Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 Reading Russia and the Soviet Union in the twentieth century: how the ‘West’ wrote its history of the USSR
- Part I Russia and the Soviet Union: The Story through Time
- Part II Russia and the Soviet Union: Themes and Trends
- 14 Economic and demographic change: Russia’s age of economic extremes
- 15 Transforming peasants in the twentieth century: dilemmas of Russian, Soviet and post-Soviet development
- 16 Workers and industrialization
- 17 Women and the state
- 18 Non-Russians in the Soviet Union and after
- 19 The western republics: Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and the Baltics
- 20 Science, technology and modernity
- 21 Culture, 1900–1945
- 22 The politics of culture, 1945–2000
- 23 Comintern and Soviet foreign policy, 1919–1941
- 24 Moscow’s foreign policy, 1945–2000: identities, institutions and interests
- 25 The Soviet Union and the road to communism
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
20 - Science, technology andmodernity
from Part II - Russia and the Soviet Union: Themes and Trends
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
Edited by
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 Reading Russia and the Soviet Union in the twentieth century: how the ‘West’ wrote its history of the USSR
- Part I Russia and the Soviet Union: The Story through Time
- Part II Russia and the Soviet Union: Themes and Trends
- 14 Economic and demographic change: Russia’s age of economic extremes
- 15 Transforming peasants in the twentieth century: dilemmas of Russian, Soviet and post-Soviet development
- 16 Workers and industrialization
- 17 Women and the state
- 18 Non-Russians in the Soviet Union and after
- 19 The western republics: Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and the Baltics
- 20 Science, technology and modernity
- 21 Culture, 1900–1945
- 22 The politics of culture, 1945–2000
- 23 Comintern and Soviet foreign policy, 1919–1941
- 24 Moscow’s foreign policy, 1945–2000: identities, institutions and interests
- 25 The Soviet Union and the road to communism
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
Summary
Introduction
Science and technology occupy a central place in the history of all modern states,but their role is particularly significant in twentieth-century Russia. The SovietUnion had at one time a greater number of scientists and engineers than any othercountry in the world. It made a massive effort to overtake the West in thedevelopment of technology. And most important, science and technology wereintegral to the Soviet claim to offer a vision of modernity that was superior tothat of Western capitalism. Not only would science and technology flourish in theSoviet Union, according to this claim; the Soviet system was itself consciouslyconstructed on the basis of a scientific theory and would be guided by that theoryin its future development. The Soviet Union presented itself as the true heir tothe Enlightenment project of applying reason to human affairs.
Before the revolution (1901–17)
Science (nauka) in Russia was linked with modernisation from thevery beginning. Peter the Great imported natural science from Europe in the earlyeighteenth century as part of his effort to transform Russia into a Great Power.He established the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences in 1724, before there wereuniversities in Russia. For a century and a half, most of the Academy’smembers were from outside Russia, and many Russians regarded science as alien toRussian culture. In the second half of the nineteenth century a more or lesscohesive scientific community began to emerge, bound together by learned societiesand scientific congresses.
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- The Cambridge History of Russia , pp. 549 - 578Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006
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