Nicholas Marr on the post of Director of the State Academy for the History of Material Culture (1919-1920, 1922-1934)

The relevance of the study due to the fact that the relationship between science and government in the transitional period of the 1920s in contemporary science investigated not complete and biased. In this regard, this article is aimed at disclosure of such ill-studied question of how the activities of Nicholas Marr as Director of the State Academy for the History of Material Culture (until 1926 – the Russian Academy for the History of Material Culture). As issues of history of Russian science is often examined under different ideological perspectives and based on certain policies, the author addressed the principles of epistemological neutrality S. Auroux. The author analyzed broad-spectrum of archival sources and researched the question how Nicholas Marr managed to work out the principle of relationship with the power which allowed protecting the interests of the Academy, successfully defended his linguistic theory and at the same time had the support of colleagues who supported his candidacy as director. In the conditions of aggravation of the ideological struggle of the 1920–30s, he is, on the one hand, sought to ease the purges in the Academy, but on the other, in the case of conflict with colleagues went to the union with young Marxists who supported his “new linguistic doctrine”. The author made a conclusion that the role of Nicholas Marr as Director of the State Academy for the History of Material Culture was ambivalent – he played decisive role in creation and functioning of the Academy but at the same time he was responsible for the aggression against their opponents, who joined in the repression of the 1930s, which affected the Academy. The results of the research can help in reconstruction of biography of Nicholas Marr and in analysis of the history of the relationship of the Soviet scientific community and power, the institutionalization of new scientific institutions in the post-revolutionary period. They can be used in the preparation and modernization of educational courses, which addresses the problems of the history of science and education.