Trofim Nemirov

Trofim Trofimovich Nemirov (1899-1976) was a Russian linguist, whose pseudo-scientific theories made him very popular with the leadership of the SNOR, Iosif Vasilyevich Vissarionov in particular. He postulated that all Slavic languages are merely dialects of one and the same language, Russian, and openly propagated the idea of one ethnically homogenous, Slavic state. In Nemirov's eyes, the Baltic languages Lithuanian, Latvian and Prussian were essentially "germanised Slavic languages", and therefore he included them in his Russian "Sprachbund".

Most of his ideas were adopted directly by the SNOR and incorporated into the party's ideology. His Baltic theories were used as an argument in Russia's attack on Lithuania and Latvia at the beginning of the Second Great War. Another of Nemirov's theories, in which he proposed a relationship between the Uralic languages, the Altaic languages and Chinese, was sometimes used as a justification for the regime's oppressive policies regarding national minorities.

In 1936, Nemirov was put in charge of the Russian Academy of Sciences and made responsible for ending the propagation of "harmful" ideas among Russian scientists. He served his purpose faithfully, causing the expulsion, imprisonment, and death of hundreds of scientists. This period is known as nemirovism. In 1947, he also became minister of education and in 1952 a junior member of the White Council.

After Vissarionov's death in 1958, Nemirov retained his position, enjoying a relative degree of trust from Vissarionov's successors Andrei Vlasov and Yevgeni Lipov. However, mainstream scientists were now given the ability to criticise Nemirov for the first time since the late 1920s. By 1965 the Russian press was filled with articles against Nemirov's false science and his policy of political extermination of scientific opponents. In 1966, Nemirov was finally removed from the White Council and his ministry, and in 1967 he lost his post at the Academy of Sciences. From that moment he was restricted to his chair at Moscow University, which he held till his death in 1976.