Bad Joke, or The Case of Two Professors

Abstract

In October 1916, in Saint Petersburg a court session heard the libel case concerning prof. of Petrograd University A.I. Vvedensky. A claim filed by privat-docent of Kharkiv University I.S. Prodan commenced the suit. The article provides the list of participants and parties to a case, clarifi es circumstances of preparation and proceeding of the hearing, and cites the main reason for the trial. That reason, in fact, was an unfair judgement of the Academic Board of the Ministry of National Education which awarded Peter the Great’s prize to A.I. Vvedensky for his textbook on logic for gymnasiums, whereas I.S. Prodan had been another candidate to receive it. The author suggests that the litigation between two scientists could have an influence upon establishing philosophy of “naïve realism” in Russia.