About myself and this Site

Yuri MOROZOV

I

1966-71: M.Sc. (Mathematical Economics), Moscow State University, Dept. of Economics, Chair of Applied Mathematics.

1969-1972: “English as a Second Language” College, Moscow, Russia.

1970: My first article.

1971-1975: Post-graduate course, Moscow State University, Dept. of Economics, Chair of Applied Mathematics, Russia.

1975: Ph. D., Moscow State University, Dept. of Economics, Chair of Applied Mathematics; Ph.D. thesis title: Models of Human Decision Making: ‘Fussy’ von Neumann-Morgenstern Preference Model and Allai's Paradox. (See here a comparison of Western and Russian degrees of Doctor, Master  and Bachelor.)

1974-1982: Lecturer and Researcher, Moscow State University, Dept. of Economics, Russia.

1982-1984: Senior Researcher, Central Institute for Mathematical Economics, the Academy of Science, Moscow, Russia.

1984-1988: Senior Lecturer (Assistant Professor), Moscow Business School (Communication Industry), Chair of Management, Russia.

1988-1990: Associate Professor, Moscow Business School (Energy industry), Chair of Psychology, Russia.

II

T. Shibutani's book on Social Psychology and a discussion on "Asiatic" Mode of Production made me pay attention to sociocultural aspects of management and to economic development. While collecting materials for my Ph. D. thesis I discovered many publications, devoted to religion and culture impact on socioeconomic development, regulatory systems and political behaviour. One of the articles dealt with an absolutely non‑Western model of decision-making in Japan—RINGI-SEI; a number of publications were discussing the reasons for "Japanese miracle."

Since 1975 I have lectured (either whole courses or separate lectures, mostly in Russian, sometimes in English) on groups, social interaction and communication, society, cultures, socialization, ethnicity and national character (with an emphasis on comparison of Russia with the West), economic order and social change, culture impact on top executives behaviour, political order and power, leadership and decision-making, collective behaviour and "big" groups.

The Chair of Mathematical Economics, which I graduated from, had a solid extensive list of courses in mathematics and computers. In 1976-82 I studied psychology in Moscow State University on Department of Psychology (with major emphasis on Social Psychology; I did not graduate, as according to the Soviet rules, a person with Ph.D. could not receive the second formal M.Sc.)

Comparison of the West with Japan interested me immensely, I studied Japanese — and suddenly I realized, that it might be more imperative and promising to clarify, why we, Russians, did not have "a Russian miracle," what sociocultural and/or psychological features prevented us from direct application of Western models and methods. In 1979 I made the first presentation about it, which was transformed into my book A Russian Way: Modernization in non-Western Cultures (vv.1-4, Moscow, 1991-1992, in Russian), where I dealt with culture dependant regulatory systems, traditions of reform-making, social change and modernization.

The main aim of the study was

• to determine mechanisms that generated such specific regulatory system as democracy in the West;
• to find out those particular features of Russia that hindered introduction of democracy and free market;
• to see whether similar features of many other countries and cultures did the same.

To do it I compared differences in Western, Far Eastern and Russian cultures to trace their impact on political culture, economy and democratic transition to be able to describe those specific mechanisms, that enabled the West (in the fifteenth-seventeenth centuries) and Japan and countries of the Pacific Rim (in the twentieth century) to change themselves successfully -- and that prevented Russia from doing this. [See its outline here. ]

The immediate outcome of that analysis was a question: was a totalitarian regime in the Soviet Union an end result of Russian culture (as Sovietologists and dissidents claimed)? To answer this I started another project of mine, where I prove, that it was a successful attempt to establish a new culture, which is fully opposed to any normal one (I'd prefer to call it "Anti-culture" or, shortly, anti_K)—the brief description of it here.

III

A simple comparison of North American Ph.D. with Russian "Candidate of Science" can be seen in the following table, representing a typical educational pattern for a student of Applied Math/Computer Science programs in, respectively, University of Montreal and Moscow State University:

Canada/Quebec: University of Montreal				USSR/Russia: Moscow State University
Years	Credits per yr.					Credits per yr.	Years
21		Ph.D.	Thesis				21
20		Ph.D.	Projects + courses				20
19		Ph.D.	Projects + courses	Ph.D.	Candidate of Science (Ph.D.) Thesis		19
18	30	University  (M. Sc.)	Projects + courses Memoir	Ph.D.	Ph.D. 4 courses + 4 doctorate exams		18
17	30	University  (M. Sc.)	Projects + courses	Ph.D.	Ph.D. 4 doctorate courses		17
16	30	University  (BA)	Courses <No Memoir necessary>	University  (M. Sc.)	Game Models; Math Sociology; Math Economics; Thesis	72	16
15	30	University  (BA)	Finite Math (combinatorics, recursive functions); Math Logic (Functions; Theory of Algorithms and Automaton);	University  (M. Sc.)	Operations Research 3&4; General Systems Theory; Theory of Information; Computer Science; Memoir	72	15
14	30	University  (BA)	Algebra/Linear Algebra; Calculus 1&2	University  (M. Sc.)	Computer Science; Optimization 3&4; Operations Research 1&2; Theory of Games; Memoir	72	14
13	30	CEGEP (community college)		University  (M. Sc.)	Computer Science; Probability; Math Statistics; Calculus 3; Calculus 4; Optimization 1&2; Memoir	72	13
12	30	CEGEP (community college)		University  (M. Sc.)	Finite Math (combinatorics, recursive functions); Math Logic (Functions; Theory of algorithms and Automaton; Algebra/Linear Algebra; Calculus 1; Calculus 2	72	12
1-11		High School		High School			1-11
			Total credits in M. Sc. program: appr. 150		Total credits in M. Sc. program: appr. 360

Some necessary remarks:

a/ My degree Кандидат наук cannot be translated as “candidate” as there is no such degree either in English or in French—though probably the word itself sounds familiar. Its eight-years program meets absolutely the same standards as Ph. D. in European or North American systems: Master Degree + fierce competition during selection process for the postgraduate course + Ph. D. thesis + Doctorate exams + scientific publications. (By the way, this IS officially recognized by universities in North America: dozens of "candidates" from the erstwhile USSR work as Assistant, Associate or even as full professors in various departments of North American universities—which is absolutely out of the question for a person with master degree. My wife worked in several North American universities and was always treated  as a Doctor. When I was in the International Institute for Applied System Analysis (IIASA, Laxenburg, Wien, Austria), I received a message, that my Ph. D. was approved by the Soviet authorities—and immediately, without my requests (!), the administration of the Institute mounted a new notice on my door "Doctor Yu. Morozov").

b/ According to the Russian rules (which existed at that time), to obtain Ph.D. Degree one had:

- to be selected by the University after Masters Program;
- to pass 4 entrance exams (a written memoir on the speciality; English, History, speciality);
- to study at the Postgraduate course [“aspirantura”, аспирантура in Russian] for at least 3 (three) years;
- to pass 4 Doctorate exams (all had at least 2 parts: written essay plus four-hours oral exam) with evaluation at least “good” (the equivalent of 80%; lower marks were regarded to be the failure);
- there were obligatory courses (English, Philosophy, one or two in speciality) to help us to prepare for the Doctorate exams;
- to publish several articles in scientific journals in the area, relevant to the thesis, and representing some parts of it;
- to be able to prepare and to defend Ph. D. Thesis (about 200 pages).

IV

The author of the pictures, used for the site, is my wife, Yelena GLINKA. Photos were made in various countries by me (using, in many cases, my old Soviet Zorkij-4 of 1960, it is still OK, I cannot bye good films now). Scripts used here were found somewhere in the Web or in textbooks, and modified by me.

To see everything correctly you are advised to turn on JavaScript support (it is usually "on" by default, though you can do it yourself via Options in any browser). The site uses CSS (styles), thus you'd better use styles-friendly browsers (like Firefox, Opera), which were ported to various platforms (like Unix/Linux, Mac, Win)—but preferably not old (and even modern) versions of Internet Explorer. Modern browsers have internal possibilities to switch between different styles—it's very convenient, especially when you need only text, not decorations; in case you want to print any page from my site, they will do it in efficient toner-saving way — without pictures or colors. (For IE users a special additional line of code was added here by me for correct printing…)

V

A sort of postscriptum: When a couple of months ago I uploaded this site, practically immediately I received an e-mail from a person, who asked me (in a quite a derogatory way): "Why do you need a page in Russian?! Nobody needs Russian nowadays, except probably some people from special governmental offices." [Did he mean toooo "special"?!] However, when I tried to discuss  the matter with the sender, message from the server notified me that such e-mail address does not exist… Thus I still keep my Russian page, probably in vain hope to hear something "new" and equally "interesting" from the sender. [NB: An explanation for those, who are not computer gurus: to send an e-mail with anonymous address is not very easy, you need not only expertise, but something else  … However, I'm not going to lecture this any further.]