The Faculty Of Useless Knowledge

This important novel, first published in Russian in 1978, reveals a master of the Stalinist era. The Year of Terror, 1937. Zybin, an exiled intellectual and archaeologist in the far province of Alma-Ata, finds himself wrongly accused of a crime during the darkest days of Stalin's reign. Soon, he and his colleagues are caught up in an ambitious Cheka investigator's attempts to set up a show trial to rival those taking place in Moscow. Vivid, courageous and defiant, The Faculty of Useless Knowledge is the crowning achievement by the author of The Keeper of Antiquities and The Dark Lady and draws heavily on autobiographical experience. A masterpiece of anti-totalitarian literature, it stands alongside the works of Solzhenitsyn and Bulgakov in illuminating the chaos, absurdity and bureaucratic labyrinths of Soviet Russia.

Georgi Zybin, a student of law and humanities, is arrested as an enemy of the people when a high-ranking officer in Stalin's security organization starts a public trial in Alma Ata, similar to those in Moscow

A short, provocative book about why "useless" science often leads to humanity's greatest technological breakthroughs A forty-year tightening of funding for scientific research has meant that resources are increasingly directed toward applied or practical outcomes, with the intent of creating products of immediate value. In such a scenario, it makes sense to focus on the most identifiable and urgent problems, right? Actually, it doesn't. In his classic essay "The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge," Abraham Flexner, the founding director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and the man who helped bring Albert Einstein to the United States, describes a great paradox of scientific research. The search for answers to deep questions, motivated solely by curiosity and without concern for applications, often leads not only to the greatest scientific discoveries but also to the most revolutionary technological breakthroughs. In short, no quantum mechanics, no computer chips. This brief book includes Flexner's timeless 1939 essay alongside a new companion essay by Robbert Dijkgraaf, the Institute's current director, in which he shows that Flexner's defense of the value of "the unobstructed pursuit of useless knowledge" may be even more relevant today than it was in the early twentieth century. Dijkgraaf describes how basic research has led to major transformations in the past century and explains why it is an essential precondition of innovation and the first step in social and cultural change. He makes the case that society can achieve deeper understanding and practical progress today and tomorrow only by truly valuing and substantially funding the curiosity-driven "pursuit of useless knowledge" in both the sciences and the humanities.

"First Published in 1998, Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company."

Conscience is the writer's production tool. If he has not got that, he has not got anything. All the artistic fabric crumbles and frays at the first touch.- Iurii Dombrovskii Iurii Dombrovskii (1909-1978) was a Soviet writer of immense courage and integrity, whose life and literary career were repeatedly disrupted by unjust arrests and long periods of imprisonment. Born and educated in Moscow, he was first detained in 1932, and spent a total of twenty-three years in exile in Alma-Alata and in Siberian labour camps. Even after his rehabilitation in 1956 he was never free from surveillance and harassment by Soviet authorities. Only able to publish infrequently, he was forced to eke out a meagre existence yet produced original works of high quality. This book is the first full-length monograph on Iurii Dombrovskii, widely acclaimed in recent years as a writer of major importance and interest, following the publication in Russia and the West of his last novel The Faculty of Unnecessary Things. The book is based on a thorough study of published materials by and about Dombrovskii and on research into unpublished archive sources, to which no previous Western scholar has had access. Iurii Dombrovskii: Freedom under Totalitarianismprovides a detailed overview of the writer, and lays the foundations for further research. Peter Doyle gives the most substantive account of Dombrovkii's biography yet written, along with detailed interpretive studies of his main prose works, an assessment of his little known poetry, and a comprehensive bibliography.The Faculty of Unnecessary Things. The book is based on a thorough study of published materials by and about Dombrovskii and on research into unpublished archive sources, to which no previous Western scholar has had access. Iurii Dombrovskii: Freedom under Totalitarianismprovides a detailed overview of the writer, and lays the foundations for further research. Peter Doyle gives the most substantive account of Dombrovkii's biography yet written, along with detailed interpretive studies of his main prose works, an assessment of his little known poetry, and a comprehensive bibliography.

This book embraces the political, intellectual, social and cultural history of Soviet Russia. Providing a useful perspective of Putin’s Russia, and with a strong historical and religious background, the book: looks at the changing features of the Soviet ideology from Lenin to Stalin, and the moral universe of Stalin's time explores the history of the moral thinking of the dissident intelligentsia examines the moral dimension of Soviet dissent amongst dissidents of both religious and secular persuasions, and includes biographical material explores the ethical assumptions of the perestroika era, firstly amongst Communist leaders, and then in the emerging democratic and national forces.