Commemorative practices of the National Research Centre “Kurchatov Institute”

The article is dedicated to the practices of forming the collective memory of scientific communities on the example of the I.V. Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy (currently the National Research Centre “Kurchatov Institute”). Based on the materials of the mass-circulation newspaper “Soviet Physicist” for 1967–1991 and the memoirs of the Institute’s employees, the author analyzes the process of forming the historical narrative about the role of Laboratory no. 2 of the USSR Academy of Sciences in the implementation of the Soviet atomic project and the development of traditions for celebrating the corresponding commemorative dates. The article also discusses the modern historical    and    educational    work    carried    out    at    the    Kurchatov    Institute.    The    findings indicate that scientific communities, along with others, are carriers of collective memory, which, when institutionalized, has a corporate character. 
The    passing    of    I.V.    Kurchatov    marked    the    beginning    of    the    historical    narrative formation of the Institute of Atomic Energy. Already at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s, the Institute of Atomic Energy developed a number of commemorative rituals associated with specific dates (birthdays of I.V. Kurchatov and A.P. Alexandrov, the day of founding Laboratory no. 2, and the start of the first nuclear reactor, F-1), which were reflected in the pages of the newspaper “Soviet Physicist.” The tradition of celebrating these dates continued in the post-Soviet period, but the content was reinterpreted and expanded. Today, the collective memory of the Kurchatov Institute performs three functions: strengthening the collective identity, transmitting a certain set of values from one generation of employees to another, and ensuring the organization’s external positioning.

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