Paper short abstract:

The paper addresses efforts in science diplomacy and conflicts around international research in the Barents Sea. It compares two case-studies: mid-1920s cooperation between German and Soviet scientists, and late- 1950s between Soviet and Norwegian in a situations of Cold War, and their legacies.

Paper long abstract:

The Barents Sea was defined as a see for international science in the research programme developed by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (1902). Although main research was done by Russian scientists all data were stored internationally. After the WWI a main tendency of Soviet diplomacy in that time, including science diplomacy, was cooperation with Germany. Both countries lost their membership in ICES so were keen for cooperation with each other. Germany with its rapidly growing off-shore fisheries was interested in doing research in the northern waters and thus organized a cruise to the Barents Sea in 1926. By that time Germany managed to return to ICES while the Soviet Union did not, in spite of many efforts by Nikolai Knipowitsch, a leading Soviet marine biologist and oceanographer, who was one of the vice-presidents of ICES before the WWI and thus had numerous international connections.

The paper analyses a conflict that this cooperation caused among Soviet scientists: one part like Knipowitsch were anticipated very positively cooperation with German scientists, while others considered that as a threat, especially because there was no well-defined agreement on how to share the data. This conflict juxtaposed with a more easy-going cooperation around the Barents Sea resources, cooperation between Soviet and Norwegian scientists in a very different political situation of the early Cold War, 1956 – 58, that provided a long-lasting legacy in activity of Joint Norwegian-Soviet (later Russian) Commission founded in 1974.