State secrets and compromises with capitalism: Lev Theremin and regimes of intellectual property

Known as a pioneer of electronic music, Lev Theremin (1896–1993) had a career as an inventor which stretched the entire span of the Soviet Union’s existence. He witnessed the upheavals of war, terror and revolution firsthand but also tried his luck as an inventor in the United States. With an emphasis on the Soviet Union, this paper uses the case of Theremin – including the years he spent in the United States – as a lens through which intellectual property can be analysed. Soviet attempts to control and reward inventors, inventions and inventiveness to a large extent took place outside the formal legal framework. Theremin’s inventive career embodied the contradictions and tensions of intellectual property politics and its attempts to encourage, reward and control both inventions and inventors. As the case of Theremin will show, many of the dealings between inventor and state were classified and unrecognized, shaped by both voluntary cooperation and force. Using the methodological approach of the meta-archive, this paper traces the overarching structural context for owning and controlling knowledge and ideas through the personal trajectory of Theremin.