Two presidents - two sciences

On September 10, the Gazeta.ru Internet portal published a large, might say program article by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev under a few pretentious heading, forcing both the extravagant Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi with his movement “Forward, Italy!”, And screamers of football fans ( www.gazeta.ru/comments/2009/09/10_a_3258568.shtml ).

Russia (well, at least that part of its population that has already joined all the charms of the Internet), of course, could not pass by such an extraordinary attempt by our young and advanced leader to turn to his people directly - with the help of modern technical means. On the first day, more than 800 responses to publication were registered on the portal, not counting the remote modrators.

It is necessary, however, to note that there has long been no particular novelty in this form of addressing the head of state to their people. Both foreign and domestic precedents are known. The Internet as a way of communicating with fellow citizens was adopted by another, no less young and technically competent president of another great power - the United States of America.

In April of this year, Barack Obama purposefully turned to the scientists of his country and the whole world, inspiring and encouraging all those for whom science has become the meaning of life. According to Mr. Obama, today, as never before, science is needed to increase the well-being, safety and health of people, to preserve the achieved quality of life without prejudice to the environment. The TRV was in Russia the only newspaper that decided to immediately translate into Russian and completely publish this, in our opinion, very important speech by the US President (TRV No. 10 (29), 05/26/2009). The performance of President Medvedev, of course, does not need translated and easily accessible to everyone. But we wanted to note the moments of circulation specialized for the scientific audience, without preparing in detail its general political sections - there will probably be those who will do it more thoroughly and qualified.

Approximately 13% of D.A. Medvedev’s speech is in one way or another devoted to science and education, including modern high technologies that are unthinkable without fundamental scientific recovery. This share is many times superior to the share of the state budget allocated in Russia for scientific research, which probably should instill some hopes in us ...

However, if you read these paragraphs of Dmitry Anatolyevich more closely, it creates a persistent impression that excessive optimism about the rapid revival of Russian science seems premature. Alas, to many of us, these paragraphs painted the behavior and statements of some famous characters from the school literature course.

In our editor, naturally, a polemic turned on how to illuminate the performance of the Russian leader. Different opinions were expressed: for example, it was proposed to perceive this article as "a rare (and therefore - especially valuable) attempt to speak the authorities in a more human language than usual." I recalled the open letter signed by D.A. Medvede, signed by more than 500 doctors of sciences, many academicians and members of the Russian Academy of Sciences (see p. 2 in this number of the TRV), which proposes specific and urgent measures to support and develop the competitive financing of scientific research in Russia as a key factor in preserving the country's scientific potential. We would like to hope that the president will be able to perceive fully the feeling of the importance and urgency of the problems that penetrate the letter of leading scientists in Russia, and the decisions made on them will be adequate all the seriousness of the challenges facing Russian science and education.

But so far, as a result, the internal -editing discussion, alas, was not, alas, not too flattering for our president, which we present to our readers.