Igor Shafarevich

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Igor Rostislavovich Shafarevich (Russian: Игорь Ростиславович Шафаревич, born June 3, 1923 in Zhytomyr) is a Russian mathematician, founder of the major school of algebraic number theory and algebraic geometry in the USSR, and a political writer. He was also an important dissident figure under the Soviet regime, a public supporter of Andrei Sakharov's Human Rights Committee from 1970. He supported the criticisms of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn of both Soviet communism and liberal proposals for the future of Russia.

Shafarevich's 1970s book The Socialist Phenomenon was widely circulated in the West.[1] After the Cold War, he attacked those he called "small people," who deny the "historical achievements" of Russia,[2] saying his homeland must have "sound democratic statehood, based on the will of the people."[3] His critics call him a radical, anti-Semitic, Christian nationalist.[4][5]

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[edit] Work in mathematics

Shafarevich made fundamental contributions to several parts of mathematics including algebraic number theory, algebraic geometry and arithmetic algebraic geometry. In algebraic number theory the Shafarevich-Weil theorem extends the commutative reciprocity map to the case of Galois groups which are extensions of abelian groups by finite groups. Shafarevich was the first to give a completely self-contained formula for the pairing which coincides with the wild Hilbert symbol on local fields, this initiated an important branch of the study of explicit formulas in number theory. His another famous result is the realization of every finite solvable group as the Galois group over rationals. Another fundamental result is the Golod-Shafarevich theorem on towers of unramified extensions of number fields. Shafarevich and his school greatly contributed to the study of algebraic geometry of surfaces. 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. His investigation in arithmetic of elliptic curves led him independently of John Tate to the introduction of the most mysterious group related to elliptic curves over number fields, the Tate-Shafarevich group (usually called 'Sha', written 'Ш', his Cyrillic initial).

Shafarevich was a student of Boris Delone, and his students included Yuri Manin, A. N. Parshin, I. Dolgachev, Evgeny Golod, I.A. Kostrikin, S.Y. Arakelov, G.V. Belyi, A. Tyurin, V. A. Kolyvagin. 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. He is a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in department of Mathematics, Physics and Geo Sciences.

On his 80th birthday, Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed his "fundamental research" in mathematics and his creation of "a large scientific school that is known both in Russia and abroad."[6]

[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] The Socialist Phenomenon

Shafarevich's book The Socialist Phenomenon,[7] published in the US in 1980, argued that the leftist utopian impulse is a revival of gnostic religion, rooted in rebellion.[8] In his view, this is an anti-Christian urge that fights obsessively with the nornal state of the world, demanding material equality and the eradication of individual and gender distinctions.[9] He wrote that "the death of mankind is not only a conceivable result of the triumph of socialism - it constitutes the goal of socialism."[10]

Shafarevich's views were influenced by Karl Wittfogel's theory of hydraulic society.[11] The mathematician argued that socialism has two archetypes: ancient despotisms (such as Sumeria, Babylonia and Egypt) and millennial sectarian movements of medieval and early modern Europe, along with a Freudian death-instinct.[12] Out of this combination, he said that this ideology works to co-opt the prestige of science and faith in progress.[13]

[edit] Antisemitism allegations

Allegations of antisemitism started after Shafarevich wrote an essay titled "Russophobia"[14][15], which was written in 1982 and first published in Germany in 1988.[16] His sources were writings by Soviet emigrants of Jewish origin.[17] He complained that "Russophobes," who are cunning, hostile Jewish critics, "dream of transforming Russia into. .. a robot deprived of all elements of human life."[18]

This publication led to an "unprecedented" public campaign to remove Shafarevich from the US NAS.[19][20] In an open letter to the NAS, Shafarevich denied that Russophobia is antisemitic.[21] Most recently Shafarevich expanded on 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».[22]
Clearly, this "Russian destruction" [during the Russian Civil War] was made not exclusively by Jewish efforts, but by the 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.[22]
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 who was 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?[22]
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.[22]
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".[22]
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 U.S. 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. ^ A look at anti-Semitism in Russia The Washington Times September 18, 1996
  2. ^ The Evil Empire, Continued The New York Times, June 13, 1993
  3. ^ Russia Has Future Russian Press Digest January 5, 1993
  4. ^ Russia's future. Into the abyss? The Economist June 15, 1996
  5. ^ Egos Mark Battle Of The 'Sofa Parties' The Guardian (London) November 6, 1993
  6. ^ Putin congratulates prominent academician on 80th birthday TASS June 3, 2003
  7. ^ The Socialist Phenomenon, by Igor Shafarevich. (1980) Translated by William Tjalsma. Foreword by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn. 319 pp. New York: Harper & Row.
  8. ^ Capitol Ideas, The American Spectator March 2004
  9. ^ Gnostic Urge, The Washington Times March 3, 1999
  10. ^ 'Twixt Heaven and Earth: How the parties play out National Review December 4, 2000
  11. ^ Russians On Russia, The New York Times November 16, 1980
  12. ^ Russians On Russia, The New York Times November 16, 1980
  13. ^ Russians On Russia, The New York Times November 16, 1980
  14. ^ Alexei Miller, The Communist Past in Post-Communist Russia, Eurozine, 2002-05-24.
  15. ^ Veljko Vujacic, Russian Intellectual Anti-Semitism in the Post-Communist Era, Canadian Slavonic Papers, Mar-Jun 2004.
  16. ^ Scientist and Antisemite;The National Academy of Sciences has no business policing its members' attitudes. The Washington Post September 1, 1992
  17. ^ What Russians Are Saying The Jerusalem Post July 13, 1989.
  18. ^ Russia and the New Right Newsweek February 12, 1990
  19. ^ Joan Birman, AMS Condemns Russophobia, The Scientist, 1993, 7(8):12.
  20. ^ Semyon Reznik, On Shafarevich And NAS: Tolerance Vs. Indifference, The Scientist, 1993, 7(8):11.
  21. ^ Igor R. Shafarevich, Russian Castigates NAS For Making 'Vague Accusations', The Scientist, 1992, 6(24):11.
  22. ^ a b c d e I.R. Shafarevich, "Three thousand year old mystery", Bibliopolis, St. Peterburg, 2002.

[edit] External links