Discussion of the agenda of the upcoming Symposium on the History of Particle Physics at CERN

Wednesday 23 Jul 2025, 10:00 → 12:00 Europe/Zurich

40/R-D10 (CERN)

The meeting will discuss how to proceed following the exchange with the organizing committee of the 4th International Symposium on the History of Particle Physics at CERN in November (https://indico.cern.ch/event/1480892/overview) about the issue that all the talks representing developments of particle physics in Eastern Europe are given by Russian researchers which titles which are very Russia-centric. Such approach reinforces the Russian government's policy of appropriation of achievements and undermining of contributions of non-Russian scientists from other former Soviet republics. 

20250709ToDrHrynova.pdf

CERN-ISHPP2025.pdf

Present: A. Usachov, D. Grydzo, I. Berezhetsa, I. Yakymenko, M. Mikestikova, V. Lukashenko, D. Tymoshyn, A. Modenko, T. Hryn'ova

Points to remember / questions to address: 

• Members of the committee do not seem to be trained historians might not have a scientific approach to a complex geopolitical situation at a time, which is only being understood now.
• All the Eastern European particle physics contributions to CERN were forced to be channeled through JINR, with 'Russia' currently getting all the credit for it. Thus JINR and its representatives can not serve as a neutral alternative. 
• If titles/content of the talks is not modified and our concerns are only presented as comments there is no record left of them. This is an issue if the event is meant to define how we see community history of this period for next decades. Thus current agenda eliminates big part of East European contribution. Need to have a fair presentation.
• Why cover 'Russian' contributions now during the ongoing war, if it was not addressed in any of the previous meetings? Why call it "Russian" if it starts in 1960? Why can not a neutral scientists can be found to do it?

 

Followup action items: 

• to contact James Gillies (Secretary), CERN to schedule an in person meeting to explain concerns raised in our letter and why we are not satisfied with the reply. [Email sent 23/07 - discussing meeting in the end of September, which is probably too late] 
• to write to CERN DG [Email sent 24/07. Reply "it would not be appropriate for me to interfere with this process"]
• to draft letter to meeting donors to make them aware of our concerns
• to follow up with ACCU representatives from other Eastern European countries to check if we as a community could recommend any alternative experts on history of particle physics of that period for the existing three talks or any additional talks. [email sent 25/07] 
• to probe potential support to boycott the event if no changes to the agenda are made [survey to be circulated on Tue 29/07]
• to raise issue in ACCU on August 26th. 
• to encourage research/publications on history of particle physics in Ukraine and more broader in Soviet Union. Interesting question to cover how place of birth or nationality played a role in Soviet physics. From EPJH editors: "There has been some good historical literature on antisemitism in Soviet physics, but I have indeed not seen any study on what it meant for Gamow, Bronstein or Ivanenko (and their research and academic careers) to be Ukrainian. If you know anyone who could write such an article, please encourage them to do so." 

 

Our proposal: 

(1) to change the talk titles to remove the focus on Russia and make them about the entire Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc 

(2) to reassign these presentations to scientists from other East-European countries.

 

10:00 → 11:30 Roundtalbe

Preliminary feedback:

• it's good that there's a response at all, with at least some willingness to take action. On the other hand, there seems to be a difficulty in communication, because what the response is suggesting is slighly off from what we are concerned about. Do you think it would make sense to schedule a short meeting with someone in the programme committie to explain, and avoid multiple rounds of back-and-forth?

• These cosmetic changes do not change the situation in any meaningful way.

• Such talk titles are openly politically manipulative in nature, and are intended to whitewash Russia and Dubna.

• While we understand from your that the pro-Russia slant in the program may not be deliberate, it remains unacceptable that the history of particle physics in Eastern Europe be only presented by Russians.

• While we appreciate your offer to take part in the discussion at the workshop, we feel that the playing field is so heavily slanted in favor of Russia that we would not be productive -- having a short statement by a non-Russian would certainly not be sufficient to correct the slant that is built into the program.

• We would suggest to preface the session with a short statement mentioning that the Ukrainian community at CERN strongly objects to how particle physics in Eastern Europe is presented at this workshop, and has chosen not to take part in the discussions.

• reply on presentation "Particle physics in the Soviet Union and Russia": "it could perhaps more appropriately be called Particle Physics in Russia and other Dubna Member States" to cover period from 1980 till 2000 shows that the organizing committee completely misread our letter. Our suggestion was to name the talk “Particle Physics in the Soviet Union” to acknowledge for 70 years of brain drain from other Soviet republics and misappropriation of their legacy by Russia (and JINR). The important part of our proposal for me personally was to remove the mention of "Russia" from the title. Adding "Dubna" is making situation only worse in my opinion. For me Dubna at the moment is one of the Russia's main military production hubs. Dubna enterprises collaborating with JINR were attacked on 28th of May 2025 and on 11th of July 2025 as part of Ukraine's campaign to destroy Russian military installations. This side of Dubna research was not publicly discussed prior to 2022, but it had been there since the creation of JINR and probably an important part of the choice of the JINR placement in Dubna. Should CERN really want to highlight its close association with such location in this History Symposium ?

• reply misquotes the dates for V. Matveev JINR director, which started on September 2011 as per this CERN Courier article: https://cds.cern.ch/record/1734711/files/vol51-issue8-p040-e.pdf. Probably the organizing committee referred to his term from 1987 to 2011 as the director of the Institute for Nuclear Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, which is also mentioned at the same article (which is not the same as Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia).

Present: A. Usachov, D. Grydzo, I. Berezhetsa, I. Yakymenko, M. Mikestikova, V. Lukashenko, D. Tymoshyn, A. Modenko, T. Hryn'ova

Main points from the discussion / questions to address:

• Members of the committee do not seem to be trained historians might not have a scientific approach to a complex geopolitical situation at a time, which is only being understood now.

• All the Eastern European particle physics contributions to CERN were forced to be channeled through JINR, with 'Russia' currently getting all the credit for it. Thus JINR and its representatives can not serve as a neutral alternative.

• If titles/content of the talks is not modified and our concerns are only presented as comments there is no record left of them. This is an issue if the event is meant to define how we see community history of this period for next decades. Thus current agenda eliminates big part of East European contribution. Need to have a fair presentation.

• Why cover 'Russian' contributions now during the ongoing war, if it was not addressed in any of the previous meetings? Why call it "Russian" if it starts in 1960? Why can not a neutral scientists can be found to do it?

• Biased presentation of achievements of scientists from non-Russian Soviet republics or Eastern block states as "Russian" is endemic in the science history literature to date (e.g. books in CERN library, science history journal publications). This topic merits further investigation. For example, how place of birth or nationality played a role in Soviet physics. From EPJH editors: "There has been some good historical literature on antisemitism in Soviet physics, but I have indeed not seen any study on what it meant for Gamow, Bronstein or Ivanenko (and their research and academic careers) to be Ukrainian. If you know anyone who could write such an article, please encourage them to do so."

Followup action items:

• to contact James Gillies (Secretary), CERN to schedule an in person meeting to explain concerns raised in our letter and why we are not satisfied with the reply. [Email sent 23/07 - discussing meeting in the end of September, which is probably too late]

• to write to CERN DG [Email sent 24/07. Reply "it would not be appropriate for me to interfere with this process"]

• to draft letter to meeting donors to make them aware of our concerns

• to follow up with ACCU representatives from other Eastern European countries to check if we as a community could recommend any alternative experts on history of particle physics of that period for the existing three talks or any additional talks. [email sent 25/07]

• to probe potential support to boycott the event if no changes to the agenda are made [survey to be circulated on Tue 29/07]

• to raise issue in ACCU on August 26th.

• to encourage research/publications on history of particle physics in Ukraine and more broader in Soviet Union.

Our proposal:

(1) to change the talk titles to remove the focus on Russia and make them about the entire Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc

(2) to reassign these presentations to scientists from other East-European countries.