2019 年 28 巻 2 号 p. 134-151
Yakov Petrovich Terletskii (1912‒1993), a professor in theoretical physics at Moscow State University wrote extensively on the "philosophical" issues of modern physics, particularly in the first half of the 1950s. Outside Russia, his name is rarely mentioned. Nevertheless, it is likely that he has been regarded as a "cat's-paw" of the ideological apparatus of the Marxist state. May we share such a view even now, in spite of the major changes in the historiography of Soviet science we have already seen in the last few decades? Thanks to the progress of the study based on formerly classified documents in various Russian archives, we see that the totalitarian model that had been applied to the understanding of Soviet society for a long time rapidly lost its popularity and was replaced with a more pluralistic view. This study reexamines and reevaluates the thoughts and activities of Yakov Terletskii from the viewpoint of today's understanding of the historiography of Soviet science. It provides a new analysis, connecting the global quest of physicists for a new approach to quantum dynamics to the local context particular to the Soviet Union.
