Authors

Discussion

This paper examines the development of Soviet virology, specifically research on viral encephalitis, during the 1930s–1960s. It argues that, although this research was carried out by civilian scientific institutions, it was deeply intertwined with the geopolitical processes, opportunities, and constraints of the long Second World War and the Cold War.

In the mid-1930s, an outbreak of a severe paralytic disease was recorded in the Soviet Far East, a region of growing strategic importance amid Soviet military tensions with Japan and fears of potential bioweapon attacks. In 1937, a scientific mission of the Soviet Ministry of Health described the etiology of this disease, later known as tick-borne encephalitis (TBE), identified the vector, isolated the causative virus, and developed the first vaccine. The identification of the TBE virus marked the first major success of Soviet virology, as it was the first tick-borne virus causing a major human disease to be discovered globally.

Both this discovery and the subsequent trajectories of Soviet virology were profoundly influenced by military agendas. The Soviet confrontation with Japan created new reservoirs of disease among Soviet soldiers and, later, among Japanese prisoners-of-war, attracting unprecedented scientific resources to the remote Far Eastern periphery. At the same time, the war opened new opportunities for transnational collaboration between Soviet and American virologists, including bilateral visits and the exchange of viral strains. Although this collaboration was interrupted in the late 1940s, it was revived in the 1950s and continued throughout the Cold War, with the endorsement of the U.S. military agencies, as tick-borne encephalitis was considered a potential agent of a Soviet bioweapon attack.