ABSTRACT
The history of Russian science in the twentieth century is full of striking, contradictory, and enigmatic events. Russian science quickly evolved from a scattered network of small laboratories into a gigantic centralized system with thousands of institutions and hundreds of thousands of scientists. Yet, its explosive institutional growth was accompanied by the abolition of entire disciplines, and outstanding achievements routinely co-existed with backward doctrines. The greatest honor Russian science could bestow — membership in an academy — was shared by brilliant scientists and ignorant political functionaries. A scientist could be an adviser to the highest state bodies one day, an ‘enemy of the people’ the next, and vice versa. Scientists conducted research in the well-equipped institutes of ‘Science Cities’ and in prison camps. They made impressive showings on the international scene and then vanished behind the Iron Curtain. Furthermore, many of the greatest triumphs of Russian science occurred exactly at the time of the greatest repression: practically all Soviet Nobelists received this highest scientific award for research done when arrests were common and the Gulag camps overflowing.
