Description
Book SynopsisThis study explores the evolution of Lomonosov’s imposing stature in Russian thought from the middle of the eighteenth century to the closing years of the Soviet period. It reveals much about the intersection in Russian culture of attitudes towards the meaning and significance of science, as well as about the rise of a Russian national identity, of which Lomonosov became an outstanding symbol. Idealized depictions of Lomonosov were employed by Russian scientists, historians, and poets, among others, in efforts to affirm to their countrymen and to the state the pragmatic advantages of science to a modernizing nation. In setting forth this assumption, Usitalo notes that no sharply drawn division can be upheld between the utilization of the myth of Lomonosov during the Soviet period of Russian history and that which characterized earlier views. The main elements that formed the mythology were laid down in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; Soviet scholars simply added more exaggerated layers to existing representations.
Trade Review“The substance and merit of Usitalo’s study is his richly documented and copiously footnoted critical reconstruction of the myth of Lomonosov the scientist and its growth and reconfigurations over time, set within the broader context of the pan-European perception of scientific biography.”
— Marcus C. Levitt, University of Southern California, in the Slavic and East European Journal, 58.2 (Summer 2014)
“The Invention of Mikhail Lomonosov has potential appeal to a number of audiences. For historians of science, this study provides insight into the particularities of the Russian case and how it differs from, and is similar to, the veneration and self-fashioning of non-Russian scientists such as Galileo in early modern Europe or Benjamin Franklin in the United States. Historians of Russia and the Soviet Union will also profit from this book’s intriguing ideas about the ‘mythogenic’ qualities of Russian culture, where cults of personality— beginning with political figures and extending to the pantheon of literary, engineering, and cosmonaut heroes—play such a prominent role in politics and in the propagation of ideas about what it means to be a Russian.”
— Andrew Jenks, Isis, Vol. 105, No. 3 (September 2014)
