Image of Soviet and Russian logic in the West. Latter Half of the XXth Century

Abstract

The article attempts to overview Western scientific knowledge of research in mathematical logic and its history in the USSR and Russia in the first half of the 20th century. We claim that Western scholars followed and were generally aware of the main works of their Soviet and Russian colleagues on mathematical logic and its history. It was possible, firstly, due to the fact that a number of Western scientists knew the Russian language, and, secondly, because Soviet and Russian logicians published their works in English (sometimes in German) in the original journals of mathematical logic or Soviet publishing houses (mainly Mir Publishers) translated Soviet authors into English. Thus, the names of A.G. Dragalin, Yu.L. Ershov, A.S. Karpenko, A.N. Kolmogorov, Z.A. Kuzicheva, Yu.I. Manin, S.Yu. Maslov, F.A. Medvedev, G.E. Mints, V.N. Salii, V.A. Smirnov, A.A. Stolyar, N.I. Styazhkin, V.A. Uspensky, I.M. Yaglom, S.A. Yanovskaya, A.P. Yushkevich, A.A. Zinov’ev were quite known to their Western counterparts. With the dawn of perestroika, contacts of Soviet / Russian logicians expanded significantly. Nevertheless, the analysis of Western works on mathematical logic and the history of logic suggests that by the end of the 20th century the interest of Western scientists in the works of their Russian colleagues had noticeably waned.