This paper reviews 100 years after the Russian physicist Alexander A. Friedmann (born 4 June 1888, died 16 September 1925) first proposed physical models of a changing universe in the 1920s. The author argues that Friedmann’s work was important early on, but that study of dynamic cosmological models was effectively banned in the Soviet Union in the 1930s–1950s. As a result, Friedmann’s contributions were little discussed in Soviet science until the 1960s.

Friedmann’s main scientific point was to show that Einstein’s equations of gravity allow cosmological solutions in which the universe changes in time. The paper notes these were the first physical cosmological models. It also records that Friedmann worked with V.K. Frederiks in Russia: Frederiks helped start studies of Einstein’s theory of gravity, and in 1924 Frederiks and Friedmann published the first chapter of a planned joint book called “Basics of GR” (GR means general relativity, Einstein’s theory of gravity). The book was never completed because Friedmann died young.

The author traces how political and philosophical pressures shaped what Soviet scientists could study. Soviet authorities and Marxist–Leninist philosophers preferred an atheistic view and strongly criticized cosmological ideas that looked like a creation story. The paper reports that some Soviet writers claimed Georges Lemaître’s idea of an expanding universe was invented at the request of the Roman Pope, and that this ideological framing helped push evolving-universe models out of favor in Soviet science for decades.

The paper places several episodes in this larger story. It discusses the early Russian work on general relativity by V.K. Frederiks. It also examines other contested cases of recognition in physics, for example the Raman versus Landsberg–Mandelstamm dispute over discovery priority in 1928, which Soviet authors sometimes cite as evidence that Soviet scientists were overlooked for prizes. The author quotes Soviet scientists such as S.I. Vavilov, who complained after World War II that Soviet researchers were passed over for awards like the Nobel Prize.