Učënye Zapiski Kazanskogo Universiteta: Seriâ Gumanitarnye Nauki (Jun 2022)
History of science in a harmonic style [Review: Smagina G.I. 'Learning Science Historically…': Russian History of Science in the Early Decades of the 20th Century. St. Petersburg, Rostok, 2020. (In Russian)]
Abstract
This review discusses the structure and key points of G.I. Smagina’s book devoted to the institutional and content development of the Russian history of science as a discipline during the early decades of the 20th century. The major focus falls on the process of institutionalization of the history of science in Russia that took more than 15 years – starting from the establishment of the Commission for the Publication of the Collection of Articles “Russian Science” in December 1916 until the foundation of the Institute of Science and Technology of the USSR Academy of Sciences in February 1932. The monograph consists of five chapters and appendices, which make up almost a third of the entire work. The genre of the reviewed book is defined as a documentary monograph. The institutional and anthropological aspects of the study are emphasized. The researchers who were involved in the shaping of a new discipline are identified. The author believes that over 400 people participated, in one way or another, in the studies within the scope of the history of science. Brief intellectual biographies of both the leaders of the two commissions (A.S. Lappo-Danilevsky, V.I. Vernadsky, N.I. Bukharin) and ordinary participants/creators of the historical and scientific process are presented. Plots related to the practices of popularization of science within the framework of academic structures are distinguished as innovative issues. Based on G.I. Smagina’s reasoning, two levels of popularization are singled out: within the corporation and outside it (in the space of mass culture). A hypothesis about the change in the conceptual settings during the development of the history of science as a discipline in the first third of the 20th century – from a humanitarian interpretation of the history of science to a socially oriented concept – with the subsequent institutionalization of the process is introduced.
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