The Vexing Case of Igor Shafarevich, a Russian Political Thinker

This is the first comprehensive study about the non-mathematical writings and activities of the Russian algebraic geometer and number theorist Igor Shafarevich (b. 1923). In the 1970s Shafarevich was a prominent member of the dissidents’ human rights movement and a noted author of clandestine anti-communist literature in the Soviet Union. Shafarevich’s public image suffered a terrible blow around 1989 when he was decried as a dangerous ideologue of anti-Semitism. The scandal culminated when the President of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States suggested that Shafarevich, an honorary member, resign. While it became clear already in the early 1990s that Shafarevich had not discriminated against his Jewish students, as was claimed, the present study also shows that the allegations about anti-Semitism in Shafarevich’s texts are unfounded.