Eastern Europe and China
"Academician" may also be a functional title and denote a full member of the National Academy of Sciences in those countries where the academy has a strong influence on national scientific life, particularly countries that were part of, or influenced by, the Soviet Union. In such countries, "Academician" is used as an honorific title (like "Doctor", "Professor", etc.) when addressing or speaking about someone. Countries where the term Academician is used in this way include China, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Ukraine and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
However, since the reforms of late USSR dismantled the de-facto monopoly of the state on forming academies and allowed the creation of voluntary academies. While some of the newly created academies did improve the relatively rigid structure, the prestige and meaning of the title has been substantially undermined, as the title Academician could be awarded by associations of pseudoscientists or organizations that see their sole purpose of the existence of selling the title for money. Therefore, it became customary and almost compulsory to list which academy gave the title to assert its meaningfulness.
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Famous quotes containing the words eastern europe, eastern, europe and/or china:
“Should the German people lay down their arms, the Soviets ... would occupy all eastern and south-eastern Europe together with the greater part of the Reich. Over all this territory, which with the Soviet Union included, would be of enormous extent, an iron curtain would at once descend.”
—Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945)
“But we are spirits of another sort.
I with the morning’s love have oft made sport,
And like a forester the groves may tread
Even till the eastern gate, all fiery-red,
Opening on Neptune with fair blessèd beams,
Turns unto yellow gold his salt green streams.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“That land is like an Eagle, whose young gaze
Feeds on the noontide beam, whose golden plume
Floats moveless on the storm, and in the blaze
Of sunrise gleams when Earth is wrapped in gloom;
An epitaph of glory for the tomb
Of murdered Europe may thy fame be made,
Great People! as the sands shalt thou become;
Thy growth is swift as morn, when night must fade;
The multitudinous Earth shall sleep beneath thy shade.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
“Anyone who tries to keep track of what is happening in China is going to end up by wearing all the skin of his left ear from twirling around on it.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)