E. V. SOBOLEVA, ORGANIZATION OF SCIENCE IN POST-REFORM RUSSIA, NAUKA PUBL., 1983, 262 P.
The post-reform era is characterized by a great scientific upsurge, activation of the creative thought of Russian scientists, and discoveries of world significance. The international prestige of Russian science has grown. But did these great successes indicate that Russia had favorable conditions for the development of scientific life, that Russian scientists received significant support from the state in their creative activities, and that, finally, the scientific discoveries made were widely used in Russia and contributed to the development of its productive forces, economy, and culture?
These questions can be answered only by understanding what policy the autocracy pursued in relation to science, and to what extent scientific achievements were conditioned by the existing organizational system of scientific life. In the literature, the question of the organization of science in Russia in the second half of the XIX century was not raised as a special problem, only certain aspects of the topic attracted the attention of researchers .1 The work of E. V. Soboleva, Candidate of Historical Sciences, senior researcher of the Leningrad Branch of the Institute of History of Natural Science and Technology of the USSR Academy of Sciences, can be considered as the first experience of a comprehensive study of the problem.
The author was faced with several tasks: to consider the changes that took place in the organization of scientific life in Russia under capitalism, to find out what determined the development of science, to understand whether the existing system of its organization corresponded to the needs of the state that entered the capitalist path of development. The author explores these issues using a variety of documentary materials, including archival ones (from the collections of the Academy of Sciences, ministries, the State Council, the Committee and the Council of Ministers), ...
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