Russian academic involvement in the war against Ukraine. Super normal science and the post Soviet academic community

Abstract

This presentation examines Russian academic involvement in the war against Ukraine through the concept of super-normal science and the institutional inheritance of the Soviet scientific system. It asks how academic communities preserve professional identities and organisational structures while replacing fundamental assumptions in response to changing state power. The hypothesis identifies dependence on the state as the stable source of legitimate reality, permissible questions, and acceptable conclusions. Super-normal science retains degrees, journals, conferences, and research plans while subordinating cognitive direction to political authority. A proposed mechanism of negative selection marginalises autonomous question formulation and reproduces loyal adaptation, even where technical competence remains strong. Russia and Ukraine provide a comparative framework for examining how shared institutional structures operate under different political demands. Nikolai Bagrov’s career illustrates continuity of academic and political roles across Soviet, Ukrainian, and Russian systems. The Russian Geographical Society’s reorganisation after 2009 demonstrates connections between academic geography, state leadership, and corporate power. The analysis distinguishes documented institutional relationships from interpretations of territorial legitimation and unverified claims of operational planning. It concludes by asking how state demands and residual academic autonomy jointly explain divergent conduct within the post-Soviet scientific community.