“Lions – marchuk”: The soviet-French cooperation in computing

Abstract

This paper looks to break with common assumptions of the underdevelopment and isolation of the Soviet computing by studying the history of the Soviet-French cooperation in computer science under the bilateral agreement of 1966. The achievements of this cooperation were largely due to the singular relations between French and Soviet mathematicians, J-L Lions and G. I. Marchuk. Although neither Marchuk nor Lions are computer scientists, properly speaking, they played crucial roles in promoting the use of computers as scientific instruments and in creating the administrative basis for the development of computer science. This work aims to present a trans-national history of computing and the networks, which existed between Soviet and Western computer scientists at the nexus of science and politics.