The great outcome of the minds

How do Russian scientists leave the country and equip in a new place?

The New Gazeta Europe talked with the mediawater Oleg Voskobobinikov and Antiquity Specialist Boris Nikolsky.

Boris Nikolsky

Doctor of Philology, Head of the Department of Antique Literature IMLI RAS (until 2022)

- Boris, good afternoon. Tell us what you did in science and where you worked before leaving Russia.

-I am a classic philologist, that is, I was engaged in Greek literature, first of all. My main place of work was the Institute of World Literature of the Academy of Sciences, where I headed the department of ancient literature. Well, besides this, I also taught at several institutes: at the Russian State Humanitarian University, at RANEPA, until some point I worked in the tower, but from there I was kicked out for political activity.

- When you were abroad this year?

- We left in early March, just gathering instantly. On the one hand, it was some kind of reaction to what happened because in the early days we tried to go to rallies, but then it became clear that it was completely pointless and very dangerous: my son and I were already under the same arrest, so the second arrest was already long, the third was generally a criminal article. In short, it was also dangerous, and most importantly, it is completely pointless.

At the same time, it was also impossible to stay in Russia and nothing was also impossible. The first days I tried to conduct lessons with students, but this was completely impossible, because everyone was in terrible depression, and it was completely incomprehensible why to read Plato, Aristophanes, when this was happening. This is one reason.

And at the same time, then there was a rumor that they could close the borders, and we instantly left. At first, I sent my eldest son so that he would not fall under mobilization, and the next day everyone else left. We thought to go to Tbilisi through Yerevan, but arrived in Yerevan and immediately we really liked it there, it was pleasant to a very friendly attitude towards us, and at the same time it was practically convenient, because the Mir cards worked there. And we decided to stay in Yerevan and stayed there for a long time, until the summer.

- And then?

- In Yerevan, we stayed numbers until July 10. At the same time, we still received Israeli citizenship: in early May we went to Israel for two weeks to get citizenship. And, in principle, I considered for myself the opportunity to stay in Israel, and my eldest son also thought about it. But I did not succeed with work there at all. Therefore, having received citizenship, we returned back to Armenia.

And then I was offered to participate in the PAUSE program (Programme National D'Ccueil En Urgence des Scientifiques En Exil), this is a French program for scientists in danger. A few years ago, five years ago, I was on an annual internship in Lyon, and I have here, on the one hand, my friends, my colleagues who work at the university. On the other hand, it was Institute of Advanced Studies, where from all over the world specialists who are engaged in a variety of sciences, while our communication still retains with my colleagues already at this institution. In addition, I was immediately offered an annual contract regardless of the PASE program, that is, I already rode in any case to the place where they were waiting for me. At the same time, we submitted this program and finally received it.

- That is, now you have a one -year contract in Lyon.

- Yes, I have a annual contract in Lyon, while under this very Pace program, that is, this program suggests that the French state pays half of my salary, the institute pays the second half.

- How do you work in a new place?

- Very good. Well, I know my local colleagues well here. Such a new thing for me is what I had to teach. Despite the fact that the place to which they took me is a research place, and, in principle, it is not necessary to teach me, but I was offered, and it was not very convenient for me to refuse, because they did a lot of things for me. And if they want to give me some course, which, obviously, there was no one to read, then I did not want to refuse. Well, I wanted to take a chance, because still with completely different students, to work in a non-native language-it was, of course, very interesting. I was very afraid, but now I am very happy about this, this is really a wonderful experience, I am very pleased.

- Your colleagues at a new place of work - how much does this community replaces the Moscow Circle of Professional Communication for you?

-I have no such extra quasi-patriotism, but nevertheless I am absolutely convinced that the level of my Moscow colleagues is higher than the level of Lyon and even Parisian.

So, in principle, of course, I feel this difference. But there is the Internet, so now, in general, nothing prevents me from virtually staying in Moscow.

And I continue to participate in the meetings of our department at the Institute of World Literature. That is, I left the manager, formally left there, but really I still continue to work with them, so, in general, I can’t say that I do not have enough. In general, every week we meet in the same way as we met before. And several weeks ago, at the end of October, at the beginning of November we held a large conference in Yerevan on the neutral territory where all my Moscow colleagues arrived, and we met, so quite, yes, I have enough communication with them.

- And the students? How do you assess the level of French students compared to Moscow?

- It is difficult for me to accurately judge, because in Russia I taught ... you can call it a course of Greek. This is not quite a language, it is a course of Greek authors, that is, we read Greek authors, read, analyzed the structure of the structure, linguistic issues, literary studies in detail. Here I have a course of the history of Greek literature, while it still consists of reading some specific passages from individual authors, but we read much faster, and that I generally forbade my students to categorically do in Moscow-it is not good for Russian translations, because it is at all good if you learn the language. For the course of the history of literature, where you need to read a lot, I, on the contrary, ask them to do it.

Therefore, it is difficult for me to compare their level of knowledge of the language, as far as they see the text. As for their activities by ancient literature itself, it is very interesting to compare, because, on the one hand, they are simply incomparably more diligent. That is, if I give the task, it will be performed from beginning to end.

Along with this, they, it seems, is not so less free, but they are a little shy. Now, having already pierced them with them, I overcame this fear. As I understand it, I do not really want to generalize, it is clear that I only have one example before my eyes, but it seems to me that this is the result of such a French education. I do not work at the university, but in Ecole Normale Superieure, that is, this is a system of education when they are in preparatory classes in the lyceum before this, in the classrooms of “Pepa”, endlessly pass exams.

And so they endlessly pass the exams, they are used to working a lot - this has two sides: on the one hand, they are very diligent, but on the other hand, they are all the time in this situation of a constant exam. And therefore, they also consider me as an examiner, and this is their difference from Russian students, who completely did not treat me as an examiner completely freely behaved. But again, this is also a matter of time, in the end, I have been working with them for 2.5 months, now they have already ceased to be afraid of me and now they are already willing to say in the lesson.

Oleg Voskobobonikov

Doctor of Historical Sciences, PhD of the Higher School of Social Sciences (Paris), co -founder and supervisor of the Stradarium project

- Oleg, please tell us about what area of ​​science you were engaged in Russia and when did you leave?

- I do media, that is, the Western Middle Ages. The second region is also large, associated with mediastics, but slightly wider, is the history of art. I have taught and teach so far the history of art in the Higher School of Economics and at the same time created there and participate in the life of the master's program "Medievsties".

Left on March 5, more or less where his eyes looked. So far, donkey in the Emirates, just for family circumstances: the wife was evacuated here, and we are waiting for an Italian visa. Waiting for us, apparently, a year or something like that. And when I realized that we were here for a long time, in the summer I knocked on the Abu Dabi sorbonne and here I teach the Introduction to Research Methodology to local archivists in English. I am engaged in my medieval and art history studies, because there is some kind of library, there are electronic resources, there are manuscripts scanned, so, in general, there is more or less something to do.

- The position that you received under the sorbonne there is temporary?

- Of course, they sheltered me, let's say, given the circumstances. I had such a story shortly before the war: for a month to go to the invited professor to Bologna University. Of course, they were forced to refuse such an official status, since I am not Scholar at Risk, there are no traces of beatings or drives to the police (that is, but in his student years and not at all for resistance to the bloody regime). In general, I went in the Visiting Fellow Status Only meshmo status, gave a couple of lectures in Bologna, that’s all, in fact, ended.

In general, I hope, although not too much, in a year still to get to Italy, because it is my country. Two Western countries with which I am connected by the ties of language and academic interests is Italy, because I am Italian, and France, because I studied and defended the dissertation in Paris at one time.

- What is your impression of students in a new place, how can they be compared with Moscow?

-I am so attached, of course, to my Moscow students that I do not want to compare them with anyone-neither with Paris, nor Bologna, nor with Abu Dhabi. To be honest, this may be a lyrical note, but emigration is emigration, I miss them.

Abu-Daban students and students are mostly Emirate guys, and this is just a different world. To come to them with their VSHSHKINS requests is something abnormal. But I feel good with them. I can tune in, rebuilt and came up with such a medicine: my friends, the creators of the public “suffering from the Middle Ages”, made themselves something like an online university called “suffereium”. He quite officially exists for himself, and we give lectures there, I call friends, colleagues, senior, younger, different.

“The Stradarium” for me is to some extent an outlet, because you can do it anywhere: we give lectures online, and we have a very motley audience. This Russian -speaking audience is really on five continents, you know? In general, it costs any university. In the midst of all this in Russia, that abroad, the war of everyone is against all, is an island of a normal conversation about literature, about art, about history ... There was no philosophy yet, but there will be, about monkeys and people, about space. I hope that we will have everything. This is a very lively Russian -speaking story, on which I personally have very high hopes. Maybe even big than, in fact, on some kind of academic environment.

No one will force me to stop writing, I still write-in Russian, Italian, French, and it is not yet forbidden to publish me in Russia and are ready in the West.

This to some extent, it seems to me, depends on how much my own internal forces will have enough, because, of course, I lack the environment here, such an environment of communication, which is in Italy or in France. I'm not talking about Russia, where all mine remained and all mine.

In the Emirates, such a scientific environment is not so easy for itself, although the local sorbonne is very, very sensitive, hospitable, ready to help-not in the sense of money, this is not the money that we all dream of. But I come there every day, sit in the library, read books, go down to the dining room - and meet friends there. This is a lot!

-Other professors and teachers of the local Sorbonne are mainly those who are invited from abroad, or local personnel?

- In half. Basically, young, slightly younger than me, in the region of 35–40 years old, associate professors that lead areas, conduct seminars and general courses. And they come from the Parisian sorbonne of the professor on two -week business trips. Every day they spend massive courses with local students for four hours.

That is, it is somewhat reminiscent of, in fact, the French University College in Moscow and its analogue in St. Petersburg who died at the beginning of the war. You have several Frenchmen who teach literature, right, history, sociology, something like that, and as if stars, that is, a real French professor, sometimes Maîtres du Conférences, in our opinion, who come and give lectures a little in English, a little French.

Students, it seems to me, are 90 percent - local, in any case, Arabs. They are very educated, calm, smiling. I can’t say that everything is clear to me, their motivation is not always clear, what to demand from them, what not to demand. But they listen and absorb like sponges. They study, I study.

- It's clear. And how did it happen that you say, there are archives there, that is, how did Western European medieval archives end up in these of your lands?

- Yes, no, well, of course, there are very few Western ones. I’m just learning the archivists. And my Western manuscripts are very many on the sites of the corresponding bookstores, the French National Library, Vaticanov, Britains, and so on, I can work with them. Or they send me how the microfilms used to work, 20 years ago, now just electronic media. I am sitting and preparing a critical publication by one by God and people of the forgotten Latin text of 1265, which, apparently, had read before me. And to me, in general, to be honest, it doesn’t care where to cook it-in Moscow, in Bologna or in Abu Dhabi. Even in Abu Dhabi, it went better, because when you pressed you, you sit in the corner “and there’s nowhere to go to visit”, you have three and a half friend-the same reserves like you, then you sit down to transmit manuscripts.

Of course, I want to go to a large good library. Now give me the opportunity to settle, I don’t know, 30 km from Paris - it will be better for me, because I can regularly be in my favorite national library. Or there near Milan, because there are great libraries there and there is an academic environment, the medievalists are alive with whom you can drink coffee, talk, everything is really. But since this is not, and the instinct does not go anywhere to engage in science, then I continue to engage in it. And in the Abudab Sorbonne there is someone to cooperate with.

In the beginning it was completely bad. Like everyone. On the fifth day of the war, together with my wife, we decided: all, played in the cards with a devil. They threw everything, slammed the doors and left. But then it is necessary to somehow live. We hoped that maybe two months, maybe a nightmare would last three months. The nightmare did not end, and after Buch and Mariupol, respectively, visa problems were increasingly tightened. So we turned out to be a little hostage to the situation. We hoped to get for three months Italian visa - a horseradish from two, some sticks - in some wheels, other sticks - to other wheels, on both sides. The sanctions were all intensified and intensified, but in the Emirates so far we are suffered, we will sit until the summer. We will look further. While there is a roof over your head and there is some kind of work, you can, firstly, engage in science, and secondly, enlightenment through the same “sufferium” and my modest telegram channel “Wax in Details” , where I share thoughts about the history of art.