Smirnov Kim. Faust Versus Mephistopheles?

Translated from the Russian by Peter Doria. — Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1985. — 186 p.Where does knowledge lead-does it benefit man or will it prove to be his undoing? This controversy between Faust and Mephistopheles in Goethe’s Faust is a sort of key to this book by the Soviet journalist Kim Smirnov. Reflecting on letters sent in by his newspaper readers, the author talks to outstanding Soviet scientists-Academicians Victor Ambartsumian, Yevgeny Velikhov and Bonifaty Kedrov, to name but a few about the interdependence between the socio-political and moral positions of the researcher, what ways he can or cannot take to reach the truth and his moral courage.