The Emergence of Modern Scientific Communities in Late Imperial and Early Soviet Russia: The Case of the Moscow Linguistic Circle

Radunović, Dušan

Abstract

This article assesses the landscape of Russian studies of art and language in the period 1915-1929 in the light of the loosening of the system of social cohesion in Imperial years and in the context of the rise of ‘secular modernity’. The most relevant manifestations of these processes in the field of human sciences are the cognitive transformation of knowledge towards a non-semantic model of art and language and the definitive inauguration of the institutional mode of knowledge production. In order to elucidate the joint working of these two phenomena the paper focuses on the foremost scientific institution at the time, the Moscow Linguistic Circle, which emerges as the chief case study both for the scientific ideas it produced and for the mode of scientific research it espoused. The paper utilises Frickel and Gross’s general theory of scientific and intellectual movements and N. C. Mullins’s group model of scientific development to trace and explain the rise and fall of the Circle’s approach to art and language and finally evaluates the decline of the non-semantic study of art and language as an epistemological reversal indicating the failure of the Soviet 1920s to fulfil its modernising mission.

Citation

Radunović, D. (2017). The Emergence of Modern Scientific Communities in Late Imperial and Early Soviet Russia: The Case of the Moscow Linguistic Circle. Revue des études slaves (En ligne), 88(1-2), 137-150

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 1, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Sep 1, 2017
• Publication Date: Sep 1, 2017
• Deposit Date: Jun 14, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 8, 2017
• Journal: Revue des études slaves.
• Print ISSN: 0080-2557
• Electronic ISSN: 2117-718X
• Publisher: Institut d'études slaves
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 88
• Issue: 1-2
• Pages: 137-150
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1379290
• Publisher URL: http://institut-etudes-slaves.fr/products-page/domaine-culturel/1917-en-russie-la-philologie-a-lepreuve-de-la-revolution/