"Anti -Soviet newspaper"

Should the newspaper produced by scientists and scientific journalists avoid political coloring with all their might? Even when the country is shaken by convulsions? We already had several cases when potential authors wrote us angry replicas like “Take your dolls, give my rags” after publishing politically colored materials. We were told about the following episode, which took place at the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics, to which the TRV devoted a lot of attention, trying to protect it from the new owners. From some point, a pack of TRV, laid out by the courier on the entrance for ITEF employees, began to disappear. Once, one of the employees saw a security guard carrying a pack of newspapers, and asked: where and why? The guard replied that he was carrying to throw away, that this is the order of the director, that this is an anti -Soviet newspaper.

Of course, politics is not our genre. And if she did not interfere with our lives shamelessly, if she had not pulled us in the Middle Ages, and the devil would be with her.

Unfortunately, science is inseparable from society. And fortunately, it is from this environment that help often comes. More than once it happened that the scientific community of its best representatives seemed to be as remote from life in their physical, mathematical or biological empires, recruited into politics. Unfortunately, worthy people are not always truly in demand by power and they do not always manage to physically survive, being near the Kremlin ...

And policy politics is different. When we write about politics in terms of education and self -organization of the scientific community, there are no conflicts, this is pretty many - from patriots to state husbands. But there is another policy associated with a civilization selection. Who are we: part of Western civilization (which includes a significant part of the Asian countries) or a special sovereign reserve of the Middle Ages? Which is not understood with the mind. - Western countries - strategic enemies or strategic partners? And here it takes a break, including the scientific community.

According to the FRV editor, this break does not go away. We are on one side, and here we need to utter a terrible word: TRV is a liberal newspaper. “Liberal” if liberalism is understood as commitment to a certain set of fundamental principles, such as a person’s primacy over the state, all sorts of rights and freedoms there, what is enshrined in our constitution, and what modern civilization rests with. The Fifth Column, in a word. Without hiding this, we lose some part of the audience, but we maintain self-esteem. And we support that part of the scientific community that associates itself with European culture. Of course, in our strange time, these people are pressure from all the ironing. It would be dishonest and even unethical not to provide at least some moral support of this part of the scientific community, to which both our colleagues and which, in fact, have no other resource.

The real threat to the newspaper is not a political position, but unfoundation. Many politicized media really suffer from this - versions prevail over facts, views on research, emotions over professionalism. It is not so simple to fight this: the authors want to speak out, the authors overwhelm their feelings ... This is where the editorial is a solid hand. It is on this part that we are ready to accept readers' claims.

Boris Stern , Maxim Borisov