Learn Hardcore Russian: Любопытство и желание учиться движут учёных вперёд. - Curiosity and the desire to learn drive scientists forward.

движут is actually an archaic or elevated variant of the third-person plural present tense of двигать. In modern spoken and written Russian you will almost always see двигают. Authors sometimes use движут in older texts or poetry for stylistic or rhythmic effect. You can freely replace движут with двигают in everyday usage.

What case is учёных, and why does it look like a genitive plural rather than accusative?

Here учёных functions as the direct object of движут, so it’s in the accusative case. Because учёные (“scientists”) is an animate masculine noun in the plural, its accusative form coincides with its genitive plural form. Russian’s animacy rule makes the accusative of animate nouns identical to the genitive.

What part of speech is вперёд, and how does it work in this sentence?

вперёд is an uninflected adverb of direction meaning “forward.” It modifies the verb движут, showing where the action is directed. Russian often uses simple adverbs of direction without additional prepositions.

Why is желание учиться used instead of желание учения or желание ученья?

With the noun желание (“desire”), Russian typically takes an infinitive to indicate what someone wants to do. So желание учиться literally means “the desire to learn.” Using the noun учение (“learning”) would produce желание учения, which is grammatically possible but sounds more abstract and is uncommon in this context.

What kind of noun is любопытство, and how is it formed?

любопытство is an abstract noun meaning “curiosity.” It’s built from the adjective stem любопытн- plus the noun-forming suffix -ство, similar to English suffixes -ness or -ity. Many Russian abstract nouns follow this pattern (for example, могучий → могущество).

Could I change the word order in this sentence, or is it fixed?

Russian word order is relatively flexible. The original S-V-O-adverb structure is the neutral pattern. If you start with the object to add emphasis, you could say Учёных движут любопытство и желание учиться вперёд, shifting the focus onto учёных. All permutations are grammatically correct but convey slightly different nuances.

How do I know where to put the stress in учёных and вперёд?

The letter ё in Russian always marks the stressed syllable. Thus учёных is stressed on ё (u-CHYÓ-nikh) and вперёд on ё (vpe-RYÓd). Even if you see them written without the diacritic (ученых, вперед), you still stress those syllables.