Сталин-«ученый». Дискуссия о марризме
Stalin, the Scientist. The Debate on Marrism

Summary/Abstract: Despite emerging as a victor, the Soviet Union found itself in a deep economic crisis and was threatened by the emerging Cold War in the post-World War II period. The world power reacted to the situation with centralistic voluntarism and ideological austerity. Like all intellectual life, science too was considered worth “disciplining.” Formally, this happened through seemingly scientific debates in a range of disciplines, in which winners and losers were eventually pointed out. A case in point was the debate on N. Ya. Marr’s linguistic theory. But this one was not merely another episode in the series – it displayed two unprecedented features: the whole debate was running in Pravda, the daily newspaper of the Communist Party, and, quite unexpectedly, Stalin himself took part in it. The paper deals with this strange phenomenon in detail, seeking for a deeper understanding of Stalin’s participation as well as a broader analysis of those ideologically-shaped disciplinary debates in the post-war period in general.

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