Academia and state socialism

The present volume is a component of a series which, when completed, will constitute a comprehensive survey of the many aspects of East Central European society. The books in the series deal with the peoples whose homelands lie between the Germans to the west, the Russians to the east and the Mediterranean and Adriatic seas to the south. They constitute a particular civilization, one that is at once an integral part of Europe, yet substantially different from the West. The area is characterized by a rich variety in language, religion, and government. The study of this complex area demands a multidisciplinary approach and, accordingly, our contributors to the series represent several academic disciplines. They have been drawn from the universities and other scholarly institutions in the United States and Western Europe, as well as East Central Europe. The author of this collection of essays is professor of history at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway. | In the research work of more than a decade underlying the essays included in the present book, I received financial and moral support from the following institutions: the Department of Economic History, Uppsala University; the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences; the Ian Wallander Foundation for Social-Scientific Research (Svenska Handelsbanken); The Tercentenary Foundation of the Swedish Riksbank; the Swedish Council for Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences; the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences; the Research Support Scheme of the Open Society Institute (Praha); the Department of History of the Norwegian University of Technology and Science (NTNU, Trondheim). The Faculty of Humanities at the NTNU granted a considerable part of the production cost of this volume. In my work I have greatly benefited from the regular cooperation and exchanges with a number of friends and colleagues: Catherine Albrecht, Fiákon With Andersen, Kathleen Burk, John Connelly, Michael David-Fox, Stephen Fortescue, Péter Galasi, Loren R. Graham, Mikael Hard, Paul losephson, Nikolai Krementsov, lanusz Mucha, Peter Pastor, János Rainer, Gudmund Stang, Stephen P. Turner, Peter Wagner, Aleksandra Witczak, Björn Wittrock and many others (including several anonymous readers) have been extremely generous in commenting my writings and encouraging my efforts. This book is dedicated to the memory of Edward Shils and Getachew Woldemeskel.