Traditions of Russian fundamental and applied life sciences go back to the last third of the nineteenth century, the reign of "Tzar-Liberator" Alexander II. Basic scientific schools in organic chemistry and life sciences appeared in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kazan, Kiev, and Warshaw. Since then, Russian bioscience and biotechnology has experienced rises and falls together with the whole country.In the beginning of 1860s the founder of Russian organic chemistry A. M. Butlerov first described formation of sweet syrup from formaldehyde. Several perfect schools of plant physiology appeared in Russia between 1860 and 1914. Famintsyn and Baranetskii first isolated symbiotic green alga from lichen, Borodin first described crystals of chlorophyll in microscopic leaf slices. In 1892 Ivanovsky described the ability of a causative agent of tobacco mosaic to pass through a bacterial porcelain filter. Six years later, M. W. Beijerinck gave this invisible infective agent its present name "virus". In 1902 Ivanovsky first described the crystals of viral particles in cells of infected tobacco leaves and together with Beijerinck gave birth to the new and one of the most cited scientific areas, virology. In 1899 Korzhinskii formulated a mutational theory of evolution in his work "Heterogenesis and evolution:On the theory of origin of species", which was independently published by H. de Vries in 1901. Separation of plant photosynthetic pigments was made in 1906 by Tsvett, the father of modern chromatographic methods and author of the terms "chromatography" and "carotenoid". The Moscow Agricultural Academy was founded as early as in 1872 by Timiriazev, and in 1902 Palladin published his famous textbook "Plant Physiology", which had seen 7 reprints in Russia, France, Germany, and the USA.Russian
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Sun, A. Bogdanov und der russische Proletkult. Theorie und Praxis einer sozialistischen Kulturrevolution. Frankfurt a/M: Campus, 1980. 315 pp., DM 40.German scholars have been much more active than their English-speaking colleagues in studying the Proletkul't movement, and Gabriele Gorzka's book is the latest addition to an already large literature on the topic. One common feature of most of this literature is that it concentrates more on the theory of the Proletkul't than on its practice. As Gorzka points out, Soviet scholars have also tended to separate theory from practice in their studies of the Proletkul't. It is Gorzka's intention to unite these two themes. Only in this way, she argues, can one assess the Proletkul't's conflicts with the Communist Party, judge its actions by its own standards, and finally, discover the real causes for the Proletkul't's dramatic decline in the 1920's.Working primarily from published sources and Proletkul't journals, Gorzka gives a compact account of the expansion and decline of the Proletkul't in the first section of her book. She examines its many difficulties, including conflicts with the party and the inclusion of non-proletarian elements within its ranks. Finally, Gorzka addresses the changes in Proletkul't activities after 1920 and argues that they were not due to party pressure, as is usually stated, but rather to the leadership's independent realization that their methods had not been successful. The second section of the book addresses Bogdanov's work. Here Gorzka backtracks to show the development of the theory which inspired the Proletkul't. Marx and Lenin are the authorities against whom she measures Bogdanov's writings; she concludes that Lenin's theories were more suited to the needs of revolutionary Russia than were Bogdanov's. In the final part of the book, Gorzka tries to unite the themes of theory and practice. She attempts to show that the problems of the Proletkul't were due to its efforts to adhere to Bogdanov's theory. This caused the Proletkul't's conflicts with the party. In addition, it alienated the Proletkul't from its constituency. In Gorzka's view, peasants and workers left the Proletkul't because its theory no longer appealed to them.The difficulties with this book begin with its structure. By discussing practice-before the theory which inspired it, the author leaves many things unclear in her first section and ends up repeating herself in the final part. The section on Bogdanov is also not without its problems. Instead of spending so much time examining Bogdanov's Marxist credentials, she should have devoted more space to an investigation of his influence within the...
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