three aims: to explain the Transport and Energy, imperatives of building a scientific Chemical-Metallurgical, and complex in Siberia that led to its Medical-Biological institutes) and rapid success in the late 1950s and employed over 220 researchers, 1960s; to show how and why the including more than 100 doctors and complex deviated from its initial candidates of the sciences.4 A strategy of development; and to scientific research base of the reveal the historical roots of its Academy that began operating in contemporary crisis. The study will Iakutia in 1947 was two years later use the structural development of reorganized into the Iakutsk Branch. Academy institutions of the By the mid-1950s, this branch Division and the dynamics of included two institutes (the Institute personnel policy in these institutions of Biology and Language and the 3. See E.T. Artemov and E.G. Vodichev, "The Expansion of Science in Siberia: The Political Aspect," in Actual Problems of the History of Soviet Siberia, 202-20. 4. Scientific Archives of the Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Russian acronym, NASO), fund 1, inventory 1, file 1, file 905, 9. 2 Institute of literature and History), establishments. Even in two departments, and three Novosibirsk, where many more laboratories, and employed opportunities