Russian activists stumble upon plagiarism by elected Estonian politician

Photo: Tiina Kõrstini / Õhtuleht

Activists of Russian internet community Dissernet say that while tracking down a «thesis factory» in Moscow they accidentally unearthed plagiarism by Riigikogu member Valeri Korb (Centre Party).

In Russia, it is a well known secret that prominent people are in the habit of adorning their CVs with diplomas acquired by fraudulent ways. To achieve the aim, dissertations come as copy-cats or are written by others for large money.

A bona fide Russian dissertation industry is in operation with close links to politicians, officials, and people in research and law & order. «The amount of fake theses has grown beyond the imaginable,» according to Russian prime minister Dmitri Medvedev.

In order to bring a measure of clarity, volunteers teamed up two years ago and named the endeavour Dissernet to check authenticity of dissertations.

The network has secured the services of lots of people with reputation such as physicists Andrei Rostovtsev and Andrei Zayakin, biophysicist Mikhail Gelfand, and journalist Sergei Parhomenko.

The activists are assisted by a computer featuring sophisticated software to analyse dissertations. The machine averages two to three hours to analyse a dissertation. At times, they manually compare materials page by page.

Recently, Dissernet discovered that a dissertation had been successfully sold in several places in Russia. «According to the tradition, some other person’s dissertation finds its way into the text by somebody else,» said Dissernet. In the case at hand, the bloggers laid bare a thesis copied from a 2001 thesis by Sergei Fedotov «Psychological basis for shaping of competency of staff at interior ministry».

Further research showed the thesis had been used before – namely, at Valeri Korb’s candidate dissertation at St Petersburg State University in 2002.

The thesis by Mr Korb is titled «Problems in shaping of professional capability in municipal employees».

Dissernet suspects that over 200 pages of the 286-page sociology dissertation have either partially or totally been copied from three dissertations published earlier.

These are the dissertation by Sergei Fedotov mentioned above, Vyacheslav Dubyaga’s dissertation «Shaping of psychological preparedness of a soldier of Russian interior ministry’s operative forces while protecting public order» (1998) and a book by Aleksandr Asmolov «Psychology of Personality» printed at the Moscow University publications.

For a better understanding, find the table traditionally used by Dissernet regarding theses suspected in plagiarism.

An explanation to the table:

Grey – title page, foreword, list of literature, tables, drawings. This part was not analysed, which will not mean it does not contain plagiarism.

White – no plagiarism discovered by Dissernet.

Partially coloured – part of the text on the page is suspected to be plagiarism.

Red – borrowed text from thesis by S. Fedotov.

Green – borrowed text from thesis V. Dubyaga.

Light blue – borrowed text from book by A. Asmolov.

Photo: Ekraanitõmmis dissernet.org veebilehelt

As found out by Dissernet, Mr Korb had to execute some replacements due to essence and form.

Where Mr Fedotov’s dissertation contained «interior ministry», «regional department against organised crime» and «department against organised crime», the thesis by Mr Korb had these replaced by appropriate terms from local government structure.

Mr Korb’s thesis has also tweaked terminology by Mr Dubyaga. For instance, «battle tasks» have become «official duties». Meanwhile, replacements have been inconsistent.

As pointed out by Dissernet, on page 200 in Mr Korb’s thesis, for some reason social efficiency of traffic policemen is being studied and not that of local government staff. Also, on page 165 «military [academy] students» have not been replaced by «municipal servants».

Dissernet says it is rather widespread for plagiarism to be discovered in scientific work by Russian politicians. «Since 2000, 143 cases of plagiarism have occurred at State Duma, in 42 of which «massive borrowing» had been performed,» said the Russian activists.

As a rule, nothing happens with the Russian political figures. They are protected by a law passed in 2011 prescribing that theses dating before 2011 are not subject to public control. Therefore, most of the accused ones sit in their seats safe and secure. 

Estonia’s Riigikogu speaker Eiki Nestor has told Postimees their Board can’t legally do a thing even of the plagiarism is proven. «We are not the employers of Valeri Korb, he is employed by electorate. Definitely, Mr Korb stands to be accountable before his voters,» said Mr Nestor.

Via TV news «Aktuaalne kaamera», Riigikogu members Mr Korb has denied plagiarism. «I defended my thesis at St Petersburg University and I believe they have serious people there who know and see to it that all processes related to is were performed precisely,» he told the Public Broadcasting news programme.

By the time Postimees went to print, comments were unavailable from St Petersburg State University regarding the dissertation by Valeri Korb.