Ordinary falsity The scandal with the Moscow State University Scientific Research Center led Lenta.ru to the dissertation of Vladimir Thor

In mid-November 2012, the director of the SUSC and the chairman of the Moscow State University Student Union, Andrei Andriyanov, was caught in scientific forgery. He showed the journalists “additional issues” of scientific journals with his articles, unknown to the editors, the publication of which, according to the rules of the Higher Attestation Commission, is necessary for the applicant to be allowed to defend a scientific dissertation (no “additional” issues are suitable for this). In addition, both in these articles and in Andriyanov’s dissertation itself, which was successfully defended in the academic council of the Moscow Pedagogical State University (MPGU) in March 2011, there was a completely unacceptable amount of borrowing, or, simply put, plagiarism.

about the results of studying one of the articles , as well as Andriyanov’s dissertation itself Lenta.ru has already written . But those same “additional” issues of scientific journals with which our investigation began attracted the attention of Lenta.ru not only for this. Among the authors mentioned in the contents of these issues was Vladlen Leonidovich Kralin, better known as the Russian nationalist Vladimir Tor (he took this pseudonym for himself in the early 2000s). Thor, like Andriyanov, successfully defended his dissertation at Moscow State University for the degree of Candidate of Historical Sciences. "Lenta.ru" got acquainted with the text of this scientific work and also found a lot of interesting things in it.

The academic degree was awarded to Thor on November 26, 2011 by the same dissertation council of the Moscow Pedagogical State University, which made Andriyanov and a number of other researchers a candidate of sciences whose abstracts revealed non-existent publications (with the text of the corresponding order of the Ministry of Education and Science dated July 25, 2012 in .pdf format can be found on the website of the Higher Attestation Commission). Thor himself did not talk much about his degree. on his blog There is not a single mention of her , and for the first time Thor called himself a candidate of historical sciences before the elections to the Opposition Coordination Council. The topic of the dissertation, stated on the website of the Central Election Committee, is: “Russian diasporas in the CIS and Baltic countries.” However, in reality it sounds somewhat different: “Russian diaspora in the CIS and Baltic countries: numbers, settlement, participation in socio-political life (1991-2008).” Thor’s scientific advisor was Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor and Head of the Department of Public Relations at MGIMO Valery Dmitrievich Solovey , opponents - Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor of the Department of History and Political Science of the Russian State University of Tourism and Service Vitaly Fedorovich Ershov (on the Internet he is also mentioned as a professor at the Faculty of History of Moscow State University, but at the moment, judging by the official website, Ershov does not work there) and Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Modern and Contemporary History of Stavropol State University Olga Viktorovna Balandina . By the way, shortly before Thor she herself defended her dissertation at the same Moscow State Pedagogical University ( abstract in .doc format), and non-existent publications were also discovered in her , and the department in which Balandina - judging by her abstract - allegedly prepared her work, from meeting with this learned lady I have already disowned .

Thor's abstract indicates two publications in "Vak" publications: "Russian diaspora in Kazakhstan: numbers, settlement, political orientations at the turn of the 20th-21st centuries." in "Izvestia of the Altai State University" (series "Political Science. History", number 4/2 for 2010) and "The national question in the post-Soviet space in the 1990s: experience and lessons from history" in "Izvestia of the Russian State Pedagogical University . A.I. Herzen" (number 1 for 2011). But neither in the indicated issue of Izvestia ASU, nor in the indicated issue of Izvestia RGPU are there any articles by Vladlen Kralin. But the publication in the false additional issue of number 2 of the “RUDN University Bulletin” (series “History of Russia”) under the heading “Discrimination of the Russian and Russian-speaking population in the CIS and Baltic countries” is not mentioned in Thor’s abstract. This, however, also applies to the rest of the researchers from the “Vestnikov” presented by Andriyanov: almost all of them defended themselves in 2011-2012 at Moscow State Pedagogical University and “forgot” to indicate their articles from these additional issues in their abstracts. In general, this is not surprising, given that magazine editors know nothing about additional issues; It’s also not particularly surprising that the rest of the publications of most (but not all!) of the participants in the fake “Messengers” actually do not exist.

Therefore, the West’s position can hardly be called consistent. While there is not a single international institution capable of replacing Russia or the Russian-led CIS in establishing and maintaining peace in the territory of the former Soviet Union, all suspicions and accusations against Russia must be considered inappropriate

Vladlen Kralin (Vladimir Tor), dissertation (aka: Nadezhda Arbatova, “National interests and foreign policy of Russia”)

The degree of originality of Vladimir Tor's dissertation essay, as in the case of Andriyanov's dissertation, is small: borrowings from other people's abstracts and articles, word for word and without indicating the source, begin in the introduction. Its third paragraph, for example, differs by only five words from the second paragraph of the abstract of Ruslan Nurkaev, who in 2009 defended his PhD thesis at Moscow State University on the topic “Russian diaspora in the Baltic countries: social status, cultural level, connections with compatriots (1992-2003). )". Publications from Nurkaev’s abstract, it should be noted, also raise doubts about their authenticity.

Among Thor’s other sources, in which he did not change a word and which he did not indicate in the list of references, is the article by senior researcher at INION Tamara Kondratyeva “Diasporas in the modern world: the evolution of phenomena and concepts” (from the end of 15 to 21 pages - entirely text by Kondratieva), anonymous abstract “The mentality of the Russian diaspora in the Baltic countries” (copied, in turn, from the book (.doc) by Vladimir Zhirinovsky in 2001), the work of Doctor of Political Sciences Nadezhda Arbatova “National interests and foreign policy of Russia: European direction (1991-1999)" (it is freely available on the Internet on various websites with abstracts; from pages 27 to 50, Thor quotes Arbatova’s work with minor changes, but it is not in the list of references), a book by MGIMO Rector Anatoly Torkunov “Foreign political processes in the CIS”, preface by State Duma deputy Konstantin Zatulin to the book “Russian Diaspora in the CIS” (as well as an anonymous abstract , with which 10 pages coincide with Thor), essay the same Zatulin’s “A Kingdom Divided in Itself”, abstract (.doc) by Arshak Akopyan, who defended his PhD thesis on the topic “Historical experience and lessons in the formation of bilateral relations of the Russian Federation with the CIS countries (1992-1999)" all at the same Moscow State Pedagogical University and all with the same non-existent publication, Musa Ibragimov's doctoral dissertation "Formation and implementation of state migration policy in Russia in the 1990s." (defended at Moscow State Pedagogical University) and other works.

At the same time, the way Thor handles his sources also deserves special attention. Thus, borrowing large fragments of text from abstracts and monographs, the author of the dissertation changes the division into paragraphs. Because of this, logic suffers (when, in the middle of a paragraph, instead of Kazakhstan, for example, Kyrgyzstan suddenly appears - without any introductory structures or words) and sometimes facts. “Azerbaijan remained a European-oriented state, which obliged it to cultural and national tolerance. 1 million 342 thousand Russians lived in the state (3.2 million Russian-speaking),” writes Thor. Meanwhile, in “ Russian Diasporas in the CIS Countries, ” between these sentences there is not just a space, but also a subtitle: “Republic of Belarus.” Indeed, according to the census , in 1989, 1 million 342 thousand 99 Russians lived in Belarus, and not in Azerbaijan.

It is also interesting how Thor edits his sources. At the end of the second section of the dissertation, Thor writes: “The Russian Federation was forced to consider representatives of all the peoples of the country as compatriots.” The primary source (this time rather retold than simply copied) - the article by Miron Borgulev "Diaspora strategies of the CIS countries: Armenia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan" - says: "... representatives of the peoples of the Russian Federation should also be considered compatriots with full right." Or, for example, the phrase from Ibragimov’s dissertation “The able-bodied part of migrants was more loyal to government authorities and management” in Thor looks like “Ethnic Russians, as well as the able-bodied non-criminalized part of migrants were more loyal to government authorities and management.”

The Kazakhs, for the most part, did not succumb to nationalist viruses and lived in peace and harmony with their foreign brethren. Although, nationalist propaganda slowly corroded the young
minds. And people felt everyday nationalism more and more.

Vladlen Kralin (Vladimir Thor), dissertation

With such attention to nationalistically colored details, passages that have no correlation with the well-known ideology of the Torah look all the more surprising. In principle, the text of the dissertation supports the idea that nationalism is something bad that should be avoided. “Narrow nationalist” policies are called “discriminatory”, and nationalism itself is called a “formidable problem” (however, in the second case, Thor copies Arbatova’s work), “cave nationalism” and “militants of extremist nationalist organizations” appear. Copying from the work of Sergei Antufiev, he actually recognizes the superiority of some Russians over others: “At the same time, the Russians who arrived in Russia were carriers of a different mentality. They adopted some norms of behavior of the ethnic groups among which they lived. They were more hardworking, had high qualifications ", they were hospitable, accustomed to a relatively higher standard of living. Therefore, for most of the settlers, drunkenness and the lack of amenities in the Russian village were unusual."

However, if you close your eyes to these fragments, which often obviously do not belong to Thor, the main message of the dissertation will be more predictable: in the post-Soviet space, Russia is the greatest country, in the Baltic states Russians are discriminated against, in the CIS, if they are not discriminated against at the state level, then they are thriving all around." everyday nationalism,” and only in Belarus, where both the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian language (these two factors are discussed in detail in the dissertation when assessing the life of Russians abroad) have an excellent situation, compatriots live well.

Thor's dissertation has much in common with Andriyanov's dissertation, but it is worth mentioning the differences. So, Thor has many more spelling and punctuation errors and typos than the director of the Moscow State University Scientific Research Center, and in his sources he does not have his own works or programs for the development of anything, but there are anonymous (!) abstracts. But the main difference is the purpose of protecting such a dubious text. Why does careerist Andriyanov need a not entirely honest degree? It’s obvious: without this, he would hardly have been entrusted with the SUSC, and in general, it’s undignified to head the Moscow State University Student Union at the age of 30 and be a member of the ONF as a simple graduate of the chemistry department. But Thor seems to have no desire to teach or lead the Student Union with the ONF; In the Coordination Council of the Opposition, academic degrees are also not particularly looked at.

It is worth adding that Valery Solovy, another student of Tor’s supervisor, also wrote a dissertation on the national issue. Valery Solovey, known not only as the head of the department at MGIMO, but also as a Russian nationalist , supervised the work (abstract in .doc format) of Dmitry Veniaminovich Feoktistov for the degree of candidate of historical sciences on the topic "The national question in the programs of political parties and social movements of the Russian Federation in 1991-2008." The “Vakovsky” publications indicated in the abstract, in the “Bulletin of ASU”, “Bulletin of RPGU” (Thor was allegedly published in the same magazines) and in “Scientific Notes. Electronic scientific journal of Kursk State University” are absent. What unites Feoktistov with Thor is not only the missing publications and scientific director, but also nationalistic views.

Feoktistov's defense will take place on December 17 at 14:00 at the Moscow State Pedagogical University on Vernadsky Avenue.