ИСТИНА

Russia's tendency towards self-isolation from the rest of the world has always been among the most important factors in determining its national culture. In some periods this tendency took on extreme forms, while in others it was more relaxed. The establishment of the Academy of Science in St. Petersburg in 1724 was a serious attempt to reduce the degree of isolation, even though initially the Academy had to function in Latin, which later changed to German and then to French. Making Russian the language of science was another attempt to render Western scientific culture in a more accessible form. Tragically, the climax of this translating and printing activity fell on the years when Russian politics took a turn for the worse: the Soviet transformation of the state in the late 1920s and 1930s ensured its total isolation. Nevertheless, it was the 1930s that saw the appearance of an unprecedented corpus of scientific literature in the vernacular, covering mathematics, physics, biology, architecture, philosophy and linguistics. Practically no one is now aware that the majority of key texts on the theory and philosophy of architecture first appeared in Russian translation in the 1930s. An outstanding example is Vasiliĭ Zubov, the first translator of Vitruvius’ De architectura and Daniele Barbaro’s commentaries to it and also of some works by Leon Battista Alberti, including De re aedificatoria, De re ludi mathematici and Descriptio urbis Romae. Some of these are first translations into any foreign language. Vasiliĭ Zubov’s name in this context is especially interesting, because through his work he established connections between three different fields: history of art, history of philosophy and history of science. A different, although related example, is provided by the Newtonian tradition. Evidently, tentative efforts to translate Isaac Newton’s fundamental works had been undertaken as early as the 1860s – 1870s, at the same time as the first translations of Leibniz’s writings were published. The first parts of Alexei Krylov’s version of Newton’s Principia were published in 1914, soon after World War I had begun. At exactly the same time it emerged that somebody else, hiding under the fictitious names Chakalov / Chekalov / Chekanov, was working on an alternative version, which was only ready for publication in 1938. This project was closely connected with Boris Hessen, Adolf Yushkevich, and Nikolay Bukharin. By the time of World War II all these projects had been halted and their participants either executed or sent to labour camps, or at least deprived of the possibility of productive work. These tumultuous events had a profound effect on Russian/Soviet cultural life in general, leading to its deterioration in the long term. But the fruits of the period have unprecedented value which is still to be discovered.