Forty years have elapsed since Sobolev had left Novosibirsk for ever. At their prime years there are generations of scientists who never saw Sobolev. Few mathematicians know something about the persons whose names are associated with theorems, transformations, inequalities, or formulas. Ignorance is unavoidable and remains the fact that must be acknowledged. Inadmissible is the distortion of history alongside with speculating others' fame and constructing private hierarchies by references to the forgone masters of science.
Sobolev celebrated his 75th birthday in 1983. L. D. Faddeev, V. S. Vladimirov and L. V. Kantorovich came to Novosibirsk to the celebration. In those years such occasions were marked with the honorable state decorations. Everyone thought that Sobolev should be granted the second Star of the Hero of Socialist Labor for his role in foundation of the Siberian Division of the Academy of Sciences. However, Sobolev was not awarded with any order or medal. It was the first time in the history of the USSR that the giant of world science was appraised on his anniversary by a paperlike Certificate of Honor. This occasion was in fact the reaction of V. A. Koptyug on the noble role of Sobolev in repulsing the ideological offensive by L. S. Pontryagin against modern trends in mathematics in The Communist, the official periodical of the Communist Party of the USSR in 1980 as well as defending A. N. Kolmogorov against libel in the newspaper Science in Siberia in 1983. Soon after the jubilee, V. A. Koptyug forced Sobolev to sign the application for retirement from directorship. Sobolev felt himself highly offended and left Novosibirsk for ever, which felicitated his antagonists in Siberia...
Contemporary mathematics in Siberia was promoted by the outstanding members of the mathematical schools of Moscow and Leningrad. S. L. Sobolev, A. D. Alexandrov, and L. V. Kantorovich are alumni of Leningrad State University. The supervisor of I. N. Vekua was A. N. Krylov. M. A. Lavrentiev and A. I. Maltsev belonged to the Luzin school. There are substantial distinctions between Moscow and St. Petersburg. Part of them is described by A. S. Griboedov in his Woe from Wit: “A Muscovite's not hard to recognize.”
Moscow and St. Petersburg are capital cities not resembling one another. Novosibirsk is often called the capital of Siberia, which is nothing more than a façon de parler. Novosibirsk is not a capital city. Capital differs from provincial. There is a vector from a provincial town to the capital. The begining of the vector is envy and the ending is swagger. It is impossible to ignore or avoid this. The scientific life of Academy town has abundance of fractures along the lines from Moscow to Leningrad as well as from the capital to a province. The relevant distinctions are always visible and exist by now. The present-day confrontations in the Institute of Mathematics is one of the instances of these fractures.
The Moscow and St. Petersburg mathematical schools are counterposed by the differences in the attitude to interrelations between theory and practice from the times of P. L. Chebychev. Divergences of the two capital schools in the Soviet period is still a closed matter that remains a taboo topic to some extent. Mathematics in Leningrad was mainly formed by the moral guides of such scholars as A. N. Krylov, S. N. Bernstein, and V. I. Smirnov. Moscow mathematicians had other leaders who spoiled the atmosphere of the Soviet science by the poisonous miasmas of the “Luzin case.” There were a few of the first and foremost Muscovite mathematicians that ostracized their inspired teacher. Complicity in denigration of N. N. Luzin as an “enemy in the Soviet mask” who seemingly served his “fashizoid masters” had terrified none of them. The Luzin case became the mark of Cain of the science of this country. The atrocities of cannibalism in the mathematical life of the USSR are mostly the products of deterioration of “Luzinism.” Truth had been hashed and silenced, the traces of inquisition had mysteriously annihilated, and ugly gossips about Luzin had been proliferated. There were not much hypocrisy and lies on the surface of mathematics, but the bacilli of these maladies have deteriorated the scientific community from within. The capital harbors the strings of power. Province mimics the capital and the waves of cannibalism traveled throughout the country. Rot has spread everywhere. Clannishness, self-praise, envy, obstruction, and xenophobia are ordinary traits of science in the USSR. Decency in a totalitarian society helps rarely in career promotion, Oppression of conscience beget degradation.
Obviously, not everyone was infected by Stalinism, lust for power, collective hooliganism, and other charms of developed socialism. These days the students of the students of Luzin found strength in paying tribute to their scientific ancestor, repairing the mistakes of the past at least partly, and saving the memory of the late teachers and reputation of science in Russia by propagating truth.
In the epoch of totalitarianism the mathematical atmosphere in St. Petersburg was cleaner in St. Petersburg than in Moscow and periphery. However, the company of belligerent careerists lets loose over there at the turn of the 1930s. The great Russian scholars N. M. Günter and V. I. Smirnov were hunted by ignorant “mathematicians–materialists” in company with some decent persons that joined the attack without any substantial reasons. However, the direct students of Günter and Smirnov did not betray their teachers, and the conscientious mathematicians participating in hunting their colleagues never concealed their deeds. S. N. Bernstein and A. N. Krylov did not betray Luzin. Sobolev did not betray neither Günter nor Smirnov, although he drowned Luzin as he trusted his Moscow friends.
The two of the trinity of the founding fathers of the Siberian Division, S. L. Sobolev and S. A. Khristianovich were cronies from the university bench. M. A. Lavrentiev belonged to the Luzin school. Sobolev was a friend of P. S. Aleksandroff and A.N. Kolmogorov whom Lavrentiev was far from being fond of. Also Lavrentiev was friendly with I. M. Vinogradov, one of the organizers and beneficiaries of hunting N. M. Günter, the supervisor of Sobolev.
Sobolev was appointed the director of the Steklov Mathematical Institute during the WWII years, which arouse the discontent of I. M. Vinogradov and L. S. Pontryagin. Also Sobolev was friendly with A. N. Kolmogorov and P. S. Aleksandroff during his lifetime. Hatred to Sobolev stemmed from his absolute independence which was due to his outstanding role in the atomic project of the USSR. Sobolev was an intellectual leader of that epoch and one of the main public defenders of genetics, cybernetics, and mathematical economics. Many scientists went to Siberia as inspired by the noble positions of Sobolev. The adepts of Vinogradov hated Sobolev and put sticks in his wheels. This is clearly seen in the notorious memoirs by A. V. Bitsadze which were published by his son in Canada rather recently. Bitsadze accused Sobolev of scientific importance and careerism. It is impossible not to mention that there was a moment that Sobolev, together with A. A. Lyapunov, felt into euphoria by caressing the pseudoscientific deciphering of the Maya script. This history brought much damage to Siberian science.
Sobolev bequeathed to Siberian mathematicians his personal moral codex and communication principles. He was distinguished by such rare qualities as good manners, modesty, and respect to whosoever gifts. Sobolev was devoid of intolerance to other views. He was never a vindictive egoist and intriguer. He never used self-advertisement and self-promotion. He refused to agree that he was the founder of the Siberian mathematical school. He always appraised the achievements of his colleagues. Sometimes Sobolev made mistakes in estimating scientists but never attacked his colleagues on the basis of nationality. Interests of science and homeland were his categorical imperatives. Sobolev could draw conclusions from his mistakes and illusions, but never transferred responsibility for to them to the others and never became neither self-conceited nor vindictive. He never started scandals, but stayed sensitive and smooth; i.e., he was such as must be a free and independent person.
There are hundreds of various nationalities in Russia, a multitude of different languages, and diversity of religious confessions. However, all these particularities are inessential for a foreigner. A Russian for a foreigner is a person who ties his or her worldline with Russia independently of the personal ethnic origin, language, or confession. The Russian world is the collection of the worldlines of all Russians and the culture, second nature created by the Russians. The noble place in the Russian world is allotted to the pantheon of the great ancestors who made an especial contribution to culture. The Russian world is the residence of Pushkin and Lomonosov, Korolev and Suvorov, Gagarin and Tolstoy, Ulanova and Aivazovsky, Mendeleev and Kurchatov, et al. Inexhaustible is the list of the heroes of the pantheon of the Russian world. One of these heroes is Sergei L'vovich Sobolev.
Sobolev had once called himself a minion of fate. There were a few reasons behind this, but a minion of fate is not a lifetime title. Sobolev's fate is a clew of victories and defeats, achievements and disappointments, exploits and failures, fame and oblivion. The tragic worldline of a Russian intellectual is full of personal triumphs and tragedies. Sobolev's life makes no exception. We will recall him with gratitude.
I had taken the floor to defend S. L. Sobolev as far back as on October 19, 1983. My talk was finished with the words that deserve to be repeated today:
October 6, 2023
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