Why did the Vak Council vote to withdraw the Medinan degree. What does the council's recommendation to revoke a medical doctorate mean?

The Presidium of the Higher Attestation Commission (HAC), which met at 11 am on Friday, October 20, to decide the fate of the doctoral dissertation of the Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky, the scientific value of which had serious doubts, decided to leave the head of the Ministry of Culture as a doctor of historical sciences.

"They left the doctor of sciences. 14 - "for", six - "against," a source who participated in the meeting of the presidium of the Higher Attestation Commission told Interfax. This was also stated by philologist Ivan Babitsky, an expert of the free network community Dissernet, who was present at the meeting, RBC reports. The vote was not secret, the decision was made by a show of hands - a simple majority.

Sergei Parkhomenko, co-founder of Dissernet, commenting on this decision, said that the VAK presidium "considered the issue of its reputation and decided that it could well do without it in the future. The issue of Medinsky's reputation was resolved earlier." He commented on the results of the vote on his page in Facebook like this: "Six people" for "deprivation Medina degree Because reputation matters. 14 people are "against" deprivation, and let the reputation go to waste. Four people "abstained" - because reputation does not matter at all. This is how they will continue to live."

Earlier, the vice-president of the Liberal Mission Foundation, Doctor of Philosophy Igor Klyamkin, already wrote that the incident with Medinsky's dissertation could enter Russian history as. "This incident will go down in history in any case. But it can go down in it as a marker of the state of dishonor, or maybe as an example of the successful resistance of society to state dishonor in one, separately taken area of ​​decaying sociality," the professor wrote.

Thus, the VAK presidium ignored doubts in the scientific value of the dissertation and rejected the recommendation of his own expert council, which is considered a very rare case in the scientific community.

Explaining the decision of the scientists, academician Alexander Chubaryan, who participated in the meeting, told TASS that "the presidium did not decide on the approval or disapproval of the dissertation on the merits, the task was to make a decision on the proposal to deprive the degree, and the presidium of the Higher Attestation Commission made a decision, not to set a precedent."

In total, the meeting, which instead of the expected one hour lasted about two hours, was attended by 32 people - 20 members of the Higher Attestation Commission and 12 experts on the topic of the dissertation. From VAK, among others, the chairman of the commission Vladimir Filippov, his deputies - academician, psychiatrist Lubomir Aftanas, rector of ITMO, doctor technical sciences Vladimir Vasiliev, sociologist, Doctor of Philosophy Vladimir Shults and President of St. Petersburg State University, Doctor of Philology Lyudmila Verbitskaya. In addition, the presidium included the chief scientific secretary Igor Matskevich, who, on October 18, by order of the Russian government, replaced Nikolai Arister in this position. He led the "Medinsky case", and after his dismissal from the VAK, there were no more documents on the dissertation left, and there was no one to ask questions about where everything had gone, Sergey Parkhomenko wrote earlier.

Sergey Chernyakhovsky, a representative of Medinsky, doctor of political sciences, said that the minister's speech "at the presidium of the Higher Attestation Commission caused applause."

Medinsky himself, noting that they voted "70% in favor", thanked the presidium of the Higher Attestation Commission for the fact that his dissertation was considered objectively and that he was allowed to express his point of view, RIA Novosti reports. He stressed that the comments of the presidium members were balanced and meaningful, and promised to take them into account in further work.

The meeting was also attended by Deputy Minister of Science and Education Grigory Trubnikov, and the head of the ministry, Olga Vasilyeva, said the day before that she would not take part in the meeting: "I can't, I'm a minister. I can't be on the presidium," she said.

exodus before last day remained a mystery, before the vote there were signs that it could be objective - for example, the VAK expert council supported the proposal to deprive Medinsky degree doctor of historical sciences, from the commission brought out several people, including the chief scientific secretary Nikolai Arister.

The gist of the claims against Medinsky's dissertation was that it was "unscientific" and proved that all the unattractive aspects of Russian history were invented by the hostile forces of the West.

The Ministry of Education and Science promised to prepare an order in the near future

“It can be concluded that the Santa Barbara series, which lasted more than a year, is over,” said Mikhail Myagkov, scientific director of the RVIO, who represented the interests of Medinsky. He also noted that the adoption of a different decision by the presidium of the WAC would open a "Pandora's box".

"We ... would get a situation where each student could write a slander against his teacher. But today's discussion was about science," Myagkov said.

Medinsky's dissertation case is classified for everyone except Medinsky

Among the claims against Medinsky, the issue of the third version of the dissertation abstract, presented by the minister's representatives after the scientists named as opponents in his defense, announced that they were not opponents. After that, a version of the abstract with other opponents was presented.

In the scientific community, they started talking about the falsification of the defense, but it was not possible to clarify the issue, since the chairman of the Higher Attestation Commission, Vladimir Filippov, refused to give the presidium member, scientific supervisor State Archive Sergei Mironenko was given an attestation case on the history of Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky, Mironenko told RBC.

“I tried for several days to get his file, at first they didn’t give me a clear answer, but now they told me that this can’t be done,” Mironenko said. According to him, Vladimir Filippov explained his refusal by the fact that the procedure stipulates the right to issue an attestation file for review for a dissertation student, but not for someone else. On this basis, the head of the Higher Attestation Commission concluded that he had no right to issue this case to anyone other than Medinsky.

"As far as I know, if a ban is not prescribed, then it is possible. And I made this argument, but it did not work," Mironenko said.

Medinsky defended his dissertation in 2011 at the Russian State Social University (RGSU). However, after confusion with the names of opponents there were suspicions that he did not protect her at all.

In April 2016, historians Vyacheslav Kozlyakov and Konstantin Yerusalimsky, as well as Dissernet expert Ivan Babitsky, filed an application to deprive the minister of his doctoral degree. They called the minister's dissertation unscientific and "absurd in places", revealing "gross mistakes" in it.

Since the Discussion Council of the RSSU was dissolved, the issue of Medinsky's academic degree was transferred to the Ural federal university. Subsequently, the Higher Attestation Commission instructed the dissertation council of the history department of Moscow State University to study the dissertation of the minister, but he refused to consider the work of the minister on the merits. After that, the documents were sent to the Belgorod State University, where they refused to recognize the claims to the work of Medinsky.

In October 2017, the expert council of the Higher Attestation Commission supported the application to deprive Medinsky of the degree of Doctor of Historical Sciences, since the author of the dissertation missing"Basic Skills of a Historian".

Medinsky insists: the main thing is not history, the main thing is national interests

When on October 2 the expert council on the history of the Higher Attestation Commission recommended that Minister Vladimir Medinsky be deprived of the degree of Doctor of Historical Sciences, scientists emphasized that his claims to the dissertation were not in the field of plagiarism, but related to its "scientific nature", in particular, the methodology - incorrect references, controversial sources, from -for which the dissertation on the topic "Problems of objectivity in coverage Russian history second half of the XV - XVII centuries. "turned out to be a work that all the unsightly aspects of Russian history are "black myths" invented by the hostile forces of the West. Scientists came to the conclusion that the dissertation "discredits domestic science."

In response to this statement, MGIMO professor Mikhail Myagkov, adviser to the head of the Ministry of Culture, who represented the interests of the minister at dissertation councils, as well as Sergei Chernyakhovsky, professor of Moscow State University, a member of the Science Council of the Ministry of Culture, said that the conclusion of the VAK expert council was biased.

Medinsky himself believes that all the opponents' claims were not substantive, but ideological. He explained that he approached the assessment of certain historical events in his dissertation "not from an abstract point of view, but from the point of view of the national interests of the state at a given historical stage." At the same time, he stated that he put Russia's interests above certain "abstract positions, general historicism."

The situation with Vladimir Medinsky's dissertation, which seemed to have been resolved after the decision of the Belgorod dissent council on the absence of claims to the scientific work of the minister, was again in the spotlight. On Monday, the expert council of the Higher Attestation Commission on history by a majority of votes recommended to deprive the minister of the degree of doctor of historical sciences. Vladimir Medinsky himself has not yet commented on the situation, his assistant advised him to “ignore” this decision. The minister has a chance to keep his degree: the recommendation of the expert council must be approved by the presidium of the Higher Attestation Commission.

Ivan Babitsky, an expert of the Dissernet network community, who was present at the meeting, announced the decision of the expert council on history. “The thing that had to happen happened. The expert council of the Higher Attestation Commission on history has just decided by an overwhelming majority to support our application to deprive Medinsky of the degree of Doctor of Historical Sciences, ”he wrote in Facebook.

Recall that an application demanding to deprive Mr. Medinsky of his doctoral degree was filed in April 2016 by historians Vyacheslav Kozlyakov and Konstantin Yerusalimsky and linguist Ivan Babitsky. In their opinion, the minister's dissertation "Problems of objectivity in the coverage of Russian history in the second half of the 15th-17th centuries" is unscientific. In addition, they pointed to plagiarism and forgery when preparing a dissertation - according to them, the minister referred to non-existent monographs. Their application was to be considered first by the Ural Federal University Discussion Council, then by the Moscow State University Discussion Council. As a result, the work of Mr. Medinsky was evaluated in July 2017 by the dissertation council of Belgorod State University, whose members refused to recognize the presence of plagiarism. According to them, the minister's dissertation "contains some elements of tendentiousness," but its scientific nature has not suffered from this.

“Members of the Belgorod dissident council attended the meeting of the expert council on Monday. They insisted that they were not supposed to evaluate the minister's dissertation itself, but only the credibility of our statement, ”the Dissernet expert told Kommersant. Also at the meeting were members of the RSSU dissenting council, where the minister defended his dissertation. “They were asked why it happened that all three opponents of the minister were not experts on the topic of his dissertation. They answered: “We have no doubt that they have a broad scientific outlook,” said Mr. Babitsky. As a result, the council voted in favor of the recommendation to deprive the minister of his degree. A member of the expert council, Doctor of Historical Sciences Marina Moseykina, in an interview with Kommersant, emphasized that "during the voting, the majority voted in favor, but the decision was not made unanimously."

Vladimir Medinsky himself, who called the claims against his dissertation a "political order", has not yet commented on the council's decision. His assistant, scientific director of the Russian Military Historical Society, Mikhail Myagkov, called the decision "predictable, but not final." “They ignored the decisions taken earlier by Moscow State University and Belgorod University not to deprive Medinsky of the degree of Doctor of Historical Sciences,” Mr. Myagkov noted in an interview with RIA Novosti. ". The assistant minister advised "not to pay much attention" to the position of the expert council, stressing that final decision will be issued by the presidium of the VAK.

Indeed, according to the standard procedure, the recommendation of the expert council is considered and approved by the presidium. “The Expert Council is the highest professional authority. And on the presidium there are people from all councils, all specialties, historians there are no more than 15%, - Mr. Babitsky told Kommersant. - Usually he accepts the recommendations of the expert council. There are rare, isolated cases when new circumstances or additions appear - then the case is again returned to the expert council. But more often than not, the presidium simply agrees with the opinion of experts.” Dissernet suggests that this time everything could be different: “The story is very resonant, dedicated to the dissertation of a high-ranking official, and we understand that under such political circumstances, the presidium will be able to come up with some way out so that the minister retains his degree and face ". Nevertheless, the applicant believes that he has won a moral victory: “It is no longer so important whether he will have a crust or not. The Expert Council is the highest authority in the country's historical community."

The head of the VAK, Vladimir Filippov, was unavailable for comment. A source in the Higher Attestation Commission noted in a conversation with Kommersant that “today there was only a meeting of the expert council”: “Whatever decision they make, everything will still be decided at the presidium on October 20.” Member of the Presidium of the Higher Attestation Commission, Head of the Department of the History of Ideas and Methodology of Historical Science high school Economics Igor Danilevsky also did not comment on the information about the decision of the expert council: "We have not yet received the materials of the council in the presidium."

Alexander Chernykh, Valeria Mishina

The decision was announced at 16:45 Moscow time, Babitsky specified. 17 people voted for the deprivation of Medina's doctorate in history, three against and one abstention. The voting was secret, he told RBC. Medinsky himself was not at the council, Babitsky remarked. Instead of the minister, his representatives were present at the VAK: Head of the Center for the History of Wars and Geopolitics of the Institute world history RAS Mikhail Myagkov, presenter Researcher Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences Konstantin Averyanov and member of the Public Council of the Ministry of Culture Sergei Chernyakhovsky.

Denmark is not Scandinavia

Ivan Babitsky filed an application for depriving Medinsky of the degree of Doctor of Historical Sciences in April 2016, in addition to him, two doctors of historical sciences were among the applicants - Konstantin Yerusalimsky and Vyacheslav Kozlyakov. The applicants' comments relate to the Minister's scientific methodology, which he used in his dissertation. Medinsky at work evaluates historical events, weighing them "on the scales of Russia's national interests", and this contradicts the scientific approach, which implies objectivity and non-judgment in the analysis of the material, the applicants pointed out. In addition, Medinsky, they noted, incorrectly formatted references to sources. Thus, Medinsky referred to a “scandalous for serious research” resource specializing in the sale of abstracts on the Internet.

Scientists believe that the minister's text is "replete with gross errors." For example, he writes that during the reign of Ivan the Terrible, church books in Russia were written in Russian, so it was easy to understand them, in contrast to the religious works of Catholics and Protestants, written in Latin. “In one sentence, he was able to show that he knew nothing about such a phenomenon as the Church Slavonic language, nor about the translation Holy Scripture on the German made by Luther,” the statement said. In addition, Medinsky believes that the Russians were the first among the Europeans to face the attack of non-Christians. However, two and a half centuries before the baptism of Russia (988 AD), in 732, in the battle of Poitiers, the French stopped the invasion of the Arabs, scientists remind. Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, an Italian humanist of the 15th century, Medinsky considers a German, and disputes the version of the origin of Rurik from Denmark by saying that the annals say: the prince was a Varangian and came from Scandinavia (Denmark belongs to Scandinavia).

Intermediate Solution

The recommendation to deprive Medinsky of his academic degree does not mean that the minister will lose it. After the decision of the expert council, the presidium of the Higher Attestation Commission chaired by the head of this structure, the rector Russian University Friendship of Peoples Vladimir Filippov. The final decision of the Presidium is approved by the Ministry of Education and Science. ​

Prior to the expert council, Medinsky's dissertation materials were considered by three dissertation councils. In October 2016, the Higher Attestation Commission sent them to the Ural Federal University in Yekaterinburg, but the meeting was first canceled at the request of Medinsky, who could not come due to a busy schedule, and a few days later the dissertation was withdrawn because the deadline for its consideration had expired. In February 2017, Moscow State University did not become the Minister's work on the merits, since no plagiarism was found in it. At that time, some members of the dissenting council stated that the MSU experts were not provided with a dissertation for consideration at all.

In July 2017, the dissertation council of Belgorodsky state university to deprive Medinsky of the degree of Doctor of Historical Sciences - 19 out of 22 members of the council voted in support of the minister. In addition, the council concluded that the announcement of the Minister's deprivation of the degree was made in a "cheeky, offensive tone that has nothing to do with scientific discussion."

Mikhail Myagkov, a supporter of Medinsky, from the Center for the History of Wars and Geopolitics of the Institute of World History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, believes that the expert council showed "unprofessionalism" because it did not take into account the position of the BelSU and Moscow State University dissident councils. “In any case, this is a technical decision, which, in fact, means nothing. We are waiting for the meeting of the presidium of the VAK,” Myagkov summed up.

Calls the decision "" and the press secretary of Medinsky Irina Kaznacheeva. “If you remember, there was a positive conclusion of two dissenting councils - Moscow State University and BelSU. At BelSU, it was decided by an overwhelming majority that the work corresponds to a scientific degree. So the presidium of the VAK will figure everything out, ”she told RBC. The meeting of the presidium, at which they can decide on Medinsky's dissertation, will be held on October 20, Babitsky told RBC.

“We received an order at our level, considered what was ordered, and made a decision. The professional community is guided by professional motives. It is difficult for me to comment on today's decision, because I do not know the kitchen of the VAK expert council. But this doesn’t concern us anymore and we won’t do anything, since we have done our job, and it’s hard for me to say why it happened today, ”Nikolai Bolgov, chairman of the dissertation council of Belgorod State University, told RBC.

The Presidium may not agree with the decision of the expert council, Mikhail Gelfand, co-founder of the Dissernet community, deputy director of the Institute for Information Transmission Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told RBC. “There were situations when the expert council proposed to leave the degree, and the presidium decided to deprive it, as in the case of the deputy Alexander Smetanov, but it was the other way around. This is a normal situation,” he says. According to Gelfand, the composition of the presidium for the humanities is "non-uniform." "There are very worthy people, but there are those who are not so principled, ”he explained to RBC. Gelfand specified that Medinsky, according to the rules of the Higher Attestation Commission, would be invited to the meetings of the presidium.

MOSCOW, October 20 - RIA Novosti. The Presidium of the Higher Attestation Commission recommended that the Ministry of Education and Science not deprive Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky of the degree of Doctor of Science. Medinsky himself told reporters about this.

"70 percent are for, 30 percent are against," he said after the meeting, which he attended in person.

"Some remarks of the members of the presidium of the Higher Attestation Commission were of a very balanced, meaningful nature, and I will take into account in my future work," the minister stressed.

He added that he was grateful to the presidium for objectivity in considering his scientific work. The minister noted that the comments of the presidium members were balanced and meaningful and promised to take them into account in further work.

Later, he once again spoke with words of gratitude, this time on Twitter.

Presidium of the Higher Attestation Commission for more than 2 hours today. dealt with my "dissertation case"
I thank the scientists for a balanced and honest approach https://t.co/bqmU2DxWT6

— Vladimir Medinsky (@medinskiy_vr) October 20, 2017

In addition, Medinsky said that he plans to publish selected passages from his dissertation for "more popular reading", providing the text with comments, and expressed the hope that the publication will find its reader.

According to the minister, this whole long story, "reminiscent of a bad TV series," has a plus.

"It consists in the fact that - as a rule - scientific work no one except opponents reads, and in general people know little of our history, especially history XV-XVII centuries,” he said.

The Ministry of Education and Science announced that in the near future they would prepare an order based on the recommendations of the presidium of the Higher Attestation Commission. He will put an end to this story.

What is wrong with the dissertation of the Minister of Culture

Vladimir Medinsky defended his doctoral thesis on "Problems of objectivity in the coverage of Russian history in the second half of the 15th-17th centuries" at the Russian State Social University (RSSU) in 2011.

In April 2016, Ivan Babitsky, a member of the Dissernet community, questioned the scientific value of this work. He called the minister's dissertation absurd, partially plagiarized, and appealed to the Ministry of Education and Science with a request to deprive him of his doctorate in history.

Medinsky himself claimed that his opponents failed to find plagiarism in the dissertation, and the rest of the claims are related to the subjective perception of history.

Since the dissertation council of the RSSU had already been dissolved by that time, the issue of the preservation of the degree was transferred to the walls of the Ural Federal University.

At the appointed time, the meeting of the dissertation council of UrFU did not take place, since Medinsky did not come to it. The head of the VAK, Vladimir Filippov, promised that the dissertation would be considered at the Faculty of History of Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov, but in March 2017 the dissertation council at the faculty was closed.

As a result, the package of documents was submitted to the dissertation council of Belgorod State University, which nevertheless found no reason to deprive Medinsky of his degree.

Nevertheless, in October 2017, the Expert Council of the Higher Attestation Commission recommended that Medinsky be stripped of his Doctor of History degree. The decision was adopted by a majority vote and was advisory in nature. In the opinion of those who voted in favor, Medinsky's study was performed at a low level and does not contain new scientific knowledge.

Commendable

In the Russian Military Historical Society, the decision of the VAK Presidium was called the triumph of scientific and simply human justice.

“We have witnessed, let’s say, not a very good, politicized story related to attempts to deprive Vladimir Rostislavovich Medinsky of his academic degree. I have repeatedly said and now I will repeat - if Medinsky is not a historian, then who is our historian?” Vladimir Kononov, executive director of the RVIO, told RIA Novosti.

The head of the State Duma Committee on the Development of Civil Society, Issues of Public and Religious Associations, Sergei Gavrilov, also supported the decision of the VAK presidium. According to him, it confirmed the nature and results of the discussion of the minister's work at Belgorod University.

At the same time, he highly appreciated the dissertation itself.

“I support the general opinion of the scientific community, such an adequate scientific community, that the work deserves this high degree of doctoral dissertation, that it not only deserves, it is breakthrough in many ways,” Gavrilov said.

He noted the high scientific relevance of the dissertation, because it studies the historical period "from the point of view of the maximum objective study of the events of Russia, freeing it, among other things, from the mythologies of Western European schools."

"This is very important inner work. It's an interesting methodology," he said.

At the same time, criticism of Medinsky's work, according to the deputy, is politicized and personal. Many are not satisfied with the language, but it is "fresh and new" and the text is easy to read, Gavrilov noted.

After the work of Medinsky, the deputy believes, new followers of such a scientific approach will appear, moreover, perhaps "a scientific school will arise."

The situation around Vladimir Medinsky's doctoral dissertation.

The Expert Council of the Higher Attestation Commission (HAC) on history supported the initiative of Dissernet to deprive the Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky academic title of doctor of historical sciences. The last word in this proceedings, the presidium of the Higher Attestation Commission, which until that time almost always agreed with the opinion of the council, should appoint. Specialists, previously called upon to prove the historical value of Medinsky's works, massively renounce their words, assuring that they were misunderstood. A number of other factors are also working against the minister: the recent embarrassment with a monument to Kalashnikov, the election of a new President of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the tough position of the president in relation to officials involved in science to the detriment of the civil service.

An activist was the first to announce the council's decision "Dissernet" Ivan Babitsky, who back in 2016 filed an application to deprive the minister of his degree due to the "absurdity" of his thesis m on the topic "Problems of objectivity in covering Russian history in the second half of the 15th - 17th centuries."

“Finally happened what should have happened. The expert council of the Higher Attestation Commission on history has just decided by an overwhelming majority of votes, contrary to the conclusion of the Belgorod council, to support our application to deprive Medinsky of the degree of Doctor of Historical Sciences. The decision was announced in my presence,” Babitsky later wrote on his Facebook page. The phone of the chairman of the expert council of the Higher Attestation Commission Pavel Uvarov was unavailable on the evening of October 2.

Historian, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Askold Ivanchik, commenting on the decision of the VAK expert council, called it expected. “The decision of the expert council of the Higher Attestation Commission on history was expected, because it includes highly qualified specialists. They could not recognize the work of Medinsky as scientific without committing violence against their professional conscience,” Ivanchik told RBC.

The decision was announced at 16:45 Moscow time, Babitsky specified. 17 people voted for the deprivation of Medina's doctorate in history, three against and one abstention. The vote was secret, he said. Medinsky himself was not at the council, instead of the minister, his representatives were present at the Higher Attestation Commission: head of the Center for the History of Wars and Geopolitics of the Institute of World History of the Russian Academy of Sciences Mikhail Myagkov, leading researcher at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences Konstantin Averyanov and member of the Public Council of the Ministry of Culture Sergei Chernyakhovsky.

Where is Denmark located?

Ivan Babitsky filed an application for the deprivation of Medinsky of the degree of Doctor of Historical Sciences in April 2016, in addition to him, two doctors of historical sciences were among the applicants - Konstantin Yerusalimsky and Vyacheslav Kozlyakov. The applicants' comments relate to the Minister's scientific methodology, which he used in his dissertation. Medinsky evaluates historical events in his work, weighing them "on the scales of Russia's national interests", and this contradicts the scientific approach, which presupposes objectivity and non-judgment in the analysis of the material, the applicants pointed out. In addition, Medinsky, they noted, incorrectly formatted references to sources. Thus, Medinsky referred to a “scandalous for serious research” resource specializing in the sale of abstracts on the Internet.

Scientists believe that the minister's text is "replete with gross errors." For example, he writes that during the reign of Ivan the Terrible, church books in Russia were written in Russian, so it was easy to understand them, in contrast to the religious works of Catholics and Protestants, written in Latin. "In one sentence, he was able to show that he knew nothing about such a phenomenon as the Church Slavonic language, nor about Luther's translation of the Holy Scripture into German," the statement said. In addition, Medinsky believes that the Russians were the first among the Europeans to face the attack of non-Christians. However, two and a half centuries before the baptism of Russia (988 AD), in 732, in the battle of Poitiers, the French stopped the invasion of the Arabs, scientists remind. Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, an Italian humanist of the 15th century, Medinsky considers a German, and disputes the version of the origin of Rurik from Denmark by saying that the annals say: the prince was a Varangian and came from Scandinavia (Denmark belongs to Scandinavia).

Wandering scientific brainchild

The recommendation to deprive Medinsky of his academic degree does not mean that the minister will lose it. After the decision of the expert council, the presidium of the Higher Attestation Commission chaired by the head of this structure, the rector of the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia Vladimir Filippov, should make its conclusion. The final decision of the Presidium is approved by the Ministry of Education and Science. ​

Prior to the expert council, Medinsky's dissertation materials were considered by three dissertation councils. In October 2016, the VAK sent them to Ural Federal University in Yekaterinburg, but the meeting was first canceled at the request of Medinsky, who could not come due to a busy schedule, and a few days later the dissertation was withdrawn because the deadline for its consideration had expired. In February 2017, Moscow State University did not consider the work of the minister on the merits, since no plagiarism was found in it. Then some members of the discouncil declared that the MSU experts were not provided with a dissertation for consideration at all.

In July 2017, the dissertation council of Belgorod State University refused to deprive Medinsky of the degree of doctor of historical sciences - 19 out of 22 members of the council voted in support of the minister. According to them, the minister's dissertation "contains some elements of tendentiousness," but its scientific nature has not suffered from this. In addition, the council concluded that the announcement of the Minister's deprivation of the degree was made in a "cheeky, offensive tone that has nothing to do with scientific discussion." Today they have revised their position.

“Members of the Belgorod dissident council attended the meeting of the expert council on Monday. They insisted that they were not supposed to evaluate the minister's thesis itself, but only the credibility of our statement,” said "b" Dissernet expert. Also at the meeting were members of the RSSU dissenting council, where the minister defended his dissertation. “They were asked why it happened that all three opponents of the minister were not experts on the topic of his dissertation. They answered: “We have no doubt that they have a broad scientific outlook,” said Mr. Babitsky. As a result, the council voted in favor of the recommendation to deprive the minister of his degree. Marina Moseykina, a member of the expert council, Doctor of Historical Sciences, emphasized that “during the voting, the majority voted in favor, but the decision was not made unanimously.”

Military historians vs.

Supporter of Medinsky Mikhail Myagkov from Center for the history of wars and geopolitics The Institute of World History of the Russian Academy of Sciences believes that the expert council showed "unprofessionalism" because it did not take into account the position of the dissident councils of BelSU and Moscow State University. “In any case, this is a technical decision, which, in fact, means nothing. We are waiting for the meeting of the VAK presidium,” Myagkov summed up.

Calls the decision "technical" and the press secretary of Medinsky Irina Kaznacheeva. “If you remember, there was a positive conclusion of two dissenting councils - Moscow State University and BelSU. At BelSU, it was decided by an overwhelming majority that the work corresponds to a scientific degree. So the presidium of the VAK will sort everything out,” she said. The meeting of the presidium, at which they can decide on Medinsky's dissertation, will be held on October 20, Babitsky said.

“We received an order at our level, considered what was ordered, and made a decision. The professional community is guided by professional motives. It is difficult for me to comment on today's decision, because I do not know the kitchen of the VAK expert council. But this doesn’t concern us anymore and we won’t do anything, since we have done our job, and it’s hard for me to say why it happened today, ”said Nikolai Bolgov, chairman of the dissertation council of Belgorod State University.

The Presidium may not agree with the decision of the expert council, said the co-founder of the Dissernet community, deputy director of the Institute for Information Transmission Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences Mikhail Gelfand. “There were situations when the expert council proposed to leave the degree, and the presidium decided to deprive, as in the case of the deputy Alexander Smetanov, but it was the other way around. This is a normal situation,” he notes. According to Gelfand, the composition of the presidium for the humanities is "non-uniform." “There are very worthy people, and there are those who are not so principled,” he explained. Gelfand specified that Medinsky, according to the rules of the Higher Attestation Commission, would be invited to the meetings of the presidium.

Meanwhile, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that there is no provision for removing a minister from his post if he is deprived of his academic degree. “I don’t think that somewhere in some norms some kind of linkage of such matters, some kind of mutual connection is prescribed,” he said, indirectly hinting that such a possibility is still being considered. As previously reported by the agency "Ruspres", President Vladimir Putin promised to fire officials who defend dissertations while in public service. After that, Minister of Health Veronika Skvortsova refused to run for academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

"Contradicts the principles of science, objectivity and historicism"

Full text of the decision of the Higher Attestation Commission on Medinsky's dissertation

Vladimir Medinsky (left)

1. The relevance of the general direction of the research of V. R. Medinsky - the ideas of foreigners about Russia and Russians and the presentation of these ideas in the writings of foreigners - is undeniable. Stereotypical images of Russia in the public opinion of Western countries were largely formed several centuries ago and in a number of their manifestations, with some variations, exist to this day.

2. The title of the work - "Problems of objectivity in the coverage of Russian history in the second half of the 15th-17th centuries", which, at the same time, became the subject of research (p. 9), should be recognized as incorrect. This wording does not reflect the subject of the dissertation research, since it is too abstract for historical work. Firstly, it does not mention the subject of coverage of Russian history (in whose coverage?), it is not clear what or whom in question. Secondly, objectivity in covering one state, society, culture, etc. representatives of others (contemporaries of events) is, in principle, not achievable. A professional historian can aspire to it, but not a historical individual who perceives the culture of the Other/Alien. The perception of the Other is always subjective, it is determined by the unconscious values ​​and attitudes of one’s culture, the historical and cultural environment of the perceiving subject, his individual features etc. Perception can be scientifically interpreted, but it cannot be judged in terms of "objectivity" and "reliability." The category of reliability is applicable to the assessment of eyewitness information about material inanimate objects, objects, simple facts, but not about people of a different culture and their properties. The author is engaged in the "correction" of inaccuracies and "distortions" of the realities of Russian life in writings of foreigners, not realizing that for this kind of writings they are natural and inevitable, since this is a presentation of impressions and a certain, due to various reasons, vision of representatives of another culture.

2. The purpose of the study stated by V. R. Medinsky: “analysis of the socio-cultural and socio-economic aspects of the perception of the Moscow state in the chronological framework(“the second half of the 15th–17th centuries – p. 7) does not correspond to the structure of the work. Of the 366 pages of the main text of the dissertation (sections II–V, pp. 69–437), 266 pages (72% of the text) are devoted to the second half of the 15th–16th centuries. Of the remaining 102 pages (section V), 36 pages (pp. 336–372) refer to the Time of Troubles, and only 65 pages (pp. 336–372) are devoted to the period from 1613 to 1700. From the notes of foreigners of this vast, eventful almost century-old period, the author considered only the works of Adam Olearius, Adolf Lisek and Johann Korb, and among the dissertator's attention there were dozens of texts, including informative and important for research evidence of Augustine Meyerberg, Yakov Reitenfels, Andrei Rode, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich's life physician Samuel Collins, Foy de la Neuville, Patrick Gordon, and others. The author does not justify the principle of selecting sources.

4. The scientific problem formulated by the author, which consists in “generalizing foreign materials concerning the most important aspects of Russian history of the second half of the 15th–17th centuries and the argumentation of evidence for their objectivity” (p. 9), does not stand up to criticism. "Summary of materials" cannot be scientific problem, and the end of the phrase - "and the argumentation of the evidence of their objectivity" - remains undisclosed, unclear to the reader.

5. On p. 3 VR Medinsky presents his main research principle: “Weighing on the scales of Russia's national interests creates an absolute standard for the truth and reliability of historical work” (p. 3). Meanwhile, this false proposition, which is included in irreconcilable contradiction with the principles of science, objectivity and historicism (their listing in the introductory part of the dissertation thus becomes an empty formality). Ethnocentrism/nation-centrism, in whatever forms it manifests itself, has never acted and cannot act in science as a criterion of reliability or serve as a basis scientific work striving for objectivity. Reliability criteria historical research are determined by principles and methods that are universal in nature and do not depend on the nationality of the researcher. Another thing is to take into account the national (civilizational) features of the development of the community under study, which must be done for all societies and cultures in order to identify the common and special in their development.

6. The historiographic section of the work lacks a significant amount of contemporary research Problems. At the end of XX - early XXI in. a whole series of works by well-known Russian historians (not to mention foreign ones) was written, dedicated to the image of Russia and Russians in the perception of contemporaries, including foreigners, during the period under study (for example, O. G. Ageeva, M. M. Krom, L E. Morozova, V. D. Nazarova, A. I. Filyushkina, A. L. Khoroshkevich, M. Po, etc.). Acquaintance with the historiographical essay shows that the characterization of the works of the predecessors was carried out very selectively. Many studies included in the list of references are not analyzed in the historiographical part of the dissertation; Fundamentally important publications (for example, Herberstein’s “Notes on Muscovy” of 1988 and 2007, fundamental for the study of the topic) are devoted to literally one or two paragraphs each (pp. 44–45); about three pages are allotted to the latest literature on the issue, which has introduced fundamentally new views on the problem and provided first-class examples of publication culture and scientific criticism of the writings of foreigners (pp. 43–46).

7. Proving that many works of foreigners of the period under study were biased, contained unreliable information, were created under the influence of a certain political situation, forming, for the most part, a negative image of the Russian state in the public opinion of their compatriots, etc., V. R. Medinsky did not reveals nothing new. All this has long been known, firmly rooted in Russian tradition historical writing, ascending in its basic provisions at least to the classic work of V. O. Klyuchevsky “Notes of Foreigners on the Moscow State”. The high degree of subjectivity of such writings (as well as the high degree of subjectivity of any narrative in general) is mentioned in all the basic courses on source studies and the history of Russia taught at the historical departments of our universities. The same textbook for curricula is the thesis of continuity, interconnection (sometimes textual), which can be seen in many writings of foreigners about pre-Petrine Russia, about the special influence on the rooting of stereotypes about Russia of “Notes on Muscovy” by S. von Herberstein. By stating (on pp. 438-439) that all this is the result of his original research, formulated and proven by him for the first time, V. R. Medinsky misleads readers.

8. The principles of the formation of the source base and the methods of source analysis used by the author are doubtful, and as a result, the whole set of intermediate conclusions that form the basis for the general conclusion of the study.

It is quite natural that in V. R. Medinsky’s thesis, the core of the source base, the main empirical object of his study, are the writings of foreigners about Russia of the specified period; the author himself rightly points to this, calling these sources “main” (p. 51). However, at the same time, he considers it sufficient to use not the compositions themselves, but their translations into Russian. Meanwhile, the doctoral dissertation should use primary sources in the original language from the most serviceable authentic editions. This is all the more important since the dissertation deals with the interpretation of Western authors' impressions of Russia. Meanwhile, the choice of publications is random. So, for example, the notes of Heinrich Staden were used in the thesis based on the 2002 edition, although by the time the dissertation was being prepared, an academic two-volume edition of this monument was published, edited by E. E. Rychalovsky. Notes by Jacques Margeret "State Russian Empire” are analyzed according to the outdated edition of 1982, and not according to the newest 2007 edited by An. Berelovich, V. D. Nazarov and P. Yu. Uvarov.

Involving only translations leads to particularly unfortunate consequences where the dissertation tries to evaluate the terminology of the authors of essays about Russia. V. R. Medinsky does not seem to realize that the terms he writes about do not belong to the original texts, but to their translations into modern Russian. So, on p. 184-185, he reproaches Herberstein for calling the prince of the Drevlyans Mal "sovereign", although "he did not have the status of a sovereign." Had the author bothered to refer to the original, he might have seen that the Latin text is princeps and the German Fürst. Both words correspond to the Russian prince (which is what Mal is called in the annals); thus, "sovereign" is the result of a free translation made by our contemporary, while the author curiously accused Herberstein of using this term.

The intention of V. R. Medinsky to conduct a deep and comprehensive study of the notes of foreigners in comparison with “Russian documentary sources relating to specific events and facts” (p. 8) can be considered promising. Indeed, the problem of verifiability, the verifiability of information contained in a particular source, can be solved only in a contextual cross-comparison. It gives scope for the use of methods of comparative analysis and allows answering a number of questions that are really important within the framework of the stated problem.

The author of the dissertation refers the entire array of sources of Russian origin to the group of additional ones (p. 52) and gives a list of them, combining them according to their type: act material, order documentation, court cases, annals and chronographs, scribes, customs and notebooks, publicistic works of the XVI– 17th century and other narrative sources. Almost all of the listed sources have been published to date, however, V.R. Medinsky notes that he also widely used unpublished archival documents stored mainly in the RGADA and partly in the archive of the St. Petersburg Institute of Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In the list of used sources and literature, 13 positions are indicated in the heading "archival sources". But there is reason to believe that V. R. Medinsky hardly worked with the archival files indicated by him. In his work, on almost four hundred pages of the main text, it is possible to find only 13 references to archival funds that are frankly nominal in nature (pp. 100, 106, 181, 240, 249, 257, 287, 297, 325, 332, 274, 408 and 426). Most often these are "deaf" references to the case or simply to the inventory without indicating the sheets; sometimes - with an indication of the total number of sheets in a storage unit (for example, "RGADA. F. 32. D. 1 (1488-1489). L. 1-204", p. 181). References to specific sheets of the case are given only in five cases. This shows that the author, most likely, did not work with archival documents (his employment in the reading room of the RGADA is not documented) ADAR, but scooped the most general information about the information contained in them from the guide to the archive, and at best - from the inventories, focusing on the headings of cases or documents available there. There are not even references in the text to some of the archival cases noted in the list of used sources.

With "inaccurate" and "biased" sources, the dissertation does not stand on ceremony. He can simply state that "it really wasn't like that," without bothering to look for evidence. In other cases, he resorts to a different technique: he uses assessments from the writings of some foreigners as a criticism of the opinions of others, not taking into account that both of them can be equally biased in their judgments. So, for example, while highly appreciating the reliability of S. Herberstein's information about the Russian army (p. 220), the author for some reason recognizes as "unreliable" a similar description of the field camps of the Russian army given by R. Chancellor (p. 234); A. Contarini and G. Perkamot spoke positively about Ivan III, but Herberstein did not, which means that “it is quite obvious that the Austrian diplomat deliberately denigrated Ivan III” (p. 199, 206).

In some cases, such a contrast between information from different authors looks like frankly curious. So, on p. 239 the author writes: “Chancellor's information about poor people is also contradictory. Arguing that "there is no people in the world who would live so beggarly as the poor live here, and that the rich do not take care of them," he at the same time reported on charitable activities monks. In general, Chancellor's data on the existence of beggars and poor people in the Russian state contradict the news of Barbaro and Contarini about in large numbers products in Russian markets, which cost mere pennies. As the messages of the authors of the late XV century. about cheap products on the markets can refute the existence of more than half a century later (in the 1550s) in the country of the poor, remains a mystery - the author does not reveal his "logic".

V. R. Medinsky, wishing to prove the groundlessness of certain information given in the notes of foreign authors, often refers to the information contained in the Russian chronicles, probably considering it absolutely reliable and obviously not attaching importance to the fact that the chronicles themselves are a complex source , in need of special source criticism and cross-checking by analyzing sources of a different species. At the same time, he ignores information from other Russian sources if they contradict his theses. For example, repeatedly refuting the false, in his opinion, testimonies of foreigners about the drunkenness of Russian priests (pp. 341, 440, etc.), the dissertator ignores the materials of the Stoglavy Cathedral of 1551, where this vice of the clergy was recognized by the Russian Orthodox Church itself. Claiming that the Crimeans in 1521 reached only Kolomna, the author refers to the Resurrection Chronicle, ignoring the testimony of a number of others, from which it follows that individual detachments reached the village of Vorobiev near Moscow and the Nikolo-Ugreshsky Monastery. The dissertation student rejects Herberstein's news that the Crimean Khan received a letter with an obligation to pay tribute, although similar information is in the Bit Book, an official document that no foreigner had access to.

9. Some fragments of V. R. Medinsky’s dissertation are a presentation of the conclusions of other researchers, devoid of originality and, moreover, incorrectly executed. So, for example, most section III(pp. 182–223) is devoted to the analysis of the factual and interpretive errors of S. Herberstein, despite the fact that such work was carried out by commentators of the 1988 edition of Notes on Muscovy. Retelling the content of the comments, V. R. Medinsky does not refer to them, but to the sources of the commentators, while not always doing it skillfully. Convicting Herberstein of wanting to give more credibility to his story about the Crimean raid of 1521, V. R. Medinsky writes that the Austrian pointed to receiving information from the Polish ambassadors, “who became his informants.” The author refers to the following edition: Russian Historical Library, vol. 35, no. 90, p. 605-607" (p. 223). Turning to the comments in the edition of Herberstein's Notes..., we will see that their authors indicate: “The Lithuanian embassy, ​​headed by Bogush Voitkov, was in Moscow from 29 August. to 4 Sept. 1521 (Sat. RIO. - T. 35. - No. 90. - P. 605–607) ”(See: Herberstein S. Notes on Muscovy. M., 1988. P. 340). Obviously, V.R. Medinsky, firstly, does not see the difference between the Lithuanian and Polish ambassadors, although at that time Poland and Lithuania, being in a dynastic union, had separate diplomatic departments, and secondly, he confuses two widely known pre-revolutionary serial publications of sources - "Russian Historical Library" and "Collection of the Russian Historical Society", probably simply rewriting the data he misunderstood from the comments to the 1988 edition.

10. Factual errors in the dissertation are numerous. A number of them are rightly indicated in the appeal letter. But there are quite a few others that can also be considered rude. The author believes that at the end of the XV century. there was Ukraine, which “was then called Lithuania” (p. 87); that Dalmatia at the same time was one of the regions of Yugoslavia (p. 152). He obviously does not see the difference between the white and black clergy when he refutes Herberstein's information about the plight of the Russian priests, recalling that in the 16th century. The Russian Church was a large landowner "and did not need anything" (p. 212). The author reproaches Herberstein for drawing the border between Europe and Asia along the Don (p. 221), not suspecting that this is a tradition dating back to ancient times. He confuses textbook dates (Devlet-Girey dates the raid on Moscow to 1570 instead of 1571 - p. 262; the introduction of the oprichnina in 1566 instead of 1565 - p. 265; Ivan III's campaign against Tver in 1520 instead of 1485 - p. 302); claims that the Zemsky Prikaz was founded only at the end of the 1570s (p. 277), although the first mention of this institution in the category books dates back to 1572; refuting the information of J. Fletcher (late 16th century) about the drunkenness of Russians and drawing attention to the fact that alcoholic beverages in Russia could only be produced on major church holidays, i.e. several times a year, reinforces this information with a reference to the Code of 1649 (p. 341), and so on, and so on.

Of course, some shortcomings, errors, inaccuracies, misprints can be in any study. But in the dissertation of V. R. Medinsky, their number goes off scale, being a systemic, qualitative problem.