Soviet Scientists Remember: Oral Histories of the Cold War Generation

203 Pages·2019·1.541 MB·English

by  Maria A. Rogacheva

Soviet Scientists
Remember

Soviet Scientists
Remember
Oral Histories of the
Cold War Generation
Maria A. Rogacheva
LEXINGTON BOOKS
Lanham • Boulder • New York • London
Published by Lexington Books
An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
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Copyright © 2020 The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
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without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available
ISBN: 978-1-4985-7434-1 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN: 978-1-4985-7435-8 (electronic)
∞ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
To Joshua, with all my love

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction xi
1 “My Life, My Family’s Life Is the Typical Story of Millions
of Soviet Families” 1
Rimma Nikolaevna Liubovskaia (née Stepanova)
2 “I Was Only Ten Years Old When My Father Was Arrested” 33
Vladimir Karlovich Enman
3 “After Winning Such a Devastating War, We Believed That
We Could Do Anything” 57
Georgii Borisovich Manelis
4 “I Have Always Embraced Collectivism and Had Little
Tolerance for Individualism” 81
Lev Nikolaevich Vashin
5 “I Began to Critically Evaluate Soviet Life after I Met Kronid” 111
Rustem Bronislavovich Liubovskii
6 “Individuals, Not the Party or Society, Should Be Responsible
for Their Own Education” 141
Oleg Nikolaevich Efimov
Selected Bibliography 169
Index 171
About the Author 179
vii

Acknowledgments
I want to thank members of the Chernogolovka scientific community, who
were interviewed for this volume. They generously agreed to share their
life stories with me and spent many hours of their time helping me better
understand what it was like to live in the Soviet Union during the last four
decades of its existence. Their enthusiasm for my project and their willing-
ness to review their pasts were crucial for the successful completion of this
oral history volume.
This book develops from my earlier study on the formerly closed scientific
town of Chernogolovka and the complex transition of Soviet society from
Stalinism into the post-Stalin era. I remain grateful to all the individuals who
supported me on that project, including Jim McAdams, Semion Lyandres,
Wilson Miscamble (Father Bill), Alexander Martin, Thomas Remington, and
Lewis Bateman and Lucy Rhymer of Cambridge University Press. I also want
to thank Donald Raleigh for his insightful comments on the early draft of this
project, and my editors Eric Kuntzman, Alexandra Rallo, and Brian Hill at
Lexington Books. Many thanks to the Nanovic Institute for European Stud-
ies and the Department of History at the University of Notre Dame for their
generous financial support over the years.
I am especially grateful for the loving support of my family and friends.
My parents, Alexander and Galina, have been a constant source of encour-
agement to me in all my endeavors. My brother Sergei and his wife Yuliana
have kept me smiling, sending me pictures of their cat. My mother-in-law,
Cheryl Bandoch, has been an important source of support. Nigel Ashford and
Jennifer Prebyl have been good friends over the past couple years. Pascal has
kept me delightful company, reminding me to go on walks from time to time.
ix