The Commercialization of Scholarship in the Former Soviet Union

Abstract

Since the breakup of the Soviet Union and the end of communist party dictatorship, opportunities for research have expanded spectacularly. Scholarly research can now be attempted in areas previously closed and with materials the existence of which we could never before ascertain. However, as we all know, these enhanced opportunities come with new costs and obstacles for which we, as a community, are largely unprepared. In the new research climate, traditional ethical norms governing the practice of scholarship are being challenged. At the same time, scholars in the former Soviet Union face extremely difficult conditions. They have experienced severe declines in the purchasing power of their relatively fixed incomes, many have been laid off and their expertise is often not convertible into skills that new entrepreneurs value. As budgetary institutions, research institutes are losing their subsidies, their abilities to participate in the international research world, and capabilities for basic physical plant upkeep. In this time of severe economic crisis, with the failure of the old institutions and the weakness of new or fragmentary institutions during the conversion to a market, the most elemental aspects of market relationships are present. This means that each steward (who is most often the bureaucratic custodian and not the owner) of a research asset will tend to seek the highest bidder. In some cases, this practice is undertaken for personal profit but, in many cases, charging for research sources or soliciting equipment is indispensable to complete research projects already underway (including collaborative ones with US scholars), to underwrite future research and to preserve the infrastructure itself. Further, the need may be so great, especially for basic maintenance of the asset, that any opportunity, even unorthodox, will be used. Thus, the market has in this area an uninhibited and unpredictable character. The outcome is a growing commercialization of scholarship taking many forms. Some of the most obvious examples include: substantial fees for use of research materials (including but not limited to archives); scales of charges that may be different at different times, for different users and in different regions; and barter agreements in place of direct payments, so that gifts of equipment become fees for what would normally be cost-free scholarly collaboration. An additional degree of complexity is introduced by the pressure to limit access to sources to indigenous scholars who have been cut off for decades from their own past and whose recovery of their own culture and very identity has become a policy issue for archive mnan-