A Matter of Courtesy: The Role of Soviet Diplomacy and Soviet “System Safeguards” in Maintaining Soviet Influence on Czechoslovak Science before and after 1968 (original) (raw)

The development of relations between the Slovak and the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences until 1970

Práce z dějin Akademie věd 14(2):27-47, 2022

The study analyses the development of the mutual relationship between the Slovak and Czechoslovak academies of sciences from the early 1950s to the beginning of the normalisation regime. It focuses on three key periods: the founding period of both institutions, the centralising tendencies of the early 1960s and the attempt at fundamental reform during the liberalising period of the Prague Spring. These processes are examined from the perspective of the Slovak Academy, as it was this institution that was influenced by the changes described here, and its representatives provided the impulses to redefine the existing situation.

The Phenomenon of Soviet Science

Osiris, 2008

The grand "Soviet experiment" constituted an attempt to greatly accelerate and even shortcut the gradual course of historical development on the assumption of presumed knowledge of the general laws of history. This paper discusses the parts of that experiment that directly concerned scientifi c research and, in fact, anticipated or helped defi ne important global changes in the functioning of science as a profession and an institution during the twentieth century. The phenomenon of Soviet, or socialist, science is analyzed here from the comparative international perspective, with attention to similarities and reciprocal infl uences, rather than to the contrasts and dichotomies that have traditionally interested cold war-type historiography. The problem is considered at several levels: philosophical (Soviet thought on the relationship between science and society and the social construction of scientifi c knowledge); institutional (the state recognition of research as a separate profession, the rise of big science and scientifi c research institutes); demographic (science becoming a mass profession, with ethnic and gender diversity among scientists); and political (Soviet-inspired infl uences on the practice of science in Europe and the United States through the social relations of science movement of the 1930s and the Sputnik shock of the 1950s).

In the shadow of technology: The anatomy of East–West scholarly exchanges in the late Soviet period

The study of the cultural Cold War and East–West interaction outside diplomacy and high politics has emerged as an important research field during the last two decades. With a few exceptions, however, scholarly interaction has been overshadowed by other forms of interaction. Existing research has mostly paid attention to technological exchange and to espionage, which was at times connected with scientific exchanges across the Iron Curtain. This article discusses scholarly exchanges in the human sciences between Finland and the Soviet Union. Even though Finland was a western-style democracy with a market economy, it had close political ties with the Soviet Union, which allowed for the development of active scholarly connections between the countries. This article discusses the emergence of such connections in the human sciences and the reasons for their rapid expansion in the 1970s.

The International Biological Program in Eastern Europe: Science Diplomacy, Comecon and the Beginnings of Ecology in Czechoslovakia

Environment and History, 2018

The aim of this study is to analyse the international scientific policy of the countries of the Socialist Bloc in relation to the establishment of the International Biological Program. It focuses mainly on Czechoslovakia as one of the main active members of the IBP and as a close ally of the USSR when it entered the realm of international science policy after years of targeted isolation forced upon it during Stalinism. The study examines Soviet international science policy strategy and coordination from the reinstatement of Central and Eastern European countries as members of UNESCO and the ICSU to the occupation of the highest positions within IUBS and the contribution to establishing the definitive shape of the International Biological Program. The influence that socialist countries gained thanks to their international coordination efforts allowed them to modify the focus of the IBP to best meet their interests. As a result, they also ended up influencing the development and direc...

Yugoslav science during the Cold War (1945-1960): socio-economic and ideological impacts of a geopolitical shift

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications , 2023

Two ideological views on science dominated the Cold War era: one of a free and apolitical science, and the other emphasizing partisanship in science, associated with the Western and Eastern Blocs, respectively. This study offers a specific perspective of important elements belonging to these scientific positions, as it reveals their entanglement with geopolitical and socioeconomic processes of the (semi)peripheral Yugoslav socialist system during the Cold War period. After the Second World War, and before its break with the USSR in 1948, Yugoslavia tended to emulate Soviet ideology in all aspects of society, including science. In the period following this break, the Yugoslav socialist regime, at least initially, leaned heavily toward the Western Bloc. By comparing Yugoslav science before and after the break with the USSR, this study provides insight into the consequences of the geopolitical shift and socioeconomic transition of the Yugoslav socialist system, primarily in terms of the model of scientific organization, financing, and scientific discourse. Exposed to the dynamics of decentralization and, to a larger extent than before, market forces, Yugoslav socialism after the break with the USSR adopted a specific form, namely Socialist Self-Management. Herein, I show that this led to the emergence of novel organizational and discursive tendencies in Yugoslav science, which were compatible with certain aspects of the perspective of science as 'pure', autonomous, and apolitical.