Remembering Science Cities: Urban Space and Community Identity of Post-Soviet Scientific and Technical Intelligentsia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4467/2543702XSHS.25.005.21843Keywords:
cities of science, community identity, place-attachment, USSR, Akademgorodok, intelligentsiaAbstract
Based on 17 in-depth interviews conducted in Novosibirsk Akademgorodok, Dubna, and Chernogolovka, this study focuses on identifying and analyzing the specifics of the post-Soviet scientific and technical intelligentsia’s cultural memory of Soviet science cities from the late 1960s to the present. The socio-cultural environment and institutional goals of Soviet science cities seem to have fostered a collective memory that transcends geographical and institutional boundaries, creating shared narratives despite the isolation and secrecy of these settlements. In the context of urban life in science cities, my informants downplay the complex relations between the Soviet intelligentsia and the communist state, and focus on class tensions: while the state provides scientists with a high level of care, it is the workers and their families who represent “others” in their narratives.
References
SOURCES
Enman, Vladimir 2006: Pro to, kak zhili my, druz’ya [About how we lived, friends]. Chernogolovskaya (Newspaper) 25–27.
Nikolaev, Boris 2006: Chernogolovka eto my [Chernogolovka is us]. Chernogolovka: Territoria.
Novosibirsk Museum 2016: Nikita Khrushchev criticises the Akademgorodok project. YouTube, 4 March 2016. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bimD_iVWHGI (accessed on: 25 June, 2025).
Romm Mikhail 1962: Nine days in One Year. Dir. by M. Romm.
Science in Siberia 2019. September 5th. №35 (3196).
STUDIES
Abir-Am, Pnina G. 1999: The first American and French commemorations in molecular biology: From collective memory to comparative history. Osiris 14, pp. 324–372.
Brown, Kathryn L. 2013: Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN: 978-0190233105.
Bugaev, Roman; Piskunov, Mikhail; Rakov, Timofey 2021: Footpaths of the Late-Soviet Environmental Turn: The “Forest City” of Novosibirsk’s Akademgorodok as a Sociotechnical Imaginary. The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review 48, pp. 289–313. DOI: 10.30965/18763324-bja10043.
Criado, Tomas Sanchez; Estalella, Adolfo (ed.) 2018: Experimental Collaborations. Ethnography through Fieldwork Devices. New York: Berghahn Books. ISBN: 978-1-78533-853.
Dachenkov, Igor; Petrov, Fedor; Panteleeva, Larisa 2015: Regional’naya istoriya Moskovskoi oblasti. Vypusk 1. Gorod Dubna [Regional History of the Moscow Region. Vol. 1. City of Dubna]. Moscow. ISBN: 978-5-9906274-0-6.
Gerovitch, Slava 2008a: Creating Memories: Myth, Identity, and Culture in the Russian Space Age. [In:] Steven J. Dick (ed.), Remembering the Space Age. Washington, DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Office of External Relations History Division. ISBN: 978-0160817236, pp. 203-236.
Gerovitch, Slava 2008b: Stalin’s Rocket Designers’ Leap into Space: The Technical Intelligentsia Faces the Thaw. Osiris 23, pp. 189–209. DOI: 10.1086/591874.
Gerovitch, Slava 2024: The Kitchen and the Dacha: Productive Spaces of Soviet Mathematics. Studia Historiae Scientiarum 23, pp. 657–683. DOI: 10.4467/2543702XSHS.24.018.19591.
Josephson, Paul 1997: New Atlantis Revisited: Akademgorodok, the Siberian City of Science. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN: 978-0691044545.
Josephson, Paul 2023: Big Science and Technology in the Former Soviet Union. [In:] Panagiotis Charitos, Theodore Arabatzis, Harry Cliff, Günther Dissertori, Juliette Forneris, Jason Li-Ying (eds.), Big Science in the 21st Century: Economic and societal impacts. ISBN: 978-0-7503-3629-1, pp. 27-1–27-12.
Kalashnikova, Madina 2020: Pamiat’ sovetskikh ITR o zhizni i rabote v akademgorodkakh k. 1950-kh – n. 1990-kh gg. (Novosibirsk, Dubna, Chernogolovka) [Scientific and Technical Intelligentsia’s Memory about Work and Everyday Life in the Soviet Towns of Science in the 1950–1990s (Novosibirsk, Dubna, Chernogolovka)]. Bachelor Thesis, Higher School of Economics. URL: https://www.hse.ru/en/edu/vkr/366467786 (accessed on: 25 June, 2025).
Kuznetsov, Ivan S. 2007: Novosibirskii Akademgorodok v 1968 godu: «pis’mo soroka shesti»: dokumental’noe issledovanie [Novosibirsk Akademcity in 1968: “Letter of Forty-Six”. Documentary Research]. Novosibirsk: Klio.
Manzo, Lynne C.; Devine-Wright, Patrick 2014: Place Attachement: Advances in Theory, Methods and Applications. New York: Routledge. ISBN: 9780367223496.
N.N. 2020: Life for Science. News, Chernogolovsky Historical and Local History Club. URL: https://chgbiblio.ru/archives/34113 (accessed on 4.01.2025).
Orlova, Galina 2017: Gorod institutov. Zametki o yadernoj topologii [City of Institutes. Notes on Atomic Topology]. Sociologiya vlasti 29, 4, pp. 68–103.
Piskunov, Mikhail 2024: Kommemorativnye prostranstva sibirskih nauchnyh gorodov i istoricheskaia pamjat’ (ob) uchenyh [Commemorative Spaces of Siberian Science Cities and Historical Memory of Scientists]. Vestnik Tomskogo gosudarstven-nogo universiteta. Istoriya 91, pp. 151–161. DOI: 10.17223/19988613/91/18.
Piskunov, Мikail; Bugaev, Roman; Maklakov, Mikhail 2022: Brikolazh muzeinyh narrativov Novosibirskogo Akademgorodka: kak rabotayut aktory kollektivnoi pamyati srednego urovnya [Bricolage of Museum Narratives of Novosibirsk Akademgorodok: How Mid-Level Collective Memory Actors Work]. Vestnik Tomskogo gosudarstven-nogo universiteta. Istoriya 79, pp. 74–83. DOI: 10.17223/19988613/79/9.
Polyan, Pavel; Lappo, Grigorij 2008: Naukogrady Rossii: vcherashnie zapretnye i poluzapretnye goroda – segodnyashnie tochki rosta [Science Cities of Russia: Yesterday’s Forbidden and Semi-Forbidden Cities – Today’s Growth Points]. Mir Rossii: Sociologiya, etnologiya 17(1), pp. 20–49.
Rogacheva, Maria 2017: The Private World of Soviet Scientists from Stalin to Gorbachev. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 978-1107196360.
Rogacheva, Maria A. 2016: Soviet Scientists Take the Initiative: Khrushchev’s Thaw and the Emergence of the Scientific Centre in Chernogolovka. Europe-Asia Studies 68(7), pp. 1179–1196
Tatarchenko, Ksenia 2013: “A house with the window to the west”: The Akademgorodok Computer Center (1958–1993). Princeton: Princeton University. PhD Dissertation. URL: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dsp01qv33rw786 (accessed on: 25 June, 2025).
Tatarchenko, Ksenia 2016: Calculating a Showcase: Mikhail Lavrentiev, the Politics of Expertise, and the International Life of the Siberian Science-City. Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 46(5), pp. 592–632. DOI: 10.1525/hsns.2016.46.5.592.
Utekchin, I. Voronina, T. 2006: Rekonstruktsiya smysla v analize intervyu: tematicheskie dominanty i skrytaya polemika [transl]. [In:] Marina Loskutova (ed.), Pamyat o blokade. Svidetelstva ochevidtsev i istoricheskoe soznanie obshchestva. Materialy i issledovaniya [Memory of the Blockade: Eyewitness Testimonies and Historical Consciousness of Society]. Moscow: Novoe izdatel’stvo. ISBN: 978-5-98379-140-4, pp. 163–187.
Vajl’, Pyotr; Genis, Alexander 1998: 60-e. Mir sovetskogo cheloveka [The 60s. The World of the Soviet Man]. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie.
APPENDIX: LIST OF INFORMANTS
M stands for “assigned male”, F stands for “assigned female”. Age in brackets refers to age at the time of the interview.
M-1: born in 1955 (64 years); was born in Saratov; moved with his parents to Novosibirsk Akademgorodok in 1963; Graduated from the Faculty of Physics of Novosibirsk State University; works at the Institute of Nuclear Physics. G.I. of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Brother of M-8.
M-2: born in 1934 (85 years); was born in a village near Serpukhov; lives in Dubna since 1958; graduated from the Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University; works at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research.
M-3: born in 1948 (72 years); was born in the Novgorod region; partly began to live in Chernogolovka since 1969; graduated from the Faculty of Molecular and Chemical Physics of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology; works at the Institute of Problems of Chemical Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
M-4: born in 1945 (75 years); was born in the Vologda region; began to partially live in Chernogolovka since 1965; Graduated from the Radio Engineering Faculty of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology; works at the Institute of Solid State Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
M-5: born in 1929 (89 years); was born in Leningrad; graduated from the Faculty of Mathematics and Mechanics of the Leningrad University; moved to Novosibirsk in 1957; works at the Institute of Mathematics. S.L. Sobolev of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
M-6: born in 1939 (80 years); graduated from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology; lives in Novosibirsk since 1961; works at the Institute of Hydrodynamics. M.A. Lavrentiev of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
M-7: born in 1942 (77 years); was born in Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod); graduated from the radio engineering faculty of Gorky University; lives in Chernogolovka since 1976; works at the Institute of Theoretical Physics. of L.D. Landau.
M-8: born in 1938 (81 years); was born in Saratov; moved with his parents to Novosibirsk Akademgorodok in 1963; Graduated from the Faculty of Physics of Novosibirsk State University; works at the Institute of Nuclear Physics. G.I. Budker of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Brother M-1.
M-9: born in 1942 (78 years); spent his childhood in Moscow; moved to Novosibirsk in 1960; graduated from NSU in 1965; works at the Institute of Nuclear Physics. G.I. Budker of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
M-10: born in 1937 (73 years); was born in the Kemerovo region; graduated from the Historical department of the Faculty of Humanities of Novosibirsk State University; lives in Novosibirsk since 1966; works at the Institute of History of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
M-11: born in 1937 (83 years); was born in Nizhny Novgorod; graduated from the radio engineering faculty of Gorky University; lives in Dubna since 1958; works at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research.
M-12: born in 1941 (78 years); was born in Rostov; graduated from the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of the Rostov State University; moved to Chernogolovka in 1963; works at the Institute of Problems of Chemical Physics.
M-13: Oleg Leonidovich Kuznetsov; graduated from the Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University; born in 1938 (81 years); since 1984 he has been the rector of the State University “Dubna”.
F-1: born in 1949 (71 years); was born in Saratov; graduated from Saratov State University; moved to Chernogolovka in 1980; works at the Institute of Problems of Chemical Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
F-2: born in 1959 (61 years); was born in Dubna; graduated from the National University of Science and Technology (MISiS); since 1981 he has been working at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research.
F-3: born in 1961 (58 years); was born in Novosibirsk; graduated from the Historical department of the Faculty of Humanities of NSU; since 1981 he has been working at the Institute of History of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
F-4: born in 1962 (57 years); was born in Novosibirsk; graduated from the Faculty of Chemistry of Novosibirsk State University; since 1983 he has been working at the Institute of Organic Chemistry of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
F-5: born in 1962 (57 years); was born in Blagoveshchensk; graduated from the Faculty of Molecular and Chemical Physics of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology; partly began to live moved to Chernogolovka in 1980; worked at the Institute of Problems of Chemical Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences until the early 2000s.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
How to Cite
