Профессия «историк науки» в российском социокультурном и научном контексте первой половины XX века

Abstract

The formation of the profession of historian of science in Russia in the first half of the 20th century is considered in a wider context of the institutionalization of history of science and technology as a special research field. The views of A.S. Lappo-Danilevsky, V.I. Vernadsky, S.I. Vavilov, V.P. Volgin and other scholars on the specifics and parameters of the profession of historian of science are analyzed. The study demonstrates the impact of disciplinary development and emergence within the Academy of Sciences of the first specialized research centers – “Russian Science” Subcommission, Commission for the History of Knowledge, and Institute for the History of Science and Technology (IHST) – on the process of professionalization of the history of science. The functioning as well as the very existence of the first academic centers for the studies on the history of scientific knowledge was strongly dependent on the domestic political processes in the 20th century. The IHST elimination in 1938 and tragic deaths of some of its leading staff members were followed by the destruction of the nascent community of historians of science. As a result, the idea that disciplinary histories of sciences were part of these sciences themselves became predominant for many years to come.