Soviet Science Policy During The Second World War And Its Implementation In Uzbekistan

Abstract

The article examines the policy of the USSR in the field of science and scientific research during the Second World War and the particular features of its implementation in Uzbekistan. It analyses the main directions of state policy aimed at mobilizing scientific potential in order to address military and economic tasks. Particular attention is paid to the evacuation to Uzbekistan of research institutions, higher educational establishments and scientific personnel from the western regions of the USSR. The interaction of the evacuated specialists with local scholars and its influence on the development of the republic's scientific infrastructure is considered. Research in the fields of agriculture, geology, medicine, chemistry and industry, directed towards meeting the needs of the front and of the economy, is analysed. Separate attention is devoted to the establishment in 1943 of the Academy of Sciences of the Uzbek SSR as an important stage in the institutional development of science in the republic. It is concluded that the war years contributed to the concentration of scientific potential and to the expansion of Uzbekistan's scientific and human-resource capacities, although scientific activity was carried out under conditions of centralized state and ideological control.