Asif A. Siddiqi

In investigating the evolution of Russian science, historians have predominantly focused on the roles of the Imperial, Soviet, and now Russian Academy of Sciences. This article describes one alternative discursive network of scientific activity that existed without any formal institutional structure. Because Konstantin Tsiolkovskii’s ideas on space travel (or indeed airships) were not recognized by the new Bolshevik authorities, Tsiolkovskii and his supporters sought out avenues of promotion and communication that did not rely on the state. I show how a huge discursive network grew around Tsiolkovskii in the 1920s that, in many ways, paralleled the official scientific networks of Academy scientists. Instead of refereed journals, formal associations, conferences, and foreign visits, they used self-publishing, voluntary societies, exhibitions and thousands of personal letters passed between participants. Tsiolkovskii’s example raises important questions about the possibility and contours of “informal” science in contexts where science is overwhelmingly identified with an overpowering and formal state structure (such as the Academy of Sciences).