Опыт или молодость: смена возрастных ориентиров в кадровой политике советской науки 1945–1991 гг.

Новое прошлое. 2017. № 4. С. 106–126.

Levinson K.

The article traces the evolution of age criteria applied by the Soviet Academy of Sciences and the Moscow State University in their personnel policy during the post-war decades. Drawing on documents deposited in the Archives of the Academy of Sciences and in the Central State-own Archives of the City of Moscow, the study shows that these criteria changed significantly over time. In the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s, there appears to have been no articulated preference in terms of age, but high importance was attached to scholars’ ‘experience’ which was associated with ‘old generation.’ Those belonging to the younger generation were mostly treated as minors of sorts who had to be ‘brought up’ even if they were post-graduate students in their twenties or even thirties. Gradually, from the early 1960s on, organizational forms were introduced that made it possible to more fully use the intellectual potential of ‘young scholars’ without changing their place in the personnel hierarchy: the so-called “young scholars’ councils”, “young scholars’ competitions”, and “creative youth groups”. In the second half of the 1980s, after ‘rejuvenation’ in the party and state apparatus was proclaimed, the personnel policy of the Academy of Sciences changed, adopting the notions of "aging" (as a synonym for "obsolescence") and "rejuvenation". As part of the reform of the Academy of Sciences, it was prescribed annually to recruit a certain percentage of "young specialists" in order to "address new and topical issues", whereas scholars who had passed a certain age line were to be fired. From now on, it was no longer ‘experience’ but ‘youth’ that was expected to provide for better performance of Soviet academia.

Keywords: кадровая политика, возраст, age, опыт, personnel policy, youth, старение, молодость, work experience, aging, history of Soviet science, staff rejuvenation, история советской науки, омоложение кадров

Publication based on the results of: The Ages of Learning: The Cultural Construction of Old Age, Youth, and Generations at Russian Universities between the 18th and the 20th centuries (2017)