Recognized as discreditable

Experts of the Council of the Higher Certificate Commission on History stated by the Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky "the absence of basic professional skills of the historian, primarily a scientific source analysis of the sources attracted by him." So the Council commented on his recommendation to deprive the Minister of the Scientific degree of the Doctor of Historical Sciences, the Trinity Option reports .

"The speeches in support of the dissertation of Medinsky often say that it cannot be deprived of a degree, since there is no plagiarism in its dissertation. But only the absence of plagiarism is not yet a guarantee of the compliance of the work for the requirements for a doctoral dissertation. At the same time, the approval of the presence of plagiarism elements has never been the main claim to the author," the experts of experts said.

The experts of the Higher Attestation Commission called the accusations of "persecution" of Medinsky. The statement emphasizes that the conclusion of the Council "does not affect either the personality or the diverse activities of Medinsky at the posts held by him." According to experts, the situation around the dissertation of Medinsky intends to give a “political or ideological coloring” to “distract the discussion from the scientific field into the sphere of political and information technology”.

"The recommendation of the Expert Council to deprive the Medinsky degree of Doctor of Historical Sciences is by no means disagreement with his" vision of history "or with his" patriotic position. "We are deeply convinced that unqualified, non -professional work discredits domestic science and thereby can be considered an antipatriotic phenomenon," experts concluded.

Medinsky himself said that he would give a detailed comment regarding the claims to his doctoral dissertation only after October 20, when the VAK Presidium finally decides the fate of the degree of the official.

On October 2, the Expert Council voted for the deprivation of the Medina degree of a doctor of historical sciences.

The official opinion of the Higher School experts says that in his work Medinsky did not open anything new. “The fact that many foreigners in their writings“ were tendentious ”and wrote“ under the influence of a certain political conjuncture ”, since 1866, has been known to Russian historical science thanks to the classical work of Vasily Klyuchevsky“ The Tale of Foreigners about the Moscow State, ”the document says. Medinsky also stated in the dissertation that“ the national interests of Russia create an absolute standard of truthfulness. ” contradicts the methodological principles of historical science.

According to experts, the minister enjoyed the translations of sources, and not by the originals, selectively quoted the annals. The expert council also doubted that Medinsky generally worked in the archives. “Of course, individual flaws, errors, inaccuracies, typos can be in any study. But in the dissertation of Medinsky, their number goes off scale, being a systemic, qualitative problem,” the Higher School experts came to the conclusion.

The next day, the Minister of Education and Science Olga Vasilieva said that two dissertation councils had already made a positive decision regarding the work of Medinsky and noted that there was no plagiarism in the dissertation . “A very important point is the lack of plagiarism in work. Well, the fact that the author introduced his vision of history, this is just the very polemic story that should be,” said Vasilieva. At the same time, the theme of plagiarism in the conclusion of experts was not raised at all.

The Chairman of the Expert Council of the VAK , a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Pavel Uvarov also spoke out against the deprivation of the Medine degree. “Despite the formal point of the Protection Regulation, which provides for the imprisonment of the low quality of work as a historian - and I am engaged in the history of universities - I am sure that the degree received subject to the formal procedure is not subject to cancellation. This is not a contract and not a contract, and justified, to the dissertation council, to the opponents, but not to the dissertant,” said Uvarov.

According to the chairman, members of the Council, who voted against the deprivation of the minister of a scientific degree, were guided by the same considerations. “Although the arguments of the majority are also clear. After all, we were asked about the quality of the dissertation, not about high matters. And we could only answer on the merits of the dissertation,” said Uvarov.

In April last year, the application for the deprivation of the Medine degree was submitted by the Doctor of Historical Sciences Vyacheslav Kozlyakov, Konstantin Yerusalimsky and the holder of the degree of PH.D. Ivan Babitsky. Having analyzed the dissertation of the Minister "Objectivity Problems in the coverage of Russian history of the second half of the XV-XVII centuries," they have called into question its scientific value.