The Great War as a Crucial Point in the History of Russian Science and Technology

1. Entity type Lemma
2. Original titleThe Great War as a Crucial Point in the History of Russian Science and Technology
3. Language term English
4. lemma author Saprykin, Dmitry
5. lemma category Orthodox view on technology and engineering
6. Publication date 2016
7. lemma work Saprykin, Dmitry [Author]. The Great War as a Crucial Point in the History of Russian Science and Technology
8. lemma manifestations Acta Historica Leopoldina Bd. 68 : “Krieg der Gelehrten“ und die Welt der Akademien 1914–1924 Herausgegeben von Wolfgang U. Eckart und Rainer Godel
9. Keywords science - The Great Patriotic War
10. Citations
    1. http://www.ihst.ru/files/saprykin/AHL_Nr68_133-145_11_Saprykin.pdf
11. Lemma body

    1. The paper is devoted to one of the most important and, at the same time, relatively unexplored phase in the history of Russian science and technology. The Great War coincided with the beginning of a heyday in science, engineering education, and technology in Russia. It was precisely the time in which Russia’s era of “Big Science” was emerging. Many Russian and Soviet technical projects and scientific schools were rooted in the time of the Great War. The “engineerization” of science and a “physical-technical” way of thinking had already begun before the war. But it was precisely the war which encouraged a large proportion of the Russian academic community to take part in industrial projects. Academics also played a significant role in developing concepts and implementing strategic plans during the Great War. This article also discusses how the organization of science and the academic community was transformed during, and after, the Great War. And it looks at the impact that war had on Russia’s participation in the international scientific community.

       In contrast to the Soviet and “Sovietologist” view of pre-revolutionary history, traditional cultural forces in Russia – the Empire, the Church and the aristocracy – favored science.

       Like his “old friend” and cousin Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859 –1941) in Germany, Emperor Nicholas II, was a personal supporter of a scientific and technological education. So, too, were other members of the Royal Family, such as the president of the Imperial Academy, Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, the president of the Imperial Russian Technical Society, Grand Duke Alexandr Michailovich (1866–1933), and his brother, the General Inspector of Artillery, Grand Duke Sergei Michailovich (1869 –1918), all of whom were devoted to the development of Russian science and technology and personally did a great deal for it. The same is true for the members of other aristocratic and clerical families.

       It is no coincidence that many Soviet academicians were the sons of aristocrats, priests and top czarist officials and officers. For example, the most prominent Soviet mathematician and nuclear physicist Nikolay Nikolayevich Bogolubov was the son of the famous priest and professor of theology of Kiev University, Father Nikolay Mihailovich Bogolubov (1872–1934). The leader of Soviet mechanics Ivan Ivanovich Artobolevskii (1905 –1977) was the son of the priest and professor of theology of Petrovskaya Agrocultural Academy, Ioann Artobolevskii. The leader of the Leningrad (St. Petersburg) Mathematics School, Vladimir Ivanovich Smirnov (1887–1974) was the son of a priest and professor at the Lyceum of Emperor Alexandr I, Father Ioann Smirnov. It should also be noted that “the conflict of two cultures”, so well described by Charles Percy Snow (1905 –1980) in the case of England (Snow 1963), does not appear to have existed in pre-revolutionary Russia. “Engineerization” did not mean “dehumanization” in pre-revolutionary Russia. Poets, engineers, theologians, scientists, and mathematicians were close relatives, in a sense.