War and Peace

Dear editors!

Last week I was thunderstruck by the news that Yuri Sergeevich Osipov was not going to compete again for the post of President of the Russian Academy of Sciences. It was as if the familiar world had collapsed: after all, it seemed to me that there were unshakable and eternal entities - the Sun was shining, it was getting warmer in the spring, and the Academy was headed by Yuri Sergeevich Osipov. And here it is.

You understand that in such conditions some Gorbachev or some Yeltsin may find himself on the crest of a wave. And he will begin to stir up trouble for the entire Academy, creating empty fuss under the guise of reforms. And if destruction begins at the Russian Academy of Sciences, then the waves will reach my native Moscow State University.

However, I am consoled by the thought that the Academy of Sciences is a serious and sedate structure. Like a flat river, it slowly flows from the depths of centuries into infinity. And it is headed not by some young reformers and managers who jumped out of foreign business schools, but by real elders. Therefore, one wise and gray-haired husband will most likely be replaced by another, even more wise and gray-haired husband - our Nobel laureate Zhores Ivanovich Alferov. And for up to a hundred years he will be able to lead the vanguard of our science from victory to victory and from achievement to achievement, guided by his knowledge and experience. So colleagues from the Academy will continue to live in a strong and indestructible inner world.

Such ideas bring me into a state of deep inner satisfaction, but other events still do not allow me to fully immerse myself in it. Our life is so structured that if lasting peace reigns somewhere, then war is raging somewhere.

And this war is thundering not somewhere in the thirtieth kingdom, but around the head of our scientific and educational community, the Minister of Education and Science Dmitry Viktorovich Livanov.

It seems that the widest and most diverse sections of the population have risen to support the minister. The resignation of Dmitry Viktorovich was demanded by the trade union of RAS workers, which appealed to the country's leadership and accused the minister of blindly copying foreign research experience, destroying the historically established scientific environment, attracting a foreign company to map Russian science, and, in general, the collapse of the scientific and educational sphere.

Russian followers of the FEMEN movement did not bother the Russian leadership and relied not on the depth of analysis, but on the visibility of the campaign. Half-naked girls performed last week in front of the ministry building under the slogans “Livanova - resign” and “Anti-plagiarism is a tool of sexual harassment.”

Finally, deputy of pedagogical sciences Vladimir Burmatov began his crusade against the leadership of the ministry, apparently personally convinced of the correctness of the slogans raised by the girls. The deputy, who lost his post as first deputy chairman of the education committee after accusations of plagiarism, but defended his honor, first accused several ministry leaders of plagiarism, and then demanded that an audit of the activities of the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys be organized during the period when it was headed by Dmitry Viktorovich.

Of course, I respect trade unions, half-naked activists, State Duma deputies and, in general, all minorities. I also already wrote that the deployment of anti-plagiarism hysteria is not to the benefit of our country, it is not for nothing that representatives of the so-called Opposition Coordination Council were in the forefront of the fight against plagiarism.

But I would like to point out one thing. The minister was put in his place for a reason, but with meaning, and by people who, in terms of their thinking capabilities, are absolutely no match for us. Therefore, to criticize the actions of a minister means to criticize the thoughts of those who put the minister in his place. Which, you know, is no good.

Now, if the highest authority expels the minister from his post, pointing out his mistakes, then we will immediately unanimously condemn him along with his mistakes, and, if necessary, brand him in the square with posters. In the meantime, there is no point in shaking your tits in front of the ministry: let the minister do his job and his mistakes, which we and I will later point out to him.

Yours Ivan Ekonomov