The Kitchen and the Dacha: Productive Spaces of Soviet Mathematics
In the late 1960s and 70s, due to the Soviet regime’s crackdown on dissident activities and rising anti-Semitic policies, many mathematicians from “undesirable” groups faced discrimination and serious administrative restrictions on work and study at top-ranking official institutions. To overcome su...
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Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences
2024-09-01
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| Series: | Studia Historiae Scientiarum |
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| Online Access: | https://ojs.ejournals.eu/SHS/article/view/9573 |
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| author | Slava Gerovitch |
| author_facet | Slava Gerovitch |
| author_sort | Slava Gerovitch |
| collection | DOAJ |
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In the late 1960s and 70s, due to the Soviet regime’s crackdown on dissident activities and rising anti-Semitic policies, many mathematicians from “undesirable” groups faced discrimination and serious administrative restrictions on work and study at top-ranking official institutions. To overcome such barriers, the mathematical community built extensive social networks around informal or semi-formal study groups and seminars, which formed a parallel social infrastructure for learning and research. As result, mathematical activity began shifting from public educational and research institutions into private or semi-private settings — family apartments, summer dachas, and countryside walks. For many Soviet mathematicians, instead of being a refuge from work, their home apartments and dachas became their primary working spaces — places where they did their research, met with students, and exchanged ideas with colleagues. At the intersection of work and private life, a tightly knit mathematical community emerged, whose commitment to scholarship went beyond formal duty or required curriculum, a community practicing mathematics as a “way of life.” The parallel social infrastructure functioned in tense interdependency with official institutions and borrowed some characteristics of the official system it opposed.
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| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-da20aac119d749ecbc944ea91340ce85 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2451-3202 2543-702X |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2024-09-01 |
| publisher | Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Studia Historiae Scientiarum |
| spelling | doaj-art-da20aac119d749ecbc944ea91340ce852025-01-31T23:45:51ZengPolish Academy of Arts and SciencesStudia Historiae Scientiarum2451-32022543-702X2024-09-0123The Kitchen and the Dacha: Productive Spaces of Soviet MathematicsSlava Gerovitch0Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge MA USA) In the late 1960s and 70s, due to the Soviet regime’s crackdown on dissident activities and rising anti-Semitic policies, many mathematicians from “undesirable” groups faced discrimination and serious administrative restrictions on work and study at top-ranking official institutions. To overcome such barriers, the mathematical community built extensive social networks around informal or semi-formal study groups and seminars, which formed a parallel social infrastructure for learning and research. As result, mathematical activity began shifting from public educational and research institutions into private or semi-private settings — family apartments, summer dachas, and countryside walks. For many Soviet mathematicians, instead of being a refuge from work, their home apartments and dachas became their primary working spaces — places where they did their research, met with students, and exchanged ideas with colleagues. At the intersection of work and private life, a tightly knit mathematical community emerged, whose commitment to scholarship went beyond formal duty or required curriculum, a community practicing mathematics as a “way of life.” The parallel social infrastructure functioned in tense interdependency with official institutions and borrowed some characteristics of the official system it opposed. https://ojs.ejournals.eu/SHS/article/view/9573mathematicsanti-SemitismdiscriminationSoviet Unionsocial networksparallel social infrastructure |
| spellingShingle | Slava Gerovitch The Kitchen and the Dacha: Productive Spaces of Soviet Mathematics Studia Historiae Scientiarum mathematics anti-Semitism discrimination Soviet Union social networks parallel social infrastructure |
| title | The Kitchen and the Dacha: Productive Spaces of Soviet Mathematics |
| title_full | The Kitchen and the Dacha: Productive Spaces of Soviet Mathematics |
| title_fullStr | The Kitchen and the Dacha: Productive Spaces of Soviet Mathematics |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Kitchen and the Dacha: Productive Spaces of Soviet Mathematics |
| title_short | The Kitchen and the Dacha: Productive Spaces of Soviet Mathematics |
| title_sort | kitchen and the dacha productive spaces of soviet mathematics |
| topic | mathematics anti-Semitism discrimination Soviet Union social networks parallel social infrastructure |
| url | https://ojs.ejournals.eu/SHS/article/view/9573 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT slavagerovitch thekitchenandthedachaproductivespacesofsovietmathematics AT slavagerovitch kitchenandthedachaproductivespacesofsovietmathematics |