Introduction

This conference was supported in part by a grant from the International Research and Exchanges Board ([REX), with funds provided by the U.S. Department of State (Title Vlll) and the National Endowment for the Humanities. It was also supported by grants from the Smithsonian Institution's Office of Fellowships and Grants. R. Doers participation in the conference and work on this volume were supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities (FE27739–93), the National Science Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Trustees of the Dudley Observatory, who provided him with the Pollock Award for 1995 in partial support for this work. None ofthese organizations is responsible for the views expressed.

The Sodruzhestvo Nezavisimykh Gosudarstv (CIS) includes all republics of the former Soviet Union except for Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania, but in this volume we have used the names ‘Commonwealth of Independent States’ and ‘former Soviet Union’ loosely and interchangeably. The papers published here deal primarily with the Russian Federation, and thus at times we have tended to refer, simply, to Russia.

The IRC consists of DeVorkin David H. (Smithsonian Institution, National Air & Space Museum), Dick Steven J. (U.S. Naval Observatory, HAD chairman), Doel Ronald E. (Smithsonian Institution and Georgetown University), Doggett LeRoy E. (U.S. Naval Observatory), and McCutcheon Robert (Computer Sciences Corp., IRC chair). The Smithsonian Institution, the U.S.N.O. and Computer Sciences Corporation all provided direct or indirect support for this conference.

A report on the conference appears in HAD news (Newsletter of the Historical Astronomy Division of the American Astronomical Society), no. 29 (Nov. 1993), 1, 3–6.

The IRC had wanted Bronshten to participate in the conference on ‘Astronomy and the state’, but this was prevented by unforeseen funding and scheduling difficulties.

For the history of eighteenth-century Russian astronomy, see Nevskaia N. I. , Peterburgskaia astronomicheskaia shkola XVIII v. (The Petersburg Astronomical School of the 18th century) (Leningrad, 1984). For a biography of Wilhelm Struve, see Novokshanova Z. K. (Sokol'skaia), Vasilii Iakovlevich Struve (Moscow, 1964). For a general history of Pulkovo Observatory, refer to Dadaev A. N. , Pulkovskaia Observatoriia: Ocherk istorii i nauchnoi deiatel'nosti (Pulkovo Observatory: An outline of its history and scientific activity) (Leningrad, 1972), or to Krisciunas K. , Astronomical centres of the world (Cambridge, 1988), 99–119.

For a general history of the Moscow University Observatory and its modern descendent, the Shternberg State Astronomical Institute, refer to Pskovskii Iu. P. (ed.), Istoriia Astronomicheskoi observatorii Moskovskogo universiteta i GAISh (The history of the Moscow University Astronomical Observatory and Shternberg State Astronomical Institute) (Moscow, 1986). Bredikhin's biography is presented in Nevskaia N. I. , Fedor Aleksandrovich Bredikhin (Moscow and Leningrad, 1964); for a biography of Tseraskii V. K. , see Vorontsov-Vel'iaminov B. A. , ‘Vitol'd Karlovich Tseraskii’, in V. K. Tseraskii: Izbrannye raboty po astronomii (V. K. Tseraskii: Selected works in astronomy) (Moscow, 1953), 30–52.

There are no good published sources relating specifically to astronomy during the 1917 October Revolution and the Civil War of 1918–1921. For the history of Soviet astronomy during this period refer to McCutcheon R. A. , ‘The purge of Soviet astronomy: 1936–37, with a discussion of its background and aftermath’ (M.A. thesis, Georgetown University, 1985), 20–33. For a general discussion of Russian science during this period, see Graham L. R. , Science in Russia and the Soviet Union (Cambridge, 1993), 79–98; and Vucinich A. , Empire of knowledge: The Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1917–1970) (Berkeley, 1984), 72–122. An older but still excellent general history of the Russian Revolution and Civil War is Chamberlin W. H. , The Russian Revolution (2 vols, New York, 1935; New York, 1965). War Communism was the Bolshevik government's first abortive attempt to introduce a command economy. It was replaced by a partial return to capitalist policies under the New Economic Plan (NEP) in 1921.

McCutcheon , op. cit. (ref. 8), 22–24 and 25–26. For a biography of Shternberg, see Kulikovskii P. G. , Pavel Karlovich Shternberg (Moscow, 1965); on Struve, see Skolovskaya Z. M. , ‘Struve, Otto’, in Gillispie C. C. (ed.), Dictionary of scientific biography , xiii (New York, 1976), 115–16.

Gerasimovich B. P. , ‘Po amerikanskim observatoriiam’ (‘Visiting American observatories’), Mirovedenie , xxvii, no. 2 (1931), 22.

The classic discussion of Lysenko's T. D. notorious role in Soviet biology remains Joravsky D. , The Lysenko affair (Cambridge, Mass., 1979), although some of Joravsky's interpretations have been challenged; for a discussion see Graham , op. cit. (ref. 8), 121–34.

Martynov D. Ia. , ‘Pulkovskaia observatoriia v gody 1926–1933’ (‘Pulkovo Observatory in the years 1926–1933’), Istoriko-astronomicheskie issledovaniia (Historical-astronomical investigations), xvii (1984), 447–8.

‘Otchet Tashkentskoi Astronomicheskoi Observatorii (s 1/X 1929 g. po 31/XII 1930 g.)’ (‘Report of the Tashkent Astronomical Observatory (from 1 Oct. 1929 through 21 Dec. 1930)’), Astronomicheskii zhurnal (Soviet astronomical journal), viii (1931), no. 2, 178–80. There is no record of any astronomical research ever published by Teplov.

The Soviet ‘secret police’ had different names at different periods in Soviet history. It began as the ‘Cheka’ and became the GPU in the late 1920s and early 1930s. From 1935 to 1946 it was known as the Narodny Kommissariat Vnutrennikh Del [NKVD] and after 1946 as the Ministerstvo Vnutrennikh Del [MVD — Ministry of Internal Affairs]. Following Stalin's death the MVD lost its ministerial status and became the Komitet Gosudarstvennyi Bezopasnosti [KGB — Committee on State Security].

Getty J. A. Manning R. T. (eds), Stalinist terror: New perspectives (Cambridge, 1993). Refer, in particular, to the articles in this collection by Viola L. Ritterspoon G. Thurston R. Manning R. .

Shapley's humanitarian and social undertakings are described in Sigmund Diamond, Compromised campus: The collaboration of universities with the intelligence community, 1945–1955 (New York, 1992), 116–22, and Hershberg James , James B. Conant: Harvard to Hiroshima and the making of the nuclear age (New York, 1993), 446–8, 617–19; for a review of his research and directorship of the Harvard College Observatory, see Kidwell Peggy , ‘Harvard astronomers in World War II’, in Elliott Clark A. Rossiter Margaret W. (eds), Science at Harvard University: Historical perspectives (Bethlehem, Penn., 1992), 275–302.

McCutcheon R. A. , ‘The 1936–37 purge of Soviet astronomers’, Slavic review , 1, no. 1 (1991), 100–17, and Nicolaïdes E. , ‘Astronomy and politics in Russia in the early Stalinist period (1928–1932)’, Journal for the history of astronomy , xxii (1990), 345–51; also worthy of note is Nicolaïdes E. , Le développement de l'astronomie en U.R.S.S., 1917–1935 (Paris, 1984).

In addition to her article here, refer to Eremeeva A. I. ‘Zhizn’ i tvorchestvo Borisa Petrovicha Gerasimovicha (K 100-letiiu so dnia rozhdeniia)‘ (’The life and work of Boris Petrovich Gerasimovich (on the 100th anniversary of his birth)’), Istoriko-astronomicheskie issledovaniia (Historical-astronomical investigations), xxi (1989), 253–301. Orlova's N. B. work on Eropkin is published in ‘Maksimilian Maksimilianovich Musselius (1884–1938) i Dmitrii Ivanovich Eropkin (1908–1938)’, Istoriko-astronomicheskie issledovaniia (Historical-astronomical investigations), xxiii (1991), 144–217. A. B. Numerova's biographies of her father are ‘Boris Vasil'evich Numerov (1891–1941)’, Istoriko-astronomicheskie issledovaniia (Historical-astronomical investigations), xvi (1983), 193–218; and Boris Vasil'evich Numerov, 1891–1941 (Leningrad, 1983). Shtaude's N. M. autobiography was published in Istoriko-astronomicheskie issledovaniia (Historical-astronomical investigations), xxii (1990), 395–466. Bronshten's recent bibliography includes ‘Zhurnal Mirovedenie v moskovskii period (1930–1937)‘ (’The journal Mirovedenie during its Moscow period (1930–1937)’), Istoriko-astronomicheskie issledovaniia (Historical-astronomical investigations), xx (1988), 373–96; ‘Razgrom Russkogo Obshchestva Liubitelei Mirovedeniia’ (‘Destruction of the Russian Amateur Astronomy Society’), Priroda , 1990, no. 10, 122–6; ‘Izgnanie V. V. Stratonova’ (‘The expulsion of V. V. Stratonov’), Priroda , 1991, no. 1, 124–8; ‘Vosstanavlivaia stranitsy istorii. Ocherk shestoi. Nina Shtaude’ (‘Resurrecting pages of history, sixth essay: Nina Shtaude’), Zemlia i vselennaia , 1991, no. 5, 68–74; ‘Vosstanavlivaia stranitsy istorii. Ocherk sed'moi. Nikolai Voronov’ (‘Resurrecting pages of history, seventh essay: Nikokai Voronov’), Zemlia i vselennaia , 1992, no. 2, 71–77; ‘Sovetskaia vlast’ i davlenie na astronomiiu‘ (’Soviet power and repression in astronomy’), Filosofskie issledovaniia , iii (1993), 207–23.

North John , The Norton history of astronomy and cosmology (New York, 1995), 548, and Kuiper G. P. Struve O. , 29 Nov. 1946, Box 28, Kuiper papers; see also Shklovsky Iosif , Five billion vodka bottles to the Moon (translated and adapted by Mary Fleming Zirin and Harold Zirin) (New York, 1991).

Vucinich , op. cit. (ref. 8), 220, Josephson Paul , Physics and politics in Revolutionary Russia (Berkeley, 1991), 322–3, Levin Aleksey E. , ‘The Otto Schmidt School and the development of planetary cosmogony in the U.S.S.R.’, in Levin Aleksey E. Brush Stephen G. , The origin of the solar system: Soviet research, 1925–1991 (New York, 1994), 3–18, and Bronshten McCutcheon , this issue.

‘Soviet astronomy’, New York Times , 15 July 1949 18:2. This editorial specifically addressed the cosmogonal theory of Shmidt Otto Iu. , discussed below.

On these issues see Doel R. E. , ‘Evaluating Soviet lunar science in Cold War America’, Osiris 2nd ser., vii (1992), 238–64.

Doel R. E. , ‘Diplomatic constraints on American science: The Cold War Relations of U.S., Soviet, and Chinese Astronomers, 1950–1961’, in preparation; see also Struve to Whipple F. L. , 5 Dec. 1948, Box 4, Whipple papers, Harvard University archives.

See Gurshtein and Ivanov, this issue.

Graham , op. cit. (ref. 8), 220–4.

Woltjier L. , ‘The evolution of ideas on the Crab Nebula’, 117–22, and Ginzburg V. L. , ‘On high-energy astrophysics’, 129–40, both published in van Woerden H. Brouw W. H. van der Hulst H. (eds), Oort and the universe (Dordrecht, 1980); see also Oort Severny A. B. , 1 Sept. 1958, Box 37, Jan Oort papers, Leiden.

Graham , op. cit. (ref. 8), 223–4, and North , op. cit. (ref. 19), 606–9.

Shklovsky , op. cit. (ref. 19).

McCutcheon , op. cit. (ref. 17), and Bronshten , op. cit. (ref. 18).

Kolchinskii I. G. Korsun' A. A. Rodriges M. G. , Astronomy, Biograficheskii spravochnik (Astronomers, A biographical handbook), 2nd edn (Kiev, 1986), s.v. ‘Kukarkin, Boris Vasil'evich’, 172–3.

See for example Fitzpatrick S. , Education and social mobility in the Soviet Union 1921–1934 (Cambridge, 1979); see also Lutskii V. K. , Istoriia astronomicheskikh obshchestvennykh organizatsii v SSSR (History of voluntary astronomical organizations in the USSR) (Moscow, 1984).

Vucinich , op. cit. (ref. 8), 220, and Haley Edward John , ‘The confrontation of dialectical materialism with modern cosmological theories in Soviet Russia’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at Santa Barbara, 1980), esp. pp. 137–73.

Graham Loren R. , Science, philosophy, and human behavior in the Soviet Union (New York, 1987), 380–427, and Levin , op. cit. (ref. 20), 9.

Whitnah Donald R. , A history of the U.S. Weather Bureau (Urbana, 1961), and Fleming Roger James , Meteorology in America, 1800–1870 (Baltimore, 1990), pp. xviii–xxii, 106–7.

On these issues, see Burchfield Joe D. , Lord Kelvin and the age of the Earth (New York, 1975), 201–4, Doel R. E. , Solar system astronomy in America: Communities, patronage, and interdisciplinary science, 1920–1960 (New York, in press), 3–8 and 225–9, and Tatarewicz Joseph N. , Space technology and planetary astronomy (Bloomington, 1991), 116–42.

Doel , op. cit. (ref. 35), 151–87, Graham , op. cit. (ref. 8), 229–34, and Wood Robert M. , ‘Geology vs. dogma: The Russian rift’, New scientist 12 June 1980, 234–7.

Tiemann Klaus-Harro , ‘Die Entwicklung der sowjetitisch-deutschen Wissenschaftsbeziehungen auf dem Gebiet der Geo-und Kosmoswissenschaften’, 1988 manuscript, in Doel's possession, and Wolfgang Dick, ‘Die Beziehungen Paul Guthnicks zu sowjetischen Kollegen (1922–1941): Ein Überblick über die Documente’, Tartu Astrophysical Observatory publication , no. 88 (1987), 28–35.

Doel , op. cit. (ref. 22) and Doel , ‘Scientists as policymakers, advisors, and intelligence agents: Linking diplomatic history with the history of science’, in Soderqvist Thomas (ed.), The historiography of the history of contemporary science, technology, and medicine (London, forthcoming).

Rossianov Kirill O. , ‘Editing nature: Joseph Stalin and the ‘new’ Soviet biology’, Isis , Ixxxiv (1993), 728–45, and Krementsov Nikolai , ‘The ‘KR affair’: Soviet science on the threshold of the Cold War’, History and philosophy of the life sciences , xvii (1995), 3–30.

Josephson , op. cit. (ref. 20), and Bailes Kendall E. , Science and Russian culture in an age of revolutions: V.I. Vernadsky and his scientific school, 1863–1945 (Bloomington, 1990).

Alexandrov D. , ‘Historical anthropology of science in Russia’, paper at New Trends in the History of Science and Technology seminar, St Petersburg, 22–23 June 1994; related frameworks for considering Soviet science in broad historical context are presented in Adams Mark B. (ed.), The evolution of Theodosius Dobzhansky: Essays on his life and thought in Russia and America (Princeton, 1994), 3–9, Alexandrov D. Krementsov N. , ‘Opyt putevoditelia po heizvedannoi zemle. Predvaritelnyi ocherk sotsialnoi istorii sovetskoi nauki’ (‘Experiences of a guide through an unexplored land: Preliminary sketch of the social history of Soviet science’), Voprosy istorii estestvoznaniia i tekhniki (Issues in the history of natural science and technology), iv (1989), 67–87, and Weiner Douglas R. , Models of nature: Ecology, conservation, and cultural revolution in Soviet Russia (Bloomington, 1988), 1–6.

Nevskaia , op. cit. (ref. 6).

Kostina L. D. , ‘K 100-letiiu so dnia rozhdeniia S. V. Romanskoi’ (‘On the 100th anniversary of the birth of S. V. Romanskaia’), Istoriko-astronomicheskie issledovaniia (Historical-astronomical investigations) xx (1988), 323–35.

Dadaev A. N. , ‘Vtoroe rozhdenie Pulkova’ (‘Pulkovo's second birth’), Istoriko-astronomicheskie issledovaniia (Historical-astronomical investigations), xxi (1989), 17–49, and op. cit. (ref. 6).

Kolchinskii , op. cit . (ref. 30).

‘A Soviet history of astronomy’, Acta historiae rerum naturalium necnon technicarum , Special Issue xviii (1982), 209–61.

Kramer Mark , ‘Archival research in Moscow: Progress and pitfalls’, Cold War international history project bulletin , no. 3 (fall, 1993), 1, 18–39.

See for instance Grimsted Patricia , A handbook for archival research in the U.S.S.R. (New York and Washington, D.C., 1989). Further information on the International Catalog of Sources can be gained directly from the Niels Bohr Library, American Institute of Physics, One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740 USA; e-mail nbl@aip.org.