Sunday, 4 October 2026

1980 Minutes of a USSR Academy of Sciences Council Banning Citation of Scientists Who Emigrated

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1980 Minutes of a USSR Academy of Sciences Council Banning Citation of Scientists Who Emigrated

Found an interesting document in my home archive: the minutes of a meeting of one of the councils at the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. The agenda is extremely topical and perfectly intelligible in our present circumstances.

The item in question was a ban on mentioning in dissertations the surnames of scholars, or citing the works of persons who had committed an unpatriotic act, in this case, departing abroad. Quite so: what use has our ideologically correct and Party-faithful science for the discoveries of those who have fled across the border?

And the document dates not from the 1930s, nor even the 1940s, but from 1980.

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