Talk:Lobachevsky Prize

Current status of the award

I am still fairly unclear on the current status of the award, particularly whether the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Kazan State University reached any kind of accommodation or understanding about which award should be viewed as the true legatee of the original Lobachevsky Prize. The KSU award seems to have been awarded last in 2002, while the RAS award seems to have been awarded last in 2000. I did find a Sept 2008 announcement[1] soliciting new nominations for the RAS award, but I did not find anything of relevance subsequent to that announcement. If anyone has any more up-to-date information on any of this, please post it. Nsk92 (talk) 22:33, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Medal vs Prize

I am also really unsure about the article's title. After reading the Shapukov and Bukhshtaber-Novikov papers, it is clear that until 1992 the award was called "Lobachevsky Prize" rather than "Lobachevsky Medal". "Lobachevsky Medal" is the name of the Kazan State University award, while the RAS continues calling its award the "Lobachevsky Prize". Since the dispute between KSU and RAS about which award is the true legatee of the original award appears to be unresolved, any name that we choose for the WP would implicitly and at least to some extent take a position on this dispute. This is quite a dilemma. Still, my inclination is to move the article's title to "Lobachevsky Prize" since this is the name that had been used for the award during the "undisputed" period in its history, from 1897 to 1992. Still, i am really not sure about this, and maybe there is a more elegant solution... Nsk92 (talk) 23:48, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't see a problem. Lobachevsky medal is an estanlished award with its own history, website, etc. RAS's Lobachevsky award is a different award, which potentially deserves a separate WP page. When creating this page, I followed ru:Медаль Лобачевского and Kazan website. Later editors confused two different and possibly dormant(?) awards. Mhym (talk) 00:28, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

P.S. In fact, there are further confusions with the type of award/medal Kazan gives; e.g. it gave I.Kh. Sabitov some kind of secondary award. If you read Russian and feel like being careful, I recommend reading this useful article. Mhym (talk) 00:34, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, things are not that simple since both the current RAS prize and the KSU medal claim to be the continuation of the original prize, with the bifurcation occurring around 1992. I have read the article of Shapukov that you mention, but I also read the article of Bukhshtaber and Novikov[2]. These two articles represent two somewhat different interpretations of events. The first, by Shapukov, reflects the POV of the Kazan State University. The second presumably reflects the POV of the Russian Academy of Sciences, given that its co-author, S.P. Novikov is a major member of the RAS. If you read both articles carefully, it is clear that from 1987 to 1992 the main award was called the Lobachevsky Prize. There was really no Lobachevsky Medal as an established award during that period and both articles mention that on a few occasions in the Prize's early history a gold medal was given not to the winner of the Prize itself, but to the referee (the author of "otzyv") for a person nominated for the Prize. Thus in 1987 the gold medal was given to Felix Klein, for writing "otzyv" about Sophus Lie, the Prize winner for that year; in 1904 the gold medal was given to Poincare for writing an "otzyv" about the Prize-winner David Hilbert. It is not clear from reading the text of the articles if a gold medal was given to "otzyv" writers in subsequent years, before 1992. What is clear, however, is that prior to 1992 the main award was called Lobachevsky Prize rather than Lobachevsky Medal. According to Shapukov's paper, in June 1991 the Cabinet of Ministers of USSR established ("ucheredil") the Lobachevsky Medal, to be awarded by the Kazan State University. So as a stand-alone award, the Medal is fairly recent. Shapukov's paper makes several jibes at the Soviet/Russian Academy of Sciences. Thus he complains that the 1947 decree of the Council of Ministers of USSR that transferred the jurisdiction over the Lobachevsky Prize to the USSR Academy of Sciences, specified that the prize was to be awarded by the Academy in consultation with the Kazan State University, but that this was not followed in practice. The Novikov-Bukhshtaber paper actually provides an excerpt from the 1947 decree, which does not mention this "consultation" provision. Novikov-Bukhshtaber also mention at the end of their paper that they consider the KSU claim to be the legitimate heir of the original prize to be basically invalid: "In the opinion of the Kazan University, that [meaning KSU] medal serves as the restoration of the Lobachevsky gold medal. However, according to the old statute about Lobachevsky prizes, the medal was given only for the referee report["otzyv"] about an article nominated for the prize". While I don't want to take a position about which award (the RAS Prize of the KSU Medal) is the true heir to the original prize, on this much both articles agree: from 1987 to 1992 the name of the main award was Lobachevsky Prize. Nsk92 (talk) 01:31, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Also, the RAS has its own website for the Lobachevsky Prize[3] (see also[4][5]) that lists the prize as an RAS prize and provides a list of recipients back to the first 1897 prize. If we are to decide that the Kazan State University is right and that the Russian Academy of Sciences is wrong (or the other way around), we need some sort of a good reason for it. Nsk92 (talk) 01:57, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I see. Fair enough, Lobachebvsky Prize it is. I propose the following:

1) move the article to Lobachebvsky Prize

2) Write in the first line "Lobachebvsky Prize also called Lobachevsky medal is a disputed award given by .. and .."

3) Add "Controversy" section where you summarize exactly what you have written above, in more or less the same NPOV style.

4) Redirect Lobachevsky medal and all iwikis to the new page.

Do you think you can do that? Mhym (talk) 02:59, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable, but I'd like to think a little more about it. In particular, I'd like to figure out more precisely what the first sentence (or first couple of sentences) would be. I would want to mention both the Prize and the Medal relatively early on without giving too much preference to one over the other. I am not sure about the controversy section (given that the controversy is fairly subdued); maybe it could be better to create a history section, after a short lead paragraph, and explain more carefully the order of events there. Nsk92 (talk) 03:11, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

How about this as an opening sentence: "Lobachevsky Prize, awarded by the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Lobachevsky Medal, awarded by the Kazan State University, are mathematical awards in honor of Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky." And then put everything else in the "History" section, including the 1992 bifurcation. Nsk92 (talk) 03:28, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Yep, that works. Thank you for doing this. Mhym (talk) 03:44, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

OK, I'll start the implementation. Nsk92 (talk) 04:06, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I have moved the title to Lobachevsky Prize, created a History section and changed the headings of the list of winners to show which award (Prize or Medal) which ones of them won. I am going to bed now, but I will try to work on the History section to make it more detailed and, hopefully, less confusing. Nsk92 (talk) 04:15, 4 January 2010 (UTC)