“Whereabout are we?” Historical significance of the scientific-technical and industrial journal (a contemplation about the Gornyi Zhurnal at its anniversary year)

The paper generalizes the activity results of “Ore and metals” Publishing house in the field of preparation for 200th anniversary of the “Gornyi Zhurnal”. It consists of two parts. In the first part, the authors analyze “external” circumstances of a scientific and publishing process in Russia, reveal thee problems and unevident positions in scientometrics as well as consequences of its putting into practice for Russian science without any alternative. By authors’ opinion, almost 1.5 decades of using scientometric evaluation methods have led to substantial deformation of a scientists’ ethos and to creation of the myth about advanced “global publishing practices”, resulting in strengthening of such tendencies as “echo-chambering”, “filter bubbles” and “post-truth” in an intellectual engineering culture. The second part is presented by considerations on historical and cultural significance of the “Gornyi Zhurnal”, which is exposed via representing its historical succession among imperial, soviet and modern times as a “Chronicle of the Russian mining matter”. In addition to its main purpose – an increment of the achievements of the Russian engineering thought – it also realizes the important archivation function. Motivation, goal setting and boundaries of possible activity of the journal publishers are observed in details, as well as planned and actual achievements regarding the anniversary of the “Gornyi Zhurnal”; the primary contours of the third age of existence and development of this title are marked.The authors would like to thank Polina A. Zakharchuk (S. I. Vavilov Institute for the History of Science and Technology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow) for her assistance in finding archival material in the Russian State Historical Archive, and Svetlana F. Progunova (Zlatoust City Museum of Local Lore, Zlatoust) for providing the miraculously preserved cover of the Gornyi Zhurnal No. 1-1825.