ИСТИНА

In the present paper, drawing on the example of Russian zoologist and anthropologist Anatolii Bogdanov (1834–1896), I tried to analyze the factors that made this popular man of science essentially invisible for Soviet historians of science. Bogdanov was one of the most original and industrious figures in Russian science of the second half of the 19th century. His students occupied chairs of zoology in almost all Russian universities, he established several scientific societies, organized a number of grand scientific exhibitions and some new public institutions, including Polytechnic Museum and Moscow Zoological Garden. He was also one of the founders of physical anthropology in Russia and a chair of anthropology in Moscow University. Nevertheless during Soviet period his contribution to Russian science was strongly underestimated and his name was rarely mentioned by historians. The reasons for this stem from a particular tradition of Soviet ideology and historiography to divide all actors of the past and present including men of science into “proletarian”, or “democratic” ones who were to be aggrandized and “bourgeois” ones who were not worth mentioning. Bogdanov belonged to the latter since during his lifetime he had a misfortune to provoke displeasure of some of his liberal colleagues, especially Kliment Timiriazev who was an icon of Soviet ideology. In addition I’ll analyze Bogdanov’s personality and background in order to reveal additional conditions that strengthened his invisibility.