TU intern - Juli 2000 - Internationales
Zwischen Hochachtung und MisstrauenDeutsch-Russische Beziehungen in Alltag und Wissenschaft
Pünktlich und zweckrationalDer Direktor des Centers for Sociology of National Identity am Russian Independent Institute of Social and Nationalities Problems, Prof. Andrey G. Zdravomyslov, sprach im Rahmen eines Seminars am Institut für Sozialwissenschaft der TU Berlin über das Deutschlandbild in Russland. TU intern fragte ihn nach den Veränderungsprozessen in seinem Heimatland und nach dem Verhältnis zwischen den beiden Völkern. What do you think about the current change in Russian society? The main direction of the change which has been going on in Russia is signified by the term democratisation. But this change, as well as the changes in property relations, are facing many difficulties coming at least from two sources: firstly, from the resistance to innovations, from the traditional mentality; secondly, from an irrational approach to the new opened chances and possibilities. The clash between these three tendencies - democratisation, traditionalism and irrationalism - produces the impression of a chaotic situation. It was very difficult to anticipate where things were going to. What is your opinion about the relationship between German and Russian people? I think these relations from both sides should not be oversimplified. The traces of the war still exist (in the changed form), but they are not dominating any more. The Germans have tremendously changed their attitude to other nations and first of all to the Jews. This is a sign of European thinking. I think it will produce very positive consequences. At the same time there is a feeling of danger, of a possible threat coming from Russia and some people are even glad that Russia is in a difficult situation. The best outcome for such people would be that Russia cease to exist following the fate of the USSR. I think that it is a sort of the revanshism. The public opinion in Russia concerning the Germans has changed during the last years. The survey produced by our Institute shows that only 11% of the population agree with the statement that the Germans are forever the enemy of the Russians. The majority of 69% did not agree with this statement. At the same time in Germany Russia is seen very little, and if it is seen, that is in very negative aspects. What are the images of German people in the Russian public opinion? I think that there are at least three images of the Germans if we have in mind certain mass stereotypes. One is connected with the experience of the war, and I would prefer not to speak about it. I'll say only one thing. The contacts with the people from DDR in the Soviet period helped very much in overcoming this image. The second image is traditional one coming from the history of the German-Russian relations. According to this idea the Germans are very punctual, accurate, and "Ordnung" is the main priority for them, and this is not the strongest side of the Russians themselves. "Die Deutschen" are "zweckrational" in their behaviour. I think there is nothing wrong with this. The third image comes from the contacts between the new generations. They don't care much about the past and traditions. It has nothing to do with any ideological indoctrination. They accept "persons" without nationality. The only difficulty comes from the knowledge of language. I think that with our new President who speaks German, Russia enters a new period of germanophilia. Right now the Russian economy demands more organisation, a better efficiency, more bureaucracy in the good sense if you like. That's where the talents of the German people could be used. Neither Russia nor Germany are going to disappear from Europe. That's why they should find a way to live together and to understand each other more than we have done before. Das Gespräch führte Mirjam Kaplow
Für Russland absolute PrioritätNicolai Ledentsov ist DAAD-Gastprofessor am Fachbereich Physik der TU Berlin. Zurzeit arbeitet er jeweils acht Monate in Berlin und vier Monate in St. Petersburg. Nicolai Ledentsov wurde 1959 in St. Petersburg geboren. Er studierte Elektrotechnik an der Universität seiner Heimatstadt. Prof. Ledentsov, der heute ein Forschungsteam am berühmten Abraham-Ioffe-Institut in St. Petersburg leitet, forscht auf dem Gebiet der Festkörperphysik, der Halbleiterphysik und der Physik der Nanostrukturen. Seit 1997 ist er das jüngste korrespondierende Mitglied der Russischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. TU intern sprach mit Nicolai Ledentsov über das Wissenschaftssystem in Russland. What is the science system in Russia like? The science system in Russia differs to some extent from what you have in Germany. Most of the research institutes were related to the Russian Academy of Sciences, which was a rather centralized organisation. Now the science system is more flexible. The advantage of the system in Russia is, that for some cases you really need continuity in research. For this reason you need to have a certain number of scientists who stay for a relatively long time in the same institution working for the same team. For these directions of research the academy was a good opportunity. The main advantage of the system is the possibility to generate schools - high quality scientific schools. In Germany the university system is based on the flow of people and there is essentially one professor who controls the situation and there are a lot of younger people who need to build their own career. On the one side that's very good because people are mobile, they can switch from one place to another. But on the other side for some cases it's necessary to have more stable partnerships with people. Do you have private research institutions as in Germany? Formally we have private institutions, but we do not feel it. There is no strong influence of these institutions. But there are a lot of foreign institutions which interfere. For example there are many projects with China on technology transfer. Cooperations with Europe are mostly devoted to advanced science. Asian companies are mostly interested in commercial applications of technologies and Europe is interested in getting new advanced knowledge, which can be applied to the technology of the next generation. This is the difference. Europe is sometimes a bit slow in getting advantages from their fundamental research. Which scientific system do you prefer? I would prefer something in between - some kind of institution or group which is bigger than the average German research team. A group which contains not only one professor but three or four people of equal rank who are linked closely together. Because with new technologies like nanotechnology you can't live with a small team. It's also a very good idea of arranging these centers of competence. At the Technical University for example there is a big project NanOp and the Ioffe-Institute is one foreign institution which is directely connected with this project. Is there a specific relationship between German and Russian scientists? To a great extent, because Russian science was from the beginning very closely linked to German science. Because of Peter the Great whose second native language was German. Many top scientists, came from Germany. There were even some "scientific families" of German origin: Lomonossov studied in Germany, Abraham Ioffe studied in Germany and worked with Röntgen. This was the starting point of Russian science in the modern sense. Today there are a lot of fundamental research projects, which help to keep top fundamental researchers closely linked to their German collegues. Everybody in a significant scientific institution will tell you the same thing: Germany has top priority in fundamental research for Russia. Das Gespräch führte Thomas Schulz Leserbriefe |
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TU intern - Juli 2000 |
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