Why Should We Subscribe to a Translation of Doklady?

Abstract

DURING this period of general reappraisal and readjustment of many political problems which face the West and the East, a deeper understanding and knowledge of the scientific endeavors of the two opposite camps is certainly in order. In this respect, the USSR, in particular, is doing splendid work in studying our physical and natural scientific literature and in translating and publishing enormous numbers of our texts and monographs. In the capacity of the Advisory Editor of the translation journal of the Doklady Botanical Sciences Sections Akademii Nauk SSSR, I constantly come across citations dated one year or more later than the publication of the same book in English. On checking, I find inevitably that the date referred to is that of the Russian translation of the English book. American scientists, on the other hand, are far less familiar with the Russian scientific literature. Because very few Americans know the language, our translation programs are limited. The limited knowledge of Russian literature often leads some scientists to the rather superficial conclusion that Russian research in biology, and in botany in particular, is guided by the prevalent theory held by those in political power. Some experiences in the past may have provided a foundation for this belief, but the USSR, being a dynamic society, changes and so does the attitude of the powers towards research and scientific freedom. It is true that scientific research in the USSR is organized and specialized, but that does not prevent valuable work being done. There are many scientific institutions in the USSR; some are connected with universities, regional academies, agricultural stations and forestry organizations, and others are connected with tropical, mountain, desert, swamp and polar stations. All of these institutions employ researchers who publish their results in either local publications or society journals. The most important papers are submitted to the supreme arbiter of research in natural sciences, the Akademii Nauk SSSR. Doklady Akademii Nauk is the official publication of this organization. It comes out in six volumes yearly, each containing some 1500 pp and good illustrations. Various groups of physical and natural sciences are represented in the Doklady, and the papers are sponsored accordingly by the academician in the particular field of knowledge. The papers in the field of biology, biochemistry and botany are translated from cover to cover in this country by the American Institute of Biological Sciences under a grant from the National Science Foundation. There are three translation journals which cover corresponding material of the Doklady. They are (1) Doklady Biological Sciences Sections, Dr. Charles C. Davis, Advisory Editor, (2) Doklady Biochemistry Sections, Dr. Jacob A. Stekol, Advisory Editor, and (3) Doklady Botanical Sciences Sections, Dr. Helen P. Sorokin, Advisory Editor. A young physicist who made an important discovery of a solid-state optical maser about a year ago has told me that he was very much stimulated in his research by a paper of two Russian physicists published in the Doklady. As a rule, the physicists read Doklady, and the translations are now to be found in almost every scientific library and laboratory of Englishspeaking countries. The distribution of and the subscriptions to the Doklady of the Biological, Botanical and Biochemical Science Series are still very unsatisfactory, however. Because the Botanical Sciences Sections is particularly poorly represented in the subscription field, special attention is given to it in this article. Many American scientists have an erroneous impresion that this journal represents an incidental collection of articles in a limited field of knowledge which neither describes the methods used nor cites the literature available. The reality is quite the opposite; practically all branches of botany are represented in the articles, the methods are fully described, the papers are condensed, precise, well-illustrated and contain (Continued on page 56)