Title From the Formation of the Soviet Scientific System to the Involvement of Russian Academic Organizations in the War Against Ukraine
Author(s) Dmitry Nikolaenko
Affiliation New Euro Vision: exhibitions, marketing, research s.r.o.
Country Chechia
Contribution type case study; empirical study; conceptual paper; methodological paper
Thematic area • Theory, Methodology, and Evidence
Conference framework connection • Analytical Track AT-01 — provisional title to be defined• Analytical Track AT-02 — provisional title to be defined• Analytical Track AT-03 — provisional title to be defined• Analytical Track AT-04 — provisional title to be defined• Analytical Track AT-05 — provisional title to be defined• Analytical Track AT-06 — provisional title to be defined• Analytical Track AT-07 — provisional title to be defined
Abstract This paper introduces the concept of “super-normal science” to explain a recurrent pattern within Soviet and post-Soviet academic communities: their capacity to preserve institutional continuity while rapidly and often sincerely adopting radically different state ideologies and representations of reality.
The proposed concept develops, but also departs from, Thomas Kuhn’s understanding of normal science. In normal science, researchers work within an accepted disciplinary paradigm. In super-normal science, the scientific community’s cognitive framework is increasingly defined by an external source of authority—the state. Scientific institutions retain the formal attributes of research, including academic degrees, journals, conferences, expert councils, and professional terminology. However, their principal function shifts from investigating an object to translating a state-sanctioned worldview into scientific language.
The formation of this academic type is traced to the restructuring of Soviet science that began in the late 1920s. Its reproduction depended not only on the adaptation of the majority but also on negative selection: researchers who distinguished state doctrine from scientific conclusions or insisted on autonomous problem formulation were marginalized or excluded. This mechanism reduced the collective capacity of academic institutions to identify inconvenient facts, question officially accepted explanations, and investigate the long-term consequences of state policy.
The paper does not treat Russian and Ukrainian academic communities as fundamentally different cognitive or institutional types. Both inherited important features of the same Soviet system. Their different conduct during the war is interpreted primarily in relation to the different character and demands of their respective states. The Russian state developed an aggressive project and required academic legitimation, expert support, and educational normalization of the war. Russian academic organizations largely joined this project. The Ukrainian state has historically imposed a weaker and less coherent ideological “score” on its academic institutions, producing different political behavior without necessarily indicating a fundamentally different academic type.
The argument is developed through institutional and biographical documents concerning geographer Nikolai Bagrov, evidence relating to the transformation of Tavrida National University after the 2014 occupation of Crimea, the author’s earlier study “The Department: Social Pressure in a Small Scientific Group,” and materials documenting the participation of Russian geographical and academic organizations in policies directed against Ukraine.
Bagrov is considered not as an exceptional case or an example of personal betrayal, but as a highly visible manifestation of a mass institutional pattern. The paper argues that the involvement of Russian academic organizations in the war cannot be understood only through individual ideology, coercion, or opportunism. It must also be examined as the result of a historically reproduced academic system oriented toward serving the current state authority rather than independently investigating its object.
Key points 1. Soviet science produced an institutional type that survived the dissolution of the USSR and continues to reproduce itself across post-Soviet states.
2. Super-normal science preserves the external forms of scientific activity while subordinating the formulation of problems and conclusions to a state-sanctioned worldview.
3. The rapid replacement of Marxist-Leninist, national, and Putinist frameworks does not necessarily involve conscious cynicism; each successive worldview may be internalized sincerely.
4. Negative selection removes researchers who insist on cognitive autonomy and thereby reduces the scientific community’s collective capacity for critical investigation.
5. Russian and Ukrainian academic communities should be compared as variants of a common post-Soviet type operating under different states.
6. Russian academic organizations became involved in the war because the state they serve developed an aggressive political project requiring scientific legitimation and expert support.
Keywords Super-normal science; post-Soviet academic community; Soviet science; academic institutions; state ideology; cognitive autonomy; negative selection; Russia; Ukraine; war; Nikolai Bagrov
Main discussion question If Russian and Ukrainian academic communities reproduce the same post-Soviet institutional type, to what extent are the differences in their conduct during the war determined by the character of their respective states, and to what extent by the internal autonomy of the academic organizations themselves?
OJS publication link https://pollution-diseases-ojs.org/index.php/pd/article/view/87
Note. Analytical TracksIn addition to the main thematic areas, the conference programme will include several cross-cutting analytical tracks. These tracks will be defined during the preparation of the programme, based on the submitted abstracts and the emerging links between presentations.At the preliminary stage, abstracts may be assigned to provisional analytical tracks marked as AT-01 to AT-07. Final track titles will be announced after the Scientific Committee has reviewed the submitted materials.