Scientific and technical business trips of scientists to Germany in the 1920s as one of the factors in the development of the Leningrad industrial complex

Abstract

In the article, the author examines Leningrad scientists’ business trips to Germany in the 1920s as one of the directions of technology transfer mechanism implementation. The relevance of the study lies in the fact that the example of Leningrad shows the substance of this line of transfer, as well as a general assessment of its effectiveness. Thus, the historical memory of a unique experience is restored, which may be of interest at the present stage of Russia’s development. The study focuses on the problems of scientific and technical international cooperation with local scientific communities. This fills a gap in historical scholarship, as the specifics of such cooperation are considered mainly either at a community level or at the level of an individual organisation or individual. The main goal of the study is to determine the extent to which the contacts between Leningrad scientists and German specialists, established in the 1920s, influenced the modernisation of the Leningrad industrial complex. Research objectives are: to analyse the main cooperation directions between Leningrad scientists and German institutes, scientific centres, and laboratories in the period under consideration; to classify business trips, to identify general patterns, and to analyse the specific features of different types of business trips and their results. The article draws on a broad source base that includes previously unpublished archive documentation of the Russian State Academy of Economics, Central State Archive of St. Petersburg, and the Central State Academy of Technical Sciences of St. Petersburg. In the course of the study, drawing on specific cases, it was demonstrated that the active involvement of scientific personnel in Petrograd/Leningrad contributed to the accelerated development of a number of Soviet industries, such as diesel engineering, turbo and hydraulic turbine engineering, chemical processing of peat and shale, etc., made it possible to form the necessary technical base, as well as develop the human resources of scientific institutions and enterprises of the city.