Download Stalin and the Scientists: A History of Triumph and Tragedy by Simon Ings PDF

By Simon Ings

ISBN-10: 0571290078

ISBN-13: 9780571290079

An epic tale of braveness, genius and negative folly, this can be the 1st background of the way the Soviet Union's scientists turned either the dignity and the guffawing inventory of the highbrow world.

Simon Ings weaves jointly what occurred whilst a handful of impoverished and underemployed graduates, professors and marketers, creditors and charlatans, sure themselves to a failing govt to create an international superpower. And he exhibits how Stalin's obsessions derailed a very good test in 'rational government'.

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Stalin and the Scientists: A History of Triumph and Tragedy 1905-1953

An epic tale of braveness, genius and negative folly, this is often the 1st historical past of the way the Soviet Union's scientists turned either the dignity and the guffawing inventory of the highbrow world.

Simon Ings weaves jointly what occurred whilst a handful of impoverished and underemployed graduates, professors and marketers, creditors and charlatans, certain themselves to a failing executive to create an international superpower. And he indicates how Stalin's obsessions derailed an exceptional test in 'rational government'.

Extra resources for Stalin and the Scientists: A History of Triumph and Tragedy 1905-1953

Example text

In 1868, during a heated debate at the Free Economic Society, Ivan suffered a stroke. He resigned his post at the Lycée, and the family relocated from St Petersburg to Kharkov, where he ran the Kharkov branch of the State Bank. Vladimir’s childhood here was a happy one, his memories beginning not with St Petersburg, but in the capital of the Ukraine, listening for hours to his opinionated, white-bearded uncle Evgraf Korolenko, who lived with the family. In 1886, Vernadsky wrote to his future wife: I recall dark, starlit winter nights.

When Nicholas I died in 1855, the government had tried undoing the harsh regime he had imposed. In Kiev, delighted Polish students marched through the streets in national dress. In Kazan, they wore animal skins. In Moscow and St Petersburg, students took to wearing peasant costumes, showing solidarity with the soon-to-be-liberated serfs. Appalled at what it had unleashed, the government promptly raised tuition fees, banned student assemblies, and reintroduced all the old rules on behaviour and uniform.

The city was decorated with flags and so on. God, what a sea of unrestrained lies in all this … Many people I know were waiting for a manifesto and equal rights for nationalities. Jews were walking with the torah singing God, Save the Tsar. Some intellectuals shouted hurray when the tsar passed by. All these expectations turned out to be crap. The tsar didn’t have enough state wisdom. He could with one scratch of his pen affirm his throne for many years to come, create a faithful Russia for himself, and win the sympathy of the people, including the intelligentsia.

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Stalin and the Scientists: A History of Triumph and Tragedy 1905-1953 by Simon Ings


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