Doing Medicine Together: Germany and Russia Between the Wars

Description

Of the many interwar connections between Germany and Russia, one of the most unusual - and least explored - is medicine and public health. Between 1922 and 1932, with high-level political support and government funding, Soviet and German physicians and public health specialists collaborated in joint research expeditions, published joint articles, launched a bi-lingual journal, and established joint research institutions. Surprisingly, students of Soviet-German relations have all but ignored this medical collaboration; while historians of science have treated it as political history, an exercise in cultural diplomacy designed to mitigate the impact of the post-war exclusion of both nations from the international science. The contributors to this volume, who come from Germany, Russia, Britain, the United States and Canada, depart from the traditional approach to the subject. Drawing on previously inaccessible archival materials, the authors move beyond politics to examine the impact of this collaboration on scientific activity. Contributors analyze aspects of the German-Russian collaboration often overlooked by students of cross-national science, including the choice of 'friends' across borders, the activities of scientific entrepreneurs, the tensions between bi-lateral and international science, and the migration of scientists. Treating Soviet-German medical relations as an instance of trans-national science lays bare its unique features. Ultimately, Doing Medicine Together raises new and important questions about the vaunted 'special' relation between Soviet Russia and Weimar Germany. Contents List of Illustrations Preface Contributors Introduction: Germany, Russia, and Medical Cooperation between the Wars Part One: 'Choosing' Scientific Friends 1. German Overtures to Russia, 1919-1925: Between Racial Expansion and National Coexistence 2. Partners of Choice/Faute de Mieux? Russians and Germans at the 200th Anniversary of the Academy of Sciences, 1925 3. Leftists versus Nationalists in Soviet-Weimar Cultural Diplomacy: Showcases, Fronts, and Boomerangs Part Two: Scientific Entrepreneurs across Borders 4. How to Win Friends and Influence People: Heinz Zeiss, Boundary Objects, and the Pursuit of Cross-National Scientific Collaboration in Microbiology 5. 'Creating Confidence': Heinz Zeiss as a Traveller in the Soviet Union, 1921-1932 6. Infertile Soil: Heinz Zeiss and the Import of Medical Geography to Russia, 1922-1930 7. The Scientist as Lobbyist: Heinz Zeiss and Auslandsdeutschtum Part Three: Bilateralism and Internationalism 8. Castor and Pollux in Brain Research: The Berlin and the Moscow Brain Research Institutes 9. Eugenics, Rassenhygiene, and Human Genetics in the Late 1930s: The Case of the Seventh International Genetics Congress Part Four: Scientific Migration to 'the Other' 10. Home Away from Home: The Berlin Neuroanatomist Louis Jacobsohn-Lask in Russia 11. Crossing Over: The Emigration of German-Jewish Physicians to the Soviet Union after 1933 Index