The opportunity of traveling and breathing the air of Western Europe": the relationships between the academic community and the authorities in respect of international trips during the 1920s.
The research is aimed at evaluating the importance of international academic trips for scientific and educational policies of Soviet Union in the 1920es and assessing the role of the scientists in its establishment. The article is based on a wide range of unpublished sources, mainly the documents of management and record-keeping, such as minutes, application forms and trip reports, stored at central and regional archives. The article attempts to reconstruct the establishment of the legislation, controlling the international trips during the 1920es. The main focus is on the alignment of the laws, the changes in which are the results of the cooperation between the academic community and the authorities. The year of 1926 is somewhat of a milestone in respect of the legislative control of international trips. Since then, these trips become planned and the amount of trips paid for by researchers themselves is going down due to the rising fees for visas and international passports. The trips aimed at the development of more politically reliable young scientists gain top priority. The issue of gradual changes in the goals of academic trips receives special attention of the author. They are evident in the application forms from the traveling researchers and they reflect the shift in the attitude of the officials to this kind of trips. However, the reports concerning the results of the trips show smaller pressure from the authorities. Despite the introduction of a strict form of the reports, the authors used quite liberal digressions, speculating on the level of European science, the attitude of foreign colleagues towards the Soviet researchers, the incipient isolationism of Soviet science. The corpus of documents allowed to trace the establishment of the system of governmental control over the international trips, which materialized in the work of special commissions and the selection of candidates for the trips, especially the trips to international conventions and forums. The analysys of personal traveling experience of several dozens of researches allowed to define the main types of international trips: 1) academic trips leading to emigration; 2) trips to continue pre-revolution researches; 3) regular trips abroad as a sign of trust; 4) high status trips to re-establish scientific cooperation; 5) trips as a stage in the education of researchers. International academic trips were integrated into the process of restructuring science and the system of higher education started in 1917. Their status in this process was ambiguous. On the one hand, international cooperation was seen as an important element in the establishment of Soviet science and education; on the other hand, international trips were seen as a powerful tool of ideological influence and promoting the "Soviet". By the end of the 1920es, international trips obtain new qualities: they become well-planned, ideologically precise and practical.