Igor Shafarevich

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Igor Rostislavovich Shafarevich (Russian: Игорь Ростиславович Шафаревич, born 3 June 1923 in Zhytomyr) is a Russian mathematician, founder of the major school of algebraic number theory and algebraic geometry in the USSR. He was also an important dissident figure under the Soviet regime, a public supporter of Andrei Sakharov's Human Rights Committee from 1970. He is identified too with the criticisms of Alexandr Solzhenitsyn not only of Soviet government and communism, but also of proposed liberal ideas for the future of Russia.

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[edit] Work in mathematics

Shafarevich's contribution to mathematics include the theory of the Tate-Shafarevich group (usually called 'Sha', written 'Ш', his Cyrillic initial) in Galois cohomology, and the Golod-Shafarevich theorem on class field towers. He initiated a Moscow seminar on classification of algebraic surfaces that updated around 1960 the treatment of birational geometry, and was largely responsible for the early introduction of the scheme theory approach to algebraic geometry in the Soviet school.

Shafarevich was a student of Boris Delone, and his students included Evgeny Golod, I.A. Kostrikin and Yuri Manin. In view of later accusations of anti-Semitism on his part, it can be noted that his research students included some identified as Jewish, and that later, during his most serious troubles in the 1970s with the Soviet authorities, he did major work in collaboration with Ilya Piatetski-Shapiro on K3 surfaces.

[edit] Political activities

According to a statement he released in the mid-1970s, he had had troubles with the Soviet powers in the early 1950s, but was then for a time protected by Ivan Petrovsky, then Rector of the Moscow University. He belonged to the wing of the dissident movement that identified itself with the Orthodox Christian tradition in Russia; what is sometimes called the 'romantic nationalist' or Slavophile tendency. The position criticised the Communist Party as part of a broader condemnation of socialism; Shafarevich published a much-noticed book Socialism (French edition around 1975) of destructive analysis, which was cited centrally by Solzhenitsyn in his 1978 address to Harvard University. From 1970 Shafarevich with Valery Chalidze, Grigori Podyapolski and Andrei Tverdokhlebov was one of Sakharov's human rights investigators. All this was a direct affront to the Soviet system, and Shafarevich was excluded from Moscow University, as was his student A. N. Tyurin. Shafarevich continued to challenge the distortions of the academic system: as reported at the time by the algebraic geometer Miles Reid[citation needed], he intervened in a doctoral defence of a party placeman, bringing up questions of plagiarism and inadequate work which were simply ignored (Shafarevich as an Academician in the Soviet Academy of Sciences could expect to be heard).

He wrote from this period a number of essays, on topics such as the nationalities issues, Russophobia, and Shostakovich's treatment. These were very prominent, some being included in Solzhenitsyn's collection From Under the Rubble.

[edit] Antisemitism allegations

Allegations of antisemitism started after Shafarevich wrote a now famous work "Russophobia", and has been often repeated in the international press.[1][2] This lead to a an "unprecedented" public campaign to remove Shafarevich from the US NAS.[3][4] In an open letter to the NAS, Shafarevich denied that Russophobia is antisemitic.[5] Most recently Shafarevich expanded on the the subject in his work "Three thousand year old mystery", concentrated on Jewish history. Among other things, Shafarevich has extensively written on the participation of Jews in revolutionary movements:

Безусловно, этот «всероссийский разгром» [во время Гражданской Войны] совершался не исключительно еврейскими руками, а коммунистической властью. Но это не снимает вопроса о том, почему же еврейские силы с таким азартом приняли участие в «разгроме».[6]
Clearly, this "Russian destruction" [during the Russian Civil War] was made not exclusively by Jewish efforts, but by Communist government. However, this doesn't remove the problem as to why Jewish people were so eager to participate in this "destruction".

Shafarevich makes similar arguments on other historical events in both Russia and abroad, for example:

Конечно, коллективизацию осуществляла вся партия и особенно ее верхи: Сталин, Молотов и т.д. Но количество еврейских фамилий в этом процессе поражает.[6]
Of course, Collectivization was organized by the whole Party, and especially its leaders: Stalin, Molotov, etc. However the number of Jewish names in this process is amazing.

Regarding Jewish discrimination, Shafarevich methodically blamed Jews for it. He is dubious about the innocence of Menahem Beilis tried and eventually acquitted of blood libel and the ritual murder of a Ukrainian boy:

Но ведь труп убитого ребенка остался. Если его убил не Бейлис, то остается вопрос — кто? [6]
However, the corpse of a dead child remains. If Beilis did not murder him, who did then?

His view on the Holocaust are also controversial:

Такое выделение страданий, перенесённых именно евреями, как некоторого совершенно особого явления как-то задевает нравственное чувство. [6]
This emphasis on particular Jewish suffering as being different from other historical events is somehow contrary to the moral feelings.

Shafarevich also blames Jews for the Kristallnacht comparing the preceding events to the September 11, 2001 attacks:

Перелом произошел в связи с так называемой "хрустальной ночью". Поводом к ней послужило убийство в 1938 г. польским евреем Гриншпаном 3-го секретаря немецкого посольства в Париже фон Рата. Впрочем, это был не первый случай. Так, в 1936 г. глава нацистской иностранной организации в Швейцарии был убит Давидом Франкфуртером. Ситуация напоминала современную ситуацию в США после терактов 11 сентября 2001 г.: государство должно было найти ответ на террористический акт, направленный против его граждан. Гитлеровская Германия ответила организацией "Хрустальной ночи". [6]
The transition occurred with the Kristallnacht. Its cause was the 1938 murder of vom Rath, 3rd secretary of the German embassy in Paris, by a Polish Jew Grynszpan. Actually, this was not the first such case. For example, in 1936 the head of the Foreign Section of the Nazi party in Switzerland was murdered by David Frankfurter. The situation resembled modern situation in the USA after September 11, 2001 attacks: the state had to reply to a terrorist act aimed against its citizen. Hitler's Germany replied with the Kristallnacht.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Alexei Miller, The Communist Past in Post-Communist Russia, Eurozine, 2002-05-24.
  2. ^ Veljko Vujacic, Russian Intellectual Anti-Semitism in the Post-Communist Era, Canadian Slavonic Papers, Mar-Jun 2004.
  3. ^ Joan Birman, AMS Condemns Russophobia, The Scientist, 1993, 7(8):12.
  4. ^ Semyon Reznik, On Shafarevich And NAS: Tolerance Vs. Indifference, The Scientist, 1993, 7(8):11.
  5. ^ Igor R. Shafarevich, Russian Castigates NAS For Making 'Vague Accusations', The Scientist, 1992, 6(24):11.
  6. ^ a b c d e I.R. Shafarevich, "Three thousand year old mystery", Bibliopolis, St. Peterburg, 2002.

[edit] External links

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