The Academic Science in Evacuation: The Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union in 1941-1943

The article explores the scientific work of historians of the Institute of History of the USSR Academy of Sciences who were in evacuation in 1941-1943. The author employed a wide range of historical sources in the study: letters, memories, scientists' diaries, materials of scientific journals, office documents, scientific works. The author used traditional methods of historical analysis: historical-genetic and comparative-historical. At the first stage of the study, the author considered the circumstances of the evacuation of the Institute of History and identified the main centers where historians were sent from Moscow. These cities were Kazan, Yekaterinburg, Almaty, Tomsk, and other cities. Tashkent was the main center of the Institute of History during the evacuation. At the second stage, the author studied scientists' living conditions during the evacuation (in Tashkent and Almaty). At the third stage, the author analyzed the main directions of historians' work during the evacuation. Historians of the Institute of History worked in two main directions during the evacuation: solving the tasks set by the battlefront and the host republics, and continuing their own research. During the war, historians gave pop-science lectures in hospitals, factories, and prepared pop-science works that told about the past wars of the Russian people. In Tashkent and Almaty, evacuated historians began writing works on the history of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. During the war, historians of the Institute of History paid much attention to the teaching of historical subjects. Groups of historians of the Institute in Tashkent and Almaty prepared handbooks for secondary school teachers and gave lectures for teachers. During the evacuation, Moscow historians sought to return to their collective and individual research projects. However, since they could not take all their materials with them, they could not fully implement their plans. For example, S.B. Veselovsky in Tashkent asked his colleagues who remained in Moscow to help him get books from his personal library. Despite this, many employees of the Institute of History in Tashkent or Almaty wrote some articles and monographs, finished working on the texts of candidate and doctoral dissertations and even defended them. The evacuation affected Moscow historians and local scientific schools. Strong contacts were established between them. In addition, the evacuation had a serious impact on the structure of the Soviet academic science. The evacuation ensured the status of the main center of the Soviet academic science for Moscow.

Keywords

Authors

References