Classical and modern Russian historical science. History as a science
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Russian historical science has existed for over 250 years and has made a significant contribution to the development and deepening of knowledge both about the history of our country and about world history as a whole. It is characterized by a wealth of different schools and directions.
The emergence of Russian history as a science is inextricably linked with the name of Peter I. He founded Russian Academy Sciences and began to actively invite foreign scientists to Russia. This practice continued under his successors. A significant contribution to the development of Russian historical science was made by the German historians G. Bayer (1693-1738), G. Miller (1705-1783), and A. Schlozer (1735-1809). Russian science owes them the introduction into scientific circulation of such a historical source as Russian chronicles. For the first time they translated into Latin and published the bulk of Russian chronicle sources. F. Miller, in particular, spent ten years in Siberia, where he collected and systematized the richest archival materials. The contribution of these scientists can hardly be overestimated - for the first time a group of sources was introduced into circulation, surpassing the chronicles in scale European countries; For the first time, Europe learned about the existence on its eastern borders of a huge country with a rich history. Thanks to their efforts, Russian science immediately adopted the most advanced methods of working with sources - comparative linguistic analysis, a critical method of study, etc. It was these scientists who first wrote on the basis of annalistic data ancient history Rus', introduced into circulation information about the resettlement of the Slavs, about the most ancient Slavic settlements, about the foundation of Kyiv, about the first Russian princes.
The first proper Russian historian was one of the associates of Peter I, scientist - encyclopedist and politician V.N. Tatishchev (1686-1750), author of the four-volume "Russian History", covering the period from Rurik to Mikhail Romanov. For the worldview of V.N. Tatishchev is characterized by a rationalistic approach - for him, history is not the result of God's providence, but the result of human deeds. Through all his work, the idea of the need for a strong autocratic power runs like a red thread. Only a decisive, strong-willed, educated sovereign, who is aware of the tasks facing the country, can lead it to prosperity. The strengthening of the autocracy leads to the strengthening of the country, the weakening, to its decline.
V.N. Tatishchev collected a unique collection of Russian chronicles. Unfortunately, after his death, his entire library burned down. But in his "History" he quoted these chronicles abundantly (literally whole pages). As a result, it contains a number of information that is not found anywhere else, and it is itself used as a historical source.
Works by V.N. Tatishchev, as well as the works of other historians of the eighteenth century. M.M. Shcherbatov (1733-1790) and I.N. Boltin (1735-1792) were known only to a narrow circle of specialists. The first author to gain truly all-Russian fame was N.M. Karamzin (1766-1826). His twelve-volume "History of the Russian State", written in the first quarter X IX century, became one of the most widely read books in Russia. N.M. Karamzin began writing the "History" being already a famous writer. His book, written in a lively, vivid, figurative language, read like a novel by Walter Scott. A.S. Pushkin wrote: “Everyone, even secular women, rushed to read the history of their Fatherland. Ancient Russia seemed to be found by Karamzin, like America by Columbus. On the book of N.M. Karamzin was brought up by generations of Russian people, and even now it is read with interest.
The main idea of N.M. Karamzin - the history of the country is the history of its sovereigns. It is essentially a series of political biographies. Written after Patriotic War 1812, the book is imbued with a sense of patriotism, love for the glorious past of Russia. N.M. Karamzin considered the history of our country as an inseparable part of world history. He drew attention to the backlog of Russia from the European peoples, considering this the result of a 250-year-old Tatar-Mongol yoke.
Russian historical science gained the greatest fame in the world thanks to the works of historians of the “state school” K.D. Kavelin (1818-1885), B.N. Chicherin (1828-1904) and especially S.M. Solovyov (1820-1879), the author of the twenty-nine-volume History of Russia from Ancient Times.
Their main focus of research was system state and legal institutions. According to the historians of the “statists”, it is through the study of the functioning of the system public institutions, its evolution, one can get an idea of all aspects of the country's history (economy, culture, etc.).
Historians of the "state school" explained the specifics of Russian history, its difference from Western history, by the geographical and climatic features of Russia. It was from these features that the specificity was derived social order, the existence of serfdom, the preservation of the community, etc. Many ideas of the state school are now returning to historical science, being comprehended at a new level.
The vast majority of Russian historians considered Russia as part of Europe, and Russian history as an inseparable part of world history,
subordinate general patterns development. However, the idea of a special way of development of Russia, different from the Western European one, also existed in Russian historiography. It was carried out in the works of historians belonging to the official-protective direction - M.P. Pogodin (1800-1875), D.I. Illovaisky (1832-1920). They are opposed history of Russia history of Western Europe. There, states were created as a result of the conquest of some peoples by others, in our country - as a result of the voluntary calling of sovereigns. Therefore, the history of Europe is characterized by revolutions, class struggle, the formation of a parliamentary system. For Russia, these phenomena are deeply alien. We are dominated by communal principles, the unity of the king with the people. Only we have preserved in its pure, original form the Christian religion - Orthodoxy. Historians of this direction enjoyed the support of the state, were the authors of official textbooks.
A major contribution to the development of Russian historical thought was made by the works of N.I. Kostomarov (1817-1885) and A.P. Shchapova (1831-1876). These historians first turned to the study of history directly people, his way of life, customs, temperament, psychological characteristics.
The pinnacle of Russian pre-revolutionary historiography was the work of the outstanding Russian historian V. O. Klyuchevsky (1841-1911). There was not a single branch of historical science to the development of which he would not have contributed. He owns the largest works on source studies, the historiography of Russian history, the history of state institutions, etc. The main work of V.O. Klyuchevsky - a five-volume "Course of Russian History". For the first time he paid attention to the action of the economic factor in the history of the country. It was this factor that formed the basis of the periodization of Russian history he proposed. IN. Klyuchevsky did not consider the economic factor to be decisive. Proceeding from the position of multifactoriality, he considered the role of the economy along with the role of geographical, climatic, and cultural features. However, the recognition of the role of the economy in the development of society led to the popularity of V.O. Klyuchevsky and in Soviet times. His works were reprinted many times, Soviet historians considered V.O. Klyuchevsky as his spiritual predecessor, which was largely facilitated by his democratic convictions, a critical attitude towards autocracy. It was believed that V.O. Klyuchevsky "came close to Marxism."
Since the beginning of the XX century. in Russian historiography, the idea begins to take hold Marxism. The first Russian historians - Marxists were N.A. Rozhkov (1868-1927) and M.N. Pokrovsky (1868-1932).
ON THE. Rozhkov actively participated in the revolutionary movement, was a member of the Central Committee of the RSDLP, a deputy of the III State Duma, was repeatedly arrested, and was exiled to Siberia. After the revolution of 1917, he broke up with the Bolsheviks, was arrested by the Cheka, and there was even a question of his expulsion from the country. The main work of N.A. Rozhkov - twelve-volume "Russian history in comparative historical coverage." In it he tried, proceeding from the Marxist form
theory, to single out the stages of social development that all peoples go through. Each stage of the history of Russia was compared with the corresponding stage in the history of other countries. The basis for changing the stages of the historical development of NA. Rozhkov, following Marx, staged the development of the economy, but supplemented it with an attempt to build a history of spiritual culture, expressed in the change of "mental types" characteristic of each stage.
Most famous historian M.N. was a Marxist. Pokrovsky. Even before the revolution of 1917. he wrote the four-volume Russian History from Ancient Times and the two-volume Essay on the History of Russian Culture. During the revolution of 1905. M.N. Pokrovsky joined the Bolshevik Party. During this period, his Marxist convictions were finally formed. He recognizes the decisive role of the class struggle in history and from these positions begins to approach the history of Russia. M.N. Pokrovsky tried to determine the stages of development of Russian society, based on the Marxist theory of the change of socio-economic formations. He singled out the following stages: primitive communism, feudalism, handicraft economy, commercial and industrial capitalism. Russian autocracy and bureaucracy M.N. Pokrovsky considered as a form of domination of commercial capital.
After the revolution of 1917 M.N. Pokrovsky actually headed the Soviet historical science. He was Deputy People's Commissar of Education, headed the Communist Academy, the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the RSFSR, the Institute of Red Professors, and edited the journal "Historian-Marxist". During the Soviet period, he wrote “Russian History in the Most Concise Essay”, which became a textbook for high school, and "Essays revolutionary movement XIX-XX centuries. The textbook by M.N. Pokrovsky was characterized by extreme schematism - history turned into a bare sociological scheme.
M.N. Pokrovsky was a revolutionary who devoted his life to the struggle against the autocracy. As a result, in his works, the entire pre-revolutionary history of Russia was depicted exclusively in black (“prison of peoples”, “European gendarme”, etc.).
In the 1920s, when the task was to discredit the old regime, these views of M.N. Pokrovsky were in demand. But by the 1930s, the situation had changed - the situation had stabilized, the power of the Bolsheviks had become quite strong, and a new goal was set for historical science - to educate patriotism, statehood, love for the Fatherland, including on the examples of the pre-revolutionary past. Under these conditions, the “Pokrovsky school” did not meet the new requirements. In the last years of his life, N.M. Pokrovsky was subjected to sharp criticism, and after his death in 1934. issued a resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On the teaching of history in the schools of the USSR”, where, in a manner characteristic of that time. M.N. Pokrovsky was defamed, and his textbooks were confiscated.
The Soviet period in the development of domestic historical science is rich in the names of historians, many of whom have gained worldwide fame. Among them, it is worth highlighting the works on the history of Kievan Rus B.D. Grekova, A.N. Sakharova, B.I. Rybakova, V.L. Yanina, M.N. Tikhomirov; on the history of the Moscow State D.N. Alshits, R.T. Skrynnikova, A.A. Zimina, V.B. Kobrina, V.V. Mavrodina; on the history of the Russian Empire XVIII- X I X centuries E.V. Tarle, M.V. Nechkina, N.I. Pavlenko, E.V. Anisimova; on the history of the late XIX - early XX centuries. AND I. Avrekh, B.G. Litvak. founder economic history Russia is rightfully considered S.G. Strumilin. The problems of the development of Russian culture are comprehensively covered in the works of D.S. Likhachev, M.A. Alpatov. This list of surnames can be continued. But they all worked on specific historical issues. The generalizing works of the conceptual plan were, as a rule, of a collective nature. Among them are those written in the 60-70s. ten-volume "History of the USSR", twelve-volume " world history". All these works were written from the standpoint of Marxism, which was the only official ideology of society.
In the 90s. works began to appear in which attempts are made to revise the existing conceptual provisions. The history of Russia is considered from the standpoint of a civilizational approach (L.I. Semennikova), from the standpoint of the theory of cyclicality (S.A. Akhiezer), from the standpoint of modernization theory. But all these attempts have not yet been successful. creative search- is at the initial stage, and has not led to the emergence of new concepts for the development of the history of Russia.
test questions
1. What is the essence of the world-historical concept of historical development?
2. What is the essence of the civilizational concept of historical development? Its main representatives?
3. What is included in the concept of "mentality"? What is the meaning of introducing this concept?
4. List the main stages in the development of Russian historical thought. What contribution did representatives of each stage make to the development of historical science in Russia?
From the editor: We thank the European University Press at St. Petersburg for the opportunity to publish a fragment from the book of the historian Ivan Kurilla "History, or the Past in the Present" (St. Petersburg, 2017).
Let's now talk about historical science - how much does it suffer from violent storms in the historical consciousness of society?
History as a scientific discipline is experiencing overload from different sides: the state of the historical consciousness of society is an external challenge, while the accumulated problems within science, calling into question the methodological foundations of the discipline and its institutional structure, represent internal pressure.
Plurality of subjects ("History in fragments")
Already in the 19th century, history began to fragment according to the subject of study: in addition to political history, the history of culture, economics appeared, and later social history, the history of ideas and many areas that study various aspects of the past were added to them.
Finally, the most uncontrollable process was the fragmentation of history according to the subject of historical questioning. It can be said that the process of fragmentation of history is driven by the identity politics described above. In Russia, the fragmentation of history by social and gender groups was slower than by ethnic and regional variants.
Together with the fragmentation of the methodology used by historians, this situation led to the fragmentation of not only historical consciousness in general, but also the field of historical science itself, which by the end of the century was, in the words of the Moscow historian M. Boytsov (in the sensational professional environment in the 1990s article), a pile of "fragments". Historians have come to the conclusion that it is impossible to unite not only historical narrative, but also historical science.
The reader has already understood, of course, that the notion of the possibility of the only true historical narrative, the only correct and final version of history is opposed to the modern view of the essence of history. You can often hear questions addressed to historians: well, how was it in reality, what is the truth? After all, if one historian writes about some event in this way, and another - in a different way, does it mean that one of them is mistaken? Can they come to a compromise and understand how it was "really"? There is a demand for such a story in society (from such expectations, probably, the recent attempt by the popular writer Boris Akunin to become the “new Karamzin”, and, to some extent, disputes about the “single textbook” of history grow). Society, as it were, requires historians to agree, finally, to write a single textbook in which “the whole truth” will be stated.
Indeed, there are problems in history that can be compromised, but there are also problems where this is impossible: it is, as a rule, a story told by “different voices”, associated with the identity of a particular social group. The history of an authoritarian state and the history of the victims of some kind of “great turn” is unlikely to ever create a “compromise option”. An analysis of the interests of the state will help to understand why certain decisions were made, and this will be a logical explanation. But his logic will in no way “balance” the history of those people who, as a result of these decisions, lost their fortune, health, and sometimes life - and this story will also be true about the past. These two views on history can be presented in different chapters of the same textbook, but there are many more such points of view than two: it is difficult, for example, to reconcile the history of different regions in a large multinational country. Moreover, the past provides historians with the opportunity to create many narratives, and the bearers of different value systems (as well as different social groups) can write their own “history textbook”, in which they can describe history in terms of nationalism or internationalism, statism or anarchy, liberalism or traditionalism. Each of these stories will be internally consistent (although, probably, in each such story there will be silence about some aspects of the past that are important for other authors).
It is apparently impossible to create a single and consistent story about history that unites all points of view - and this is one of the most important axioms of historical science. If historians put an end to the “unity of history” quite a long time ago, then the awareness of the immanent inconsistency of history as a text is a relatively new phenomenon. It is connected with the above-mentioned disappearance of the gap between the present and the recent past, with the interference of memory in the process of historical reflection. modern society.
Modern historians have a problem with this many narratives, many stories about the past that are produced by different social groups, different regions, ideologists and states. Some of these narratives are confrontational and potentially carry the germ of social conflicts, but the choice between them has to be made not on the basis of their scientific nature, but on the basis of ethical principles, thereby establishing a new connection between history and morality. One of latest challenges historical science - to work on the "seams" between these narratives. The modern idea of history as a whole looks more like not a single stream, but a blanket sewn from different patches. We are doomed to live at the same time with different interpretations and be able to establish a conversation about a common past, maintaining differences, or rather polyphony.
historical sources
Any historian will agree with the thesis formulated by the positivists that reliance on sources is main feature historical science. This remains as true for modern historians as it was for Langlois and Segnobos. It is the methods of searching and processing sources that are taught to students at historical faculties. However, in a little over a hundred years, the content of this concept has changed, and the main professional practice historians were challenged.
In order to understand the difference in attitude towards the sources of historical science and the practice preceding it, we must recall that what we call the falsification of documents was not uncommon in the Middle Ages and was not condemned at all. The whole culture was built on respect for authority, and if something was attributed to authority that was not said by him, but certainly good, then there was no reason to doubt it. Thus, the main criterion for the truth of a document was the good that this document provided.
Lorenzo Valla, who first proved the forgery of the “correct document”, did not dare to publish his “Reflection on the fictitious and false donation of Constantine” - the work was published only half a century after the author’s death, when the Reformation had already begun in Europe.
Over the course of several centuries, historians have developed ever more subtle ways of determining the authenticity of a document, its authorship, and dating in order to exclude the use of fakes in their work.
The "past", as we found out, is a problematic concept, but the texts of the sources are real, they can be literally touched, re-read, and checked the logic of predecessors. The questions formulated by historians are addressed precisely to these sources. The first sources were living people with their stories, and this kind of source (limited by time and space) is still important when working with recent and modern history: projects " oral history» The 20th century brought significant results.
The next type of sources were official documents remaining from daily activities. different kind bureaucracy, including legislation and international treaties, but also numerous registration papers. Leopold von Ranke preferred diplomatic documents from the state archives to other types of documents. Statistics - state and commercial - allows you to apply quantitative methods in the analysis of the past. Personal memories and memoirs traditionally attract readers and are also traditionally considered very unreliable: memoirists, for obvious reasons, tell the version of events they need. However, given the interest of the author and after comparison with other sources, these texts can give a lot to understand the events, motives of behavior and details of the past. From the moment of its appearance, the materials of the periodical press have been used by historians: no other source allows us to understand the synchronism of various events, from politics and economics to culture and local news, like the pages of newspapers. Finally, the Annales school proved that any object that bears traces of human influence can become a source for the historian; a garden or a park laid out according to a certain plan, or varieties of plants and animal breeds bred by man, will not be left aside. Accumulation of significant amounts of information and development mathematical methods its processing promises great breakthroughs in the research of the past with the beginning of the use of Big Data processing tools by historians.
However, it is important to understand that in and of themselves, until the historian's field of interest, a text, information, or material object is not a source. Only the question asked by the historian makes them so.
AT last third In the 20th century, however, this practice was challenged. By postulating the inaccessibility of the past, postmodernists have reduced the work of historians to the transformation of some texts into others. And in this situation, the question of the truth of this or that text faded into the background. Much more importance was given to the problem of what role the text plays in culture and society. "Konstantin's gift" determined state-political relations in Europe for many centuries and was exposed only when it had already lost its real influence. So what does it matter if it was a fake?
The professional practice of historians also came into conflict with the instrumental approach to history that is spreading in society: if the past is not recognized as an independent value and the past should work for the present, then the sources are not important. The conflict that broke out in the summer of 2015 between the director of the State Archives of the Russian Federation Sergey Mironenko, who presented documentary evidence of the composition of the “feat of 28 Panfilov’s men” in the battle for Moscow in 1941, and the Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation Vladimir Medinsky, who defended the “correct myth” from its verification by sources, is indicative.
“Any historical event, having ended, becomes a myth - positive or negative. The same can be attributed to historical figures. Our heads of state archives should conduct their research, but life is such that people operate not with archival information, but with myths. References can strengthen these myths, destroy them, turn them upside down. Well, the public mass consciousness always operates with myths, including in relation to history, so this must be treated with reverence, care, and caution.
Vladimir Medinsky
In fact, politicians not only express their claims to control history, but also deny the right of historians to expert judgment about the past, equating professional knowledge based on documents with "mass consciousness" based on myths. The conflict between the archivist and the minister could be classified as a curiosity if it did not fit into the logic of the development of the historical consciousness of modern society, which led to the dominance of presentism.
Thus, having parted with positivism, we suddenly found ourselves in the face of a new Middle Ages, in which a “good purpose” justifies the falsification of sources (or their biased selection).
Laws of history
At the end of the 19th century, the debate about the scientific nature of history focused on its ability to discover the laws of human development. Throughout the 20th century, the very concept of science has evolved. Today, science is often defined as "a field human activity aimed at developing and systematizing objective knowledge about reality” or as “description with the help of concepts”. History certainly fits into these definitions. In addition, various sciences use historical method or a historical approach to phenomena. Finally, one must understand that this is a conversation about the correlation of concepts developed by European civilization itself, and these concepts are historical, i.e. change over time.
And yet - are there historical laws, "laws of history"? If we talk about the laws of development of society, then this question should obviously be redirected to sociology, which studies the laws of human development. The laws of development of human societies certainly exist. Some of them are statistical in nature, some allow you to see causal relationships in a repeating sequence of historical events. It is precisely this kind of laws that are most often declared by supporters of the status of history as "rigorous science" as "the laws of history."
However, these "laws of history" were most often developed ("discovered") not by historians, but by scientists involved in related sciences of society - sociologists and economists. Moreover, many researchers single out a separate field of knowledge - macrosociology and historical sociology, who consider "their" classics such scientists as Karl Marx (economist) and Max Weber (sociologist), Immanuel Wallerstein and Randall Collins (macrosociologists), Perry Anderson and even Fernand Braudel (historians also consider only the last of the list to be their classic). In addition, historians themselves very rarely in their writings offer formulas for the laws of history or somehow refer to such laws. At the same time, questions posed within the framework of macro-sociological, as well as economic, political science, philology and other social science and humanitarian disciplines, historians with great pleasure ask the past, thus transferring the theories of related sciences to the material of the past.
It's easier to talk about historical discoveries. There are two types of discoveries in history: the discovery of new sources, archives, memoirs, or the posing of a new problem, question, approach, turning into sources what was not previously considered sources, or allowing one to find something new in old sources. Thus, a discovery in history can be not only a birch bark found during excavations, but also a new research question.
Let's dwell on this point in a little more detail. Since the days of the Annales school, historians have begun their work by posing a research question - this requirement seems to be common to all sciences today. In the practice of historical research, however, there is constantly repeated clarification and reformulation of the question in the process of working on it.
The historian, in accordance with the model of the hermeneutic circle, constantly refines his research question on the basis of the data he receives from sources. The final formulation of the historian's research question becomes the formula of the relation of the present to the past, established by scientists. It turns out that the research question itself is not only the starting point, but also one of the most important results of the study.
This description well illustrates the idea of history as a science of the interaction of modernity with the past: the right question defines the “potential difference”, maintaining tension and establishing a connection between modernity and the period under study (as opposed to those social sciences who seek to find the answer to the question originally posed).
Examples of the laws of history can be the repetitive patterns of using the past in modern debates (the selection in the past of plots and problems that help in solving today's problems or in the struggle for a group vision of the future; the limitations of such selection, the influence of scientific works and journalism on the formation of the historical consciousness of society), and also ways of setting goals and obtaining historical knowledge.
Notes
1. Cliometry is a direction in historical science based on the systematic application of quantitative methods. The heyday of cliometry came in the 1960s and 70s. Published in 1974, Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery by Stanley Engerman and Robert Vogel ( Fogel R.W., Engerman S.L. Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery. Boston; Toronto: Little, Brown, and Company, 1974) was the cause of fierce controversy (the conclusions about the economic efficiency of slavery in the southern United States were perceived by some critics as a justification for slavery) and showed the possibilities of cliometry. In 1993, one of the authors of the book, Robert Vogel, was awarded Nobel Prize in economics, including for this study.
6. Monuments cultural heritage- strategic priority of Russia // Izvestia. Nov 22, 2016
7. The hermeneutic circle was described by G.-G. Gadamer: “It is possible to understand something only thanks to pre-existing assumptions about it, and not when it is presented to us as something absolutely mysterious. The fact that anticipations can be a source of errors in interpretation and that prejudices that promote understanding can also lead to misunderstanding, is only an indication of the finitude of such a being as man, and the manifestation of this finitude of him. Gadamer G.-G. About the circle of understanding // The relevance of the beautiful. M.: Art, 1991).
Change theoretical foundations domestic historical science. In the mid 80s. Russian historical science has entered a very difficult period of development, characterized by the emergence of a contradictory situation. On the one hand, there has been an unusually high public interest in history, on the other hand, there has been a sharp drop in the prestige of historical historical works. The majority of historians connected the resolution of the contradiction with the creative reading of the works of the classics of Marxism-Leninism. M.P. Kim, for example, stated: "Our trouble is that in the study of history, the development of historical science, we inconsistently used Lenin's theoretical heritage" ("Round Table": Historical Science under Perestroika // Questions of History. 1988. No. 3. P. eight). Implementation of the idea of creative reading of the works of K. Marx and V.I. Lenin were called upon to serve as publications of their previously little-known or banned works, in particular the work of K. Marx "Revealing the Diplomatic History of the 18th Century." At the same time, it turned out that Marxism, in interpreting the history of Russia, along with the correct provisions, included errors of a fundamental nature. For example, K. Marx ignored the role of internal factors in the history of the Old Russian state, putting forward a clearly erroneous proposition about the exclusively Varangian composition of the Rurikovich squads, etc. He gave a belittled description of Ivan Kalita, whose policy he called "Machiavellianism of a slave striving for the usurpation of power." No less tendentious is the assessment of the activities of Ivan III, who "did not crush the yoke, but got rid of it on the sly." Muscovy, according to K. Marx, "strengthened only due to the fact that it became virtuoso in the art of slavery" (See: Marx K. Revelations of the diplomatic history of the 18th century // Questions of History. 1989. No. 4. P. 4, 6, 7.11).
The appeal to Marxist assessments of the history of Russia further aggravated the situation. The search for a way out of it led to the idea of alternativeness in history, the choice of ways of social development, most fully expressed in the historical and methodological works of P.V. Volobuev. He wrote: "... the historical process in all three of its constituent parts and parameters (past, present, future) are not predetermined and not programmed; it is probable. Its probabilistic nature is also manifested in the multivariance of development. It cannot proceed otherwise, since social patterns are realized by people in the course of their activities ambiguously, but in many different forms and types ("many stories"), depending on specific historical conditions, which are very diverse in each era in different countries and even in each separate country"(Volobuev P.V. The choice of ways of social development: theory, history, modernity. M., 1987. P. 32). At the same time, an attempt was made to consider alternatives using examples Soviet history. They began to write about the turn of 1929 and the alternative of N.I. Bukharin, positions of L.D. Trotsky, etc. At the same time, the works of representatives of Lenin's entourage (L.D. Trotsky, N.I. Bukharin, etc.) with a very peculiar interpretation of Marxism were introduced into scientific circulation.
Significant changes in the understanding of Russian history began to occur in connection with the publication of the works of outstanding Russian philosophers and historians of the early 20th century, whose works allowed researchers to understand that the desire for the canonization of Marxism is its immanent regularity. Already S.N. Bulgakov showed that Marxism is “alien to any kind of ethics,” since it substantiates its conclusions and forecasts based not on the requirements of an ethical ideal, but on reality itself. But he is also “through and through” ethical, because, rejecting any religion, he thereby rejects religious morality, in the place of which he has nothing to put but himself. Thus, the possibility of the most severe "stagnation" in the field of social sciences arises.
Publication of Russian thinkers of the early twentieth century. contributed to the formation of an understanding of the entire amoralism of the doctrine of the class struggle as the engine of history. The idea of K. Marx and V.I. Lenin about the necessary change of weapons of criticism, criticism of weapons began to be seen as a kind of justification for terror against dissent in all areas. public life. The uniformity established as a result of this impoverished the study of historical reality, first of all excluding man from the process. S.N. Bulgakov wrote: "For the views of Marx, people are formed into sociological groups, and these groups decorously and naturally form correct geometric figures, as if, apart from this dimensional movement of socialist elements, nothing happens in history, and this abolition of the problem and concern for the individual, excessive abstractness, is the main feature of Marxism, and it goes to the strong-willed mental warehouse of the creator of this system "(S. N. Philosophy of Economics. M., 1990. P. 315. After the publication of the works of Russian thinkers of the early 20th century, many religious and myth-making aspects of Marxism, its multifaceted idealistic beginning, were revealed to a wide range of historians. N.A. Berdyaev, in particular, wrote Marx created the real myth of the proletariat. The mission of the proletariat is an object of faith. Marxism is not only science and politics, but also faith, religion" (Berdyaev N.A. Origins and meaning of Russian communism. M., 1990. P. 83).
In parallel, there was a "rehabilitation" of foreign non-Marxist philosophy of history and historical thought. The reading circle of Russian historians included books by F. Braudel, L. Fevre, M. Blok, K. Jaspers, A. J. Toynbee, E. Carr, and others. At the same time, their works clearly showed a respectful and objective attitude to the history of Russia , which clearly contradicted the main thesis of Soviet historiography about foreign literature as a falsification of the historical process. In this regard, the statement of L. Fevre is significant: "... Russia. I have not seen it with my own eyes, I have not specifically studied it, and yet I believe that Russia, vast Russia, landowner and peasant, feudal and Orthodox, traditional and revolutionary, - this is something huge and powerful "(Fevre L. Fights for history. M., 1991. P. 65).
The described processes led to a rethinking of Marxism-Leninism as theoretical basis historical science. Historians have posed the question: to what extent marxist theory formations contributes to the deepening and progress of historical knowledge? During the discussions, many characterized the reduction of the entire diversity of the "world of people" to formational characteristics as "formational reductionism" (See: Formations or civilizations? (Materials of the "round table") // Questions of Philosophy. 1989. No. 10. P.34), leading to ignoring or underestimating the human principle, whatever it may be expressed. Thinking about this, A.Ya. Gurevich wrote: "... the world historical process can hardly be rightly understood as a linear ascent from one formation to another, as well as the placement of these formations over chronological periods, because one way or another, at any stage of history, there is a synchronous coexistence and constant interaction of various social systems" (Gurevich A.Ya. Theory of Formations and the Reality of History // Questions of Philosophy. 1990. No. 11. P. 37). In addition, modern historical science has begun to study "small groups", while the formational approach to history involves operating with generalized concepts that express a high degree of abstraction.
The development of historical science in Russia has set before scientists the task of developing a flexible and adequate theoretical and methodological toolkit for the modern era. The above contradiction is only a manifestation of this trend. Attempts to resolve it led to the expansion of the methodological base of domestic historical science and the beginning of the formation of trends and schools. Among them, allowing a certain conventionality of classification, we can distinguish:
1) the Marxist trend, represented by the bulk of historians of both the center and the provinces. For certain reasons, it does not cover the vast layers of topical issues that have come to the fore in our days in the humanities;
2) the school of structural-quantitative methods, oriented towards to a large extent on the achievements of Anglo-American historiography. Its supporters admit and demand:
a broad approach to the object of knowledge, its versatile consideration;
application of various methods for identifying, collecting, processing and analyzing specific historical data;
comprehensive interpretation and generalization of the results of concrete historical analysis.
At the same time, the main purpose of using the mathematical apparatus in research is to "as a result of mathematical processing and analysis of the initial quantitative indicators, obtain new information that is not directly expressed in the initial data. A historical and meaningful analysis of this information should provide new knowledge about the phenomena and processes under study "( Quantitative Methods in Soviet and American historiography. M., 1983. P. 13);
3) the school of "anthropologically oriented history", whose representatives proclaimed that "the most promising are the modern schools of humanitarian knowledge, which explore the sign systems inherent in a given civilization, the system of behavior of people belonging to it, the structure of their mentalities, their conceptual apparatus," psychological equipment "" (Odysseus. A man in history. Studies in social history and the history of culture: 1989. M., 1989. P.5). In their research, historians of this trend are guided by the achievements of the historical and psychological school of pre-revolutionary Russia (L.P. Karsavin, P.M. Bitsilli), the French, and now international, school of the Annales (M. Blok, L. Fepp, F. Braudel, J. Duby) and the West German school of "everyday history".
In addition, but the second half of the 80's - early 90's. there has been a revival of regional historiography associated with the collapse of the idea of unification of historical science. Despite the presence of crisis phenomena in provincial historical thought, researchers started talking about the originality and specificity of local history (See: Balashov V.A., Yurchenkov V.A. Regional history: problems and new approaches // Bulletin of Mordov. University. 1991. No. 4. P. 10 - 14).
The main problems of pre-revolutionary national history. Modern Russian historiography is characterized by a wide exchange of views on a number of key problems of the domestic feudal phase of historical development. One of the main themes in this case is the questions of the genesis of feudalism in Ancient Rus'. Until recently, when considering them, the traditions of the school of B.D. Grekov (works by B.A. Rybakov, M.B. Sverdlov, etc.), the main idea of which was the idea of the original feudalism of Ancient Rus'. Three main factors appear as evidence of the development of the feudal mode of production:
1) a system of state taxes and duties (hence - free smerds became feudally dependent);
2) the use of iron tools (this led to the emergence of economically independent small families and neighboring communities);
3) all types of violence perpetrated by the feudal boyars, with the help of which they gradually asserted their dominance, turning community members into slaves and purchases (See: Goremykina V.I. On the genesis of feudalism in Ancient Rus' // Questions of history. 1987. No. 2. P.80). A somewhat different position was taken by I.Ya. Froyanov, who finds, with some reservations and peculiarities, in Rus' in the 9th - 11th centuries. late birth society. Finally, V.I. Goremykina tried to change the established point of view and stated: "It seems to us that among the Eastern Slavs the society from the 6th - 7th centuries had a slave-owning character, and then in Rus'. In the 12th century it turned into a feudal society" (Ibid., p. 100). A.P. took a more flexible position. Pyankov, who saw the presence of a layer of slaves in the cities of Rus' as early as the 11th century. He erected the Old Russian statehood to an earlier time than the VIII - IX centuries.
Almost simultaneously, the question of the genesis of statehood in Rus' was raised. Academician B.A. Rybakov published a number of works, where he recognized the Kyiv region as the basis of Ancient Rus', leading its ancestry from the Polyansky principality. This point of view goes back to the works of D.I. Ilovaisky and M.S. Grushevsky and was supported only by P. Tolochko. A.P. criticized her. Novoseltsev, who called to begin the history of Ancient Rus', as B.D. Grekov and other scientists, from the unification of the north (Novgorod) and south (Kyiv).
It should be noted that under the conditions of the new historiographical situation, it became possible to criticize previously indisputable authorities, in particular, the works of the same B.A. Rybakov. Among his mistakes and inaccuracies were attempts to date the time of the formation of the Slavs to the middle of the 2nd millennium BC, deny the role of Novgorod in the formation of the Old Russian state, date the beginning of the chronicle in Kyiv to the time of Askold and Dir, etc. According to A.P. Novoseltsev, "under the direct influence of Rybakov's views, a number of authors of various qualifications began to search for Rus among clearly non-Slavic ethnic groups (Huns, etc.), and the most zealous try to link the Rus even with the Etruscans!" ("Round table": historical science in the conditions of perestroika // Questions of History. 1988. No. 3. P. 29). Serious criticism was caused by the attitude of B.A. Rybakov to sources, in particular, to ancient and Arabic. Moreover, criticism of his constructions in many cases was very impartial. The same A.P. Novoseltsev wrote: “His (B.A. Rybakova. - Auth.) fantasy sometimes creates impressive (for non-specialists) pictures of the past, which, however, have nothing in common with what we know from surviving sources. Any science needs hypotheses, but what Rybakov does with the history of Rus' cannot be attributed to scientific hypotheses" (Novoseltsev A.P. "The World of History" or the myth of history? // Questions of History. 1993. No. 1. P. 30).
In connection with the formation of the Old Russian state, the question of the role of the Normans in the genesis of statehood was again raised in Russian historiography. At the same time, there were three approaches to the news of the chronicle about the calling of the Varangians. Some researchers (A.N. Kirpichnikov, I.V. Dubov, G.S. Lebedev) consider them basically historically reliable. They proceed from ideas about Ladoga as "the original capital of Upper Rus'", whose inhabitants took the initiative to call Rurik. In their opinion, this step was very far-sighted, as it made it possible to "regulate relations practically on the scale of the entire Baltic." Others (B.A. Rybakov) completely deny the possibility of seeing in these news a reflection of real facts. The chronicle story is interpreted as a legend that developed in the heat of ideological and political passions of the late 11th - early 12th centuries. Sources, according to, for example, B.A. Rybakov, "do not allow us to draw a conclusion about the organizing role of the Normans, not only for organized Kievan Rus, but even for that federation of northern tribes that experienced the burden of the Varangian raids." Still others (I.Ya. Froyanov) capture in the "legend about Rurik" echoes of real incidents, but by no means those that are told by the chronicler (For more details, see: Froyanov I.Ya. Historical realities in the annalistic legend about the calling of the Varangians // Questions of history. 1991. No. 6. S.5 - b).
Along with Western factors of influence on the Old Russian state in modern Russian historiography, the problem of Eastern influence is quite acute, the formulation of which is associated with the research of G.A. Fedorova-Davydov and L.N. Gumilyov. Special mention should be made of the latter in view of the wide popularization of his views. L.N. Gumilyov made a number of hypothetical statements: about the peculiar nature of the Mongolian religion, bringing it closer to monotheism or Mithraic dualism, about the conscious invention of the "legend of Prester John" by the Jerusalem feudal lords, about the campaigns of Batu in 1237 - 1240. as about two "campaigns" that only slightly reduced the "Russian military potential", about the "first liberation of Rus' from the Mongols" in the 60s. 13th century etc. [See: Lurie Ya. S: On the history of one discussion // History of the USSR. 1990. No. 4. P. 129). There are direct contradictions between them and the testimony of sources, as B.A. pointed out in his time. Rybakov (See: Rybakov B.A. On overcoming self-deception // Questions of history. 1971. No. 3. P. 156 - 158).
The change in the historiographic situation led to the publication of books on the history of feudalism, the concept of which differs from the traditional one. An example is the monographic studies of A.A. Zimin on the formation of the boyar aristocracy in Russia in the 15th - early 16th centuries, on the prerequisites for the first peasant war, etc. In them, the scientist proceeds from the idea that the fate of society and the individual is inevitably and always interconnected. In addition, his idea of noticeable traces, remnants of specific decentralization in Russia at the end of the 15th - 16th centuries is interesting.
In the second half of the 80s. the role of the church in the history of Russia began to be assessed in a new way. A number of works have been published on its relationship with the authorities: A. Kuzmin - on the Christianization of Rus' (1988), Ya.N. Shchapov - about the relationship between the state and the church in the X - XIII centuries. (1989), R.G. Skrynnikov - on the connection between the Soviet and spiritual authorities in the XIV - XVII centuries. (1990), V.I. Buganov and A.P. Bogdanov - about rebels in the Russian Orthodox Church (1991). A.P. Bogdanov in the book "Pen and Cross. Russian Writers Under Church Court" (1990) managed to show the involvement of the church in the state security system from the 16th to the beginning of the 20th centuries. - the process is equally dramatic for the Russian church and Russian society.
AT modern conditions it became possible to move away from the ideological assessments of the peasant wars, which were traditionally called anti-feudal. However, only bourgeois revolutions could be such. N.I. Pavlenko wrote on this occasion: "The peasants, as you know, due to many reasons of their existence, could not" invent "new socio-economic relations and political system. During the uprisings, the peasants fought not against the system, but for its improved version ... "(Pavlenko P.I. Historical science in the past and present // History of the USSR. 1991. No. 4. P. 91). Some authors began to abandon idealization of peasant wars, write about their robbery character, about the destruction of material and spiritual culture, morality, the plunder of landowners' estates, the burning of cities, etc. There has been a departure from the thesis about the loosening of the feudal-serf system as the main result of peasant wars. that after the suppression of the uprisings, the nobility not only restored the old order, but also strengthened them by improving the administrative system and increasing duties in favor of the feudal lord.
Of undoubted interest are attempts in modern conditions to investigate the formation of a service bureaucracy and its role in the development of a class-representative monarchy into an absolute one. When evaluating these processes, N.F. Demidova attributed their beginning to the 17th century, characterizing the order system as a manifestation of bureaucracy. From other positions, I.I. Pavlenko, who connected the emergence of bureaucracy in Russia with the unification government controlled in Peter's time. A similar point of view was expressed by E.V. Anisimov, who studied the history of the XVIII century.
The development of the problems of Russian absolutism has led historians to the concept of the "Petrine period" of history. It was most clearly defined by P.Ya. Eidelman: "Peter's Revolution determined Russian history for about a century and a half..." (Eidelman P.Ya. "Revolution from above" in Russia. M., 1989, p.67). Certain refinements to this formula were introduced by E.V. Anisimov, who expressed a paradoxical, at first glance, idea about the distinct conservative nature of the revolutionary nature of Peter the Great. The researcher wrote: "Modernization of the institutions and structures of power for the sake of preserving the fundamental principles of the traditional regime - that turned out to be the ultimate goal. We are talking about the design of an autocratic form of government that survived without significant changes until the 20th century, about the formation of a system of disenfranchised estates, which became a serious brake on the development process inherently medieval society, and finally, about serfdom, which was consolidated in the course of Peter the Great's reforms "(Anisimov E.V. Time of Peter's reforms. L., 1989. P. 13 - 14).
Publication or reprint reproduction of numerous "novels of the Empress", "Catherine's lovers", "women of Peter the Great", etc. besides negative influence on the formation of mass historical thinking also had a positive significance in the form of a restoration of the interest of professional historians in the role of the individual in history. There will be a departure from the one-dimensional characterization of tsars and pre-revolutionary politicians. N.I. Pavlenko writes about this: “It is clear that long reigns left their mark on inner life state and his foreign policy. The tsar, in accordance with the measure of his enlightenment and understanding of the tasks facing the country, formed a "team", so to speak, a think tank that generated ideas and, with the permission of the monarch, put them into practice "(Pavlenko N.I. Decree. op. C .92) Biographies of well-known political and military figures, diplomats of the 18th century appeared: A. V. Gavryushkin published a book about Count N. I. Panin (1989), V. S. Lopatin - about the relationship between G. A. Potemkin and A. V. Suvorov (1992), P. V. Perminov - about the envoy of Russia in Constantinople A. M. Obreskov (1992) Finally, the monograph of A. I. Zaozersky about Field Marshal B.P. Sheremetev (1989) A.S. Mylnikov assessed the activities of Peter III in a different way.
Study of the essence of state power in the XVIII - early XX centuries. led to the formulation of the problem of the correlation of reforms and counter-reforms in the history of Russia. Appeal to the political history of "revolutions from above" occurred for the first time in the last decades of the development of historical science in our country and was to a large extent an indicator of the changes taking place in it.
reforms early XIX in. were analyzed quite seriously by M.M. Safonov and S.V. Mironenko. Through the prism of Count M.M. Speransky tried to present them to V.A. Tomsinov. The researchers came to the conclusion about the formation in Russian society of the consciousness of the need and inevitability of fundamental changes. Under these conditions, the government embarked on the path of reforms, and society initially turned to pressure on the government, support, pushing its reformist aspirations, then revolutionary struggle. The latter caused a reaction and a desire to strengthen the foundation of the existing system. From these positions, they began to consider the Decembrist uprising, which was reflected in the monographs of V.A. Fedorov "We are proud of our fate ..." (1988) and Ya.A. Gordin, The Reformers' Mutiny: December 14, 1825 (1989).
When analyzing the situation in the middle of the XIX century. there has been a shift in the chronological framework of reforms. According to some researchers, the thaw began in the mid-1950s. XIX century., The reforms themselves were a typical "revolution from above". Let us note that new approaches to the analysis of reforms have emerged in the works of economists, not historians. G.X. Popov considered the economic, social, ideological and political roots of the reforms, the immediate causes that made them necessary and forced the tsar to take the initiative and carry it out from above. He gave material on attempts at reform, in particular, he gave an assessment of the experiments being carried out with state and specific peasants. G.X. Popov showed that in the struggle between ardent opponents, liberal-minded and ardent supporters of reform, each of whom defended his own reform program, not a “Prussian”, not an “American”, but a special “Russian” way of overcoming feudal relations was born, which prepared the development of capitalism . He wrote: “The reform of 1861 was an outstanding maneuver of the most powerful and most experienced absolutism in the world. It outstripped the internal maturation of the crisis. Skillfully maneuvering, in essence, always remaining in the minority, making concessions to the feudal lords, absolutism developed and implemented the version of transformations that to the greatest extent met the interests of the autocracy and its apparatus "(Popov G. X. The abolition of serfdom in Russia // Origins. Questions of the history of the national economy and economic thought. M., 1990. Issue 2. P. 69).
The problem of the relationship between reforms and revolution in the analysis of the post-reform development of national history became central in the studies of this period. A.A. Iskanderov, B.G. Litvak, R.Sh. Ganelin and others. Its consideration is taking into account the alternative development. In this regard, the statement of A.A. Iskanderova: "Russia in the 20th century really faced not one, but two possible paths of development: the path of the revolutionary overthrow of the existing system and the path of the peaceful transformation of society and the state" (Iskanderov A.L. Russian monarchy, reforms and revolution // Questions of History. 1993 No. 7. P. 126). The ratio of reforms and revolution in Russian history early 20th century quite fully considered in the monograph by R.Sh. Ganelina (1991). He succeeded in showing that the reforming activity of tsarism was not limited to the events of December 1904, February and October 1905. will.
A particular question arose about Stolypin's reforms Oh. According to academician I.D. Kovalchenko, received a "widely disseminated interpretation of the" Stolypin path "almost as a model of agrarian development, which supposedly should be taken into account and even reproduced in the modern restructuring of agrarian relations in the Soviet countryside. There is not only an ignorance of the historical approach and reliable facts, but and opportunistic falsification of an important historical event"(Kovalchenko I.D. Stolypin agrarian reform (Myths and reality) // History of the USSR. 1991. No. 2. P.53). I.D. Kovalchenko, denying the development recent years, stated that "Stolypin's agrarian reform, in fact, failed even before the first" world war ", and" the socialist revolution in Russia was inevitable, due to the peculiarities of its historically primarily agrarian development "(Ibid. P.69, 70). Many researchers held the position of I. D. Kovalchenko. At the same time, one cannot ignore the developments related to the political aspects of the Stolypin reforms. In particular, the opinion began to be asserted about a kind of alliance against P. A. Stolypin of completely opposite political forces. N.Ya. Eidelman wrote about this: “On the one hand, the new prime minister and his policies were subjected to various revolutionary blows. The Bolsheviks considered the fight against Stolypin as a class problem, while the Socialist-Revolutionaries, anarchists, to a large extent fought against the personality of Stolypin himself, waged terror against members of his family ... The right-wing nobility and Nicholas II, who listened to him very much, saw Stolypin as a "violator of age-old foundations", transferring the original noble power to the bourgeoisie "(Eidelman N.Ya. Revolution from above" in Russia. M., 1989. P. 163 - 164 ).
Political history of the turn of the XIX - XX centuries. is in the center of attention of modern Russian historiography, it has relegated to the background the previously widely studied socio-economic processes. Among the published works, the monograph by S.V. Tyutyukin about the July political crisis of 1906 (1991), book by G.A. Gerasimenko on zemstvo self-government until 1917 (1990), the last works of J. Avrekh on the political situation on the eve of the revolution of 1917. Quite interesting studies came out on the history of tactical parties: G.D. Alekseeva - populist parties (1990), N.G. Dumova - cadets in the First World War and February Revolution(1988), etc. V.M. Zhukhrai published the book "Secrets of the Tsarist Okhrana: Adventurers and Provocateurs" (1991), which shows the behind-the-scenes history of the ruling circles of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. He writes about the higher ranks Russian police and agents embedded in the revolutionary movement.
At the junction of political and socio-economic history, works on the classes and estates of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century were published. A very interesting monograph by A.N. Bokhanova "The big bourgeoisie of Russia. The end of the 19th century - 1914" (1992), in which for the first time in historiography the number and composition of the upper stratum of entrepreneurs is considered, the sources of its replenishment are clarified, the correlation of class and estate characteristics is analyzed.
New approaches to the study of the February Revolution have been outlined. They were initiated by the monographs of L.M. Spirin "Russia, 1917: From the history of the struggle of political parties" and G.3. Ioffe "Great October and the epilogue of tsarism". They combined traditional Soviet historiography approaches with new trends. Continuing to develop this trend, D.3. Ioffe in 1989 published a book about General L. Kornilov and the beginning of the formation of the "white cause".
The Soviet period in the works of modern researchers. Rethinking the history of the Fatherland Soviet period began in the second half of the 1980s. in journalism, the leader of which was, without a doubt, Yu.N. Afanasiev. Yu. Karyakin, N. Shmelev, G. Popov, and others actively spoke, proposing a new conceptual understanding of individual stages of history and developing a "concept" of "blank spots". Assessing the situation of those years, G.A. Bordyugov and V.A. Kozlov wrote: "... "Professorial" journalism gave a wide panorama, historians worked on the details. But since there were immeasurably more "details" and "blank spots" than historians capable of dealing with them, professional historical journalism was drowning in a wide sea of popular non-professional articles..." (Bordyugov G.A., Kozlov V.A. History and conjuncture. M., 1992. P.8). They proposed a kind of periodization of the development of historical journalism:
1988 - "Bukharin boom",
1988 - 1989 - "Stalinade"
1989 - 1990 - Trial of Lenin
1990 - "the return of Trotsky".
One can argue about its details, but the essence of the processes, in principle, was noted correctly.
Historical journalism has played its role - it has succeeded in identifying and posing the most poorly developed problems, acute questions of historical development, and outlining new conceptual approaches. However, it did not rise to the level of a truly new historiography, as noted by the American researcher M. von Hagen. During this time, historians have not written anything that was not known to world historical thought. At the same time, journalism created the ground for a new historical conjuncture. G.A. Bordyugov and V.A. Kozlov note: "... Soviet historiography with all the cognitive structures, the psychology of personnel, ideas and guidelines, objectively speaking, was only ready to take out a worked-out block of concepts drawn from " short course history of the CPSU (b)", and replace it with another..." (Ibid., p.31).
Despite the wide interest in history in the mid-80s, historical science was reorganized quite slowly (See: Davis R.W. Soviet historical science in the initial period of perestroika // Bulletin of the Academy of Sciences. 1990. No. 10). And yet, in the end, she "behind" politics and its maintenance.
In the late 80s - early 90s. researchers of the Oktyabrskaya; revolutions freed themselves from ideological dictates, the source base expanded, it became possible to use the scientific potential of non-Bolshevik historiography, which opened up qualitatively new opportunities for rethinking traditional stories. The barrier that arose as a result of a vulgarized formational approach is being eroded, which makes it possible to fit the events of 1917 into the context of Russian and world history of the 20th century. This applies primarily to the complex of contradictions that determined the content and meaning of the revolution. Some researchers (V.P. Dmitrenko and others) argue that in 1917 there were phenomena that did not always fit into the framework of "socialist construction". In their opinion, it is appropriate to talk about the existence of parallel ("small") revolutions, such as the national liberation, the poor-proletarian, the agrarian-peasant revolutions. It should be borne in mind that the conditions of the Russian industrial surge and the participation of the empire in the First World War gave a special color to these revolutions. The complex of various conflicts expanded the substantive framework of the revolution, made the composition of its participants, programs and goals extremely diverse. This weakened the vanguard of the revolutionary forces in the person of the parties and, at the same time, ensured the rallying of the impatient, rapidly radicalized rank and file.
Researchers propose to consider the events of 1917 as a single revolutionary cycle, exceptionally complex in its components, dynamics, self-realization, as the Great Russian Revolution. In the course of it, a factor arose that had a decisive influence on the ongoing processes - the total collapse of the institutions of power. V.P. Dmitrenko argues: “The most tragic milestone on this path was the liquidation of the monarchy. The bond of statehood was torn from society, then the social and administrative ties that had developed over the centuries began to break and the usual foundations of the people’s self-consciousness were shaken. The absence of an alternative system of government gave rise to growing chaos in all spheres of society. .." ( October Revolution: expectations and results // Patriotic history. 1993. No. 4. P. 213).
An opportunity arose for a deeper analysis of the social forces that participated in the 1917 revolution. When developing this direction, the priority attention is paid to the peasantry. Among the numerous works on this topic, the studies of V.V. Kabanov, who fully substantiated the thesis about the significant losses of the peasantry as a result of the revolution. He believes that the Decree on Land (1917) aroused a lot of hopes and then disappointments. There was not enough landowner land, for the peasant lack of land was due not only and not so much to feudal remnants as to agrarian overpopulation.
The agrarian question in the revolution and civil war is one of the most intricate in Russian history. Recent studies have shown that on the eve of 1917 Russian peasant suffered not so much from lack of land, having an average of 5 - 7 acres of arable land per capita, but from the low culture of agriculture. The analysis of statistics made by V.P. Butt, showed that the "black redistribution" of 1917-1918. only by 5 - 10% increased peasant allotments due to the actual destruction of 20 thousand landlord farms, which supplied about half of the marketable grain to the market. These processes to a large extent contributed to the spontaneous collapse of the army, the split of society, the disorganization of the economy and the deterioration of the food supply, etc.
New approaches to the study of the civil war raised again questions that had not been resolved in the course of the previous development of historical science in the country. Among them is the problem of the beginning of the civil war, which is interpreted ambiguously. IN AND. Petrov expressed a conceptual consideration about the lack of connection between the revolution and the civil war. In his opinion, the revolution acts only as a prerequisite for a civil war, but armed violence during the overthrow of the regime cannot be identified with the beginning of a civil war. The events from October 1917 to February 1918 serve in his interpretation as a prologue to the civil war. A different position was taken by E.G. Gimpelson, who declared that it was the October Revolution that served as the beginning of the civil war. He believes that the civil war was inevitable because the Bolshevik Party decided to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat and with its help lead the country along the path of socialism. In his opinion, this was the main reason for the civil war, since the implementation of the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the construction of socialism in a peasant country inevitably caused a negative response not only from the overthrown ruling classes, but also from a significant part of the peasantry. L.M. offered his interpretation of events. Spirin, who singled out not one, but several civil wars in Russia. The first of them, unleashed by the Bolsheviks, began in the summer of 1917 and ended in October, the Second Civil War began in October 1917, went through three stages and ended in 1922. The first stage - from October 1917 to the summer of 1918, when cardinal transformations (redistribution of property and strengthening of power) were decided mainly by the unarmed. The second stage - from the summer of 1918 to the end of 1920 - is the main period, the actual civil war. From 1921, the third stage begins - the real civil war, the people's war (a series of uprisings in Kronstadt, in the Tambov province, in Siberia, in Ukraine, the North Caucasus, etc.).
A rather complicated problem is the solution of the question of the guilt of certain forces in unleashing a civil war. Yu.P. Sharapov declared the incorrectness of such a formulation of the issue, because it is known that both sides are to blame. He was supported by V.I. Petrov, according to whom history is "to blame", a confluence of objective tragic circumstances. D.3. Joffe took a different position. In his interpretation, the civil war was the result of a struggle for power unleashed by political structures. E.G. spoke more definitely. Gimpelson, who laid the blame for the outbreak of the civil war on the Bolsheviks, in whose ideas and practice the war was contained, is already in potency. For example, the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat was based on the split of society according to the socio-ideological principle, dividing it into "clean" and "unclean", against which any form of violence, up to mass terror, can be applied.
Serious scientific development problems of the consequences of the civil war. Almost all researchers point out that these events led to:
huge social upheaval and demographic "deformation;
rupture of economic ties and colossal economic ruin;
change in psychology, mentality of the general population.
Many scientists believe that it was the civil war that had a significant impact on the political culture of Bolshevism, which was characterized by the following features: curtailment of internal party democracy; the perception not only by the top of the party, but also by the broad party masses of the installation on the methods of coercion and violence in achieving political goals; the support of the party on the lumpenized sections of the population.
Since the mid 80s. NEP was in the center of attention of historians, economists, social scientists. Studies have appeared on the possibilities of the NEP, its crises and prospects (V.P. Danilov, V.P. Dmitrenko, V.S. Lelchuk, Yu.A. Polyakov, N.S. Simonov). A comparison of different points of view made it possible to create a basis for further analysis, which determined new concrete historical studies. Historians noted that even under the NEP, political interests prevailed over economic expediency, which was an immanent feature of Bolshevism: I.V. Bystrova writes: "On the one hand, the economic activities of the ruling apparatus were dictated by political interests. On the other hand, the solution of economic problems, the fate of the NEP again rested on a political problem - the question of power" (Bystrova I.V. State and Economy in 1920- years: struggle of ideas and reality // Otechestvennaya istoriya, 1993, no. 3, p.33). This can be seen quite clearly in the analysis of "Antonovism", which modern authors (S.A. Esikov, V.V. Kanishchev, L.G. Protasov) propose to consider as a peasant uprising, a form of popular resistance to the military-communist dictatorship. Moreover, the "Union of the working peasantry", interpreted as an element of organization and awareness in the movement, in their opinion, reflects the search for a peasant alternative to the "dictatorship of the proletariat" at the time of its crisis.
The study of the NEP gave rise to a number of problems. Particularly in the second half of the 1980s. in the domestic socio-political, historical and economic literature, questions were openly raised about alternative ways Soviet society, about the essence of power that has dominated the country for many decades (G. Popov, O. Latsis, Yu. Goland, L. Piyasheva). The problem of the formation of the so-called "command-administrative system", "state socialism", "totalitarianism" was posed in a general, evaluative way. Almost immediately, objections were raised against the concept of totalitarianism as a key one in the study of the USSR. Yu.I. Igritsky writes: "Their essence boiled down to the following:
1) the totalitarian model is static, with its help it is difficult to explain all those natural changes that have occurred in the communist countries and in the communist movement after the death of Stalin;
2) history has not known and does not know the situation when a dictator, a party, this or that elite group would completely and completely control the development of society and all its cells; the degree of approximation to totality cannot be calculated either with the help of quantification methods, or, even more so, without them "(Yu. Quite typical in this regard is the statement of AK Sokolov: “It is no secret that this concept is taken from Western historiography. It denies the class and formational approach to the analysis of the historical process. At one pole - "totalitarian society", at the other - "free society", personified by the so-called "Western democracies". Every researcher who adopts the provisions of this theory must be aware that this entails a reassessment of all the events of our Soviet history, the actual rejection of the Marxist interpretation of the development of society" ( Actual problems Soviet source studies // History of the USSR. 1989. No. 6. P.59).
Despite the criticism, the point of view about the dominance of the totalitarian system in the USSR was established in historiography. Yu.S. Borisov showed how by the end of the 30s. the creation of two protective regimes was completed - administrative-punitive and propagandistic-ideological. On a broader political plane, according to L.A. Gordon and E.V. Klopov, the transformation of democratic centralism into non-democratic, then into an authoritarian-administrative system and, finally, into an authoritarian-despotic system. K.S. Simonov made a conclusion about the essence of the regime of this power. He wrote: "It is possible that such a regime of power was finally found a form for the implementation of the Marxian idea of the" dictatorship of the proletariat "in one, separately taken country" (Simonov N.S. Thermidor, brumer or fruktidor? The evolution of the Stalinist regime of power: forecasts and Reality // Patriotic History, 1993, No. 4, p.17).
The concept of the formation of a totalitarian system in the USSR had an impact on the development of traditional topics for Russian historiography: industrialization and collectivization of agriculture.
In 1988 - 1989 articles by O. Latsis, L. Gordon, E. Klopov, V. Popov, N. Shmelev, G. Khanin appeared in the press,
3. Selyunina and others, who posed the problem of the content and scale of industrialization. They noted that during the era of industrialization, inflationary tendencies arose and huge shifts in prices took place. Therefore, comparisons based on generalizing cost indicators and characteristic of Soviet historiography turned out to be unreliable. Researchers overestimated growth rates, especially during periods of significant product innovation. This point of view was, to some extent, contrary to the official opinion that prevailed at the earlier stages of the development of historical science. Arguing with her, S.S. Khromov stated that industrialization gave "an opportunity to overcome the contradiction between the most advanced political power established after the October Revolution and the inherited technical and economic backwardness" (Actual problems of the history of industrialization and industrial development of the USSR // History of the USSR. 1989. No. 3.S. 200 ). Rejecting the idea of the need for a slower pace of the industry, he referred to V.I. Lenin, who demanded high rates of development of the productive forces. Speaking on this subject, V.S. Lelchuk took a compromise position. He repeated the traditional thesis about the industrial transformation of the country as the main result of the industrialization policy. However, at the same time he challenged the well-known conclusion about the transformation of the USSR during the pre-war five-year plans into an industrial power.
Serious disputes flared up around the problems of the history of collectivization, which were raised with sufficient severity in journalism (V.A. Tikhonov, Yu.D. Chernichenko, G.N. Shmelev, and others). At the same time, the deplorable state of modern agriculture was explained by the difficulties and troubles of collectivization. V.A. Tikhonov called the period of collectivization "the period of Stalin's civil war with the peasantry" (Collectivization: origins, essence, consequences // History of the USSR 1989. No. 3. P. 31). Yu.D. Chernichenko coined the term "agrogulag". G.N. Shmelev is less emotional in his assessments; they occupy a transitional position from the articles of publicists to the works of historians. Assessing collectivization as a whole, he writes: “The approval of the course towards complete collectivization and dispossession of kulaks, to replace the alliance of the working class with the peasantry based on commodity exchange, on contractual relations, with relations of diktat and violence meant not only a change in the course of agrarian policy, but also the creation of a different political situation in country" (Shmelev G.N. Collectivization: at a sharp turning point in history // Origins. Questions of the history of the national economy and economic thought. M., 1990. Issue 2. P. 109).
Professional historians initially took a rather conservative position. Many of them (V.P. Danilov, I.E. Zelenin, N.A. Ivnitsky and others) began to write about the difficulties and shortcomings of agriculture, which were the result of collectivization and aggravated by the administrative-command system. A discussion was launched on the topic "The Great Break" of 1929 and the alternative of N.I. Bukharin, and several points of view were expressed on this issue:
1) there was undoubtedly an alternative, which can be confirmed by the materials of the 15th Party Congress and the 1st Five-Year Plan;
2) there was an alternative in the figurative sense, since N.I. Bukharin defended the Leninist cooperative plan against Stalinist perversions;
3) there was no alternative, since N.I. Bukharin and his group in the late 1920s. recognized the need for accelerated industrialization and complete collectivization.
At the same time, disputes flared up around the thesis of collectivization as a revolution carried out from above on the initiative of the state power, with support from below, by the peasant masses. The question was raised about the social image of the kulaks, the role of collectivization in strengthening the totalitarian system of society. A significant role in rethinking these problems was played by collections of documents prepared under the guidance of V.P. Danilova: "Documents testify. From the history of the village on the eve and during collectivization. 1927 - 1932." (1989) and "Cooperative and collective farm construction in the USSR. 1923 - 1927." (1991).
During the discussions, new approaches to the problems of collectivization were outlined, and the emphasis in assessing events shifted. For the first time in historiography, the processes associated with the famine of 1932-1933 began to be analyzed. (V.V. Kondrashin), deportation of peasants during the years of collectivization (N.A. Ivnitsky and others). At the same time, the traditional approach continues to exist, an example of which is the work of N.L. Rogalina. ). She interprets the questions of the food dictatorship and the activities of the committees in 1918 in the old way. She is convinced of the need to abolish small-scale commodity production, since it supposedly serves as the base of the kulaks. Permission in the years of the New Economic Policy (NEP) labor lease of land and subsidiary hiring and delivery of labor and means of production meant "a certain growth of capitalism." N.L. Rogalina passes off the progressive process of development of the peasant economy as "kulaking". Moreover, it overly trusts the official data on the number and proportion of the kulaks in 1926-1927, obtained on the basis of tax records. The researcher repeats the hackneyed thesis that for the rational use of technology, an enlarged area is needed, and not "single patches of land."
Fundamentally new approach outlined to some problems of the history of the Great Patriotic War. In particular, issues related to the start of the war were raised. The focus was on previously unknown documents that shed light on the relationship between the USSR and Nazi Germany. The most indicative in this regard are the books by Yu. Dyakov and T. Bushuyeva "The Fascist Sword Was Forged in the USSR" and "The Hidden Truth of War. 1941". They contain documents showing how the pre-war USSR helped to restore on its territory military power Germany. The authors have convincingly shown that Soviet Russia, finding itself in international isolation after the civil war, the unsuccessful "Polish campaign", which revealed the insufficient preparedness of the Red Army, was looking for a way out of this situation in alliance with Germany. The prospect was bright for both sides: the USSR, receiving German capital and technical assistance, could increase its combat power, Germany could have top secret bases on Russian territory for the illegal production and testing of weapons prohibited by the Treaty of Versailles. The USSR also trained cadres of German officers (G. Guderian, V. Keitel, E. Manstein, V. Model, V. Brauchitsch, and others).
Serious controversy was caused by the publication of V. Suvorov's book "Icebreaker", which showed the role of the Stalinist leadership in unleashing the war. The author argued that the USSR was preparing for war and was taking real steps to force it.
In recent years, the question of a radical change in the course of the Great Patriotic War has been raised. In historical science, the point of view about the events of November 1942 - November 1943 as the year of a radical change still dominates. It was expressed by I.V. Stalin and repeated in the theses of the Central Committee of the CPSU for the 50th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. On its basis, the events of the war were evaluated in the history of the Second World War, the history of the CPSU, textbooks and encyclopedias. In 1987, A.M. Samsonov and O.A. Rzheshevsky, who proposed that the battle near Moscow be considered the beginning of a radical change. They stated that the concept of "radical change" does not imply an invariably ascending process and temporary recessions are possible in it. They were supported by D.M. Projector, opposed by A.A. Sidorenko, L.V. Strakhov. An attempt to reconcile these points of view was made by A.V. Basov, who announced a radical change in the balance of forces of the parties during the battles of December 1941 - July 1943.
In modern historiography, a rather serious attempt was made to analyze the post-Stalin era. In 1991, scientists from the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU published a collective monograph "The 20th Congress of the CPSU and Its Historical Realities", which examined in detail the problems of economic and social policy, issues of ideology and culture, etc. The events of October 1964 were analyzed for the first time, and their objective basis was discussed. In recent years, researchers have turned to a number of particular problems. For the first time in historiography, the themes of the famine of 1946-1947 began to be developed. (V.F. Zima), deportation of the population (N.F. Bugai, G.G. Wormsbeher, X.M. Ibrahimbeyli, etc.), etc.
A serious analysis of the development of Soviet society in the second half of the 60s - the first half of the 80s. was started in the early 90s. In 1990, the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU published a collective monograph "On the Threshold of a Crisis: Growing Stagnation in the Party and Society." The book shows various aspects of the state and evolution of society during the period of stagnation, a significant place was given to the analysis of negative factors in the economy, social sphere, etc. A year later, the Progress publishing house published a collection of articles "Dive into the bog: (Anatomy of stagnation)", containing sharper assessments of the period of the late 60s - the first half of the 80s. The authors (V. Tikhonov, V. Popov, N. Shmelev, A. Gurov, G. Pomerants and others) assess the era of "stagnation" as a natural legacy of mass violence against the people, unsuccessful attempts to reform society, and the exhaustion of its moral resources.
The development of the national history of the era of perestroika in modern historiography has not been analyzed from scientific positions. The available assessments are, as a rule, politicized and journalistic. Modern domestic historiography is developing in rather difficult conditions. However, a very positive trend has emerged in this development - the rejection of the ideological conjuncture, the revival of the atmosphere of discussions. Conceptually alternative points of view on national history are being formed, historical schools are being formed.
Exam questions in history.
1. Fundamentals of the methodology of historical science .
History studies the traces of human activity. The object is a person.
Functions of historical knowledge:
Scientific and educational
predictive
Educational
social memory
The method (method of research) shows how cognition takes place, on what methodological basis, on what scientific principles. A method is a way of research, a way of building and substantiating knowledge. More than two millennia ago, two main approaches to historical thought arose that exist to this day: this is an idealistic and materialistic understanding of history.
Representatives of the idealistic concept in history believe that spirit and consciousness are primary and more important than matter and nature. Thus, they claim that human soul and reason determine the pace and nature of historical development, while other processes, including in the economy, are secondary, derived from the spirit. Thus, idealists conclude that the basis of the historical process is the spiritual moral perfection of people, and human society it is the man himself who develops, while the abilities of man are given by God.
Proponents of the materialistic concept argued and continue to argue the opposite: since material life is primary in relation to the consciousness of people, it is precisely economic structures, processes and phenomena in society that determine all spiritual development and other relations between people.
For Western historical science, an idealistic approach is more characteristic, for domestic - a materialistic one. Modern historical science is based on the dialectical-materialist method, which considers social development as a natural historical process, which is determined by objective laws and at the same time is influenced by the subjective factor through the activities of the masses, classes, political parties, leaders, leaders.
There are also special-historical research methods:
chronological - provides a presentation historical material in chronological order;
synchronous - involves the simultaneous study of events taking place in society;
dichronous - periodization method;
historical modeling;
statistical method.
Methods of studying history and modern historical science.
Empirical and theoretical levels of knowledge.
Historical and logical
Abstraction and absolutization
Analysis and synthesis
Deduction and induction, etc.
1.Historical and genetic development
2.Historical and comparative
3.historical and typological classification
4.historical-system method (everything in the system)
5. Biographical, problematic, chronological, problem-chronological.
Modern historical science differs from the historical science of all previous eras in that it develops in a new information space, borrowing from it its methods and itself influences its formation. Now the task is coming to the fore not just writing historical works on a particular topic, but the creation of a verified history, verified by large and reliable databases created by the efforts of creative teams.
Topic 29. Characteristics of the state of historical science in Russia at the present stage.
1. Entry of the Russian historical community into world historical science. Generality of problems.
2. Rupture and continuity of Russian and Soviet historical science.
3. Development of theoretical and methodological issues.
4. Topics, problems, directions and prospects of modern historical research in Russia.
Literature:
Dashkova T. Gender issues: approaches to description.//Historical research in Russia - II. Seven years later / Ed. G.A. Bordyugov. – M.: AIRO-XX, 2003.S.203-245.
Historical research in Russia: trends in recent years. M., 1996//Edited by G.A. Bordyugov.
History of everyday life: Collection of scientific papers. SPb., 2003.
Krom M.M. Historical anthropology. SPb., 2004.
Krom M. Domestic history in an anthropological perspective. .//Historical research in Russia - II. Seven years later / Ed. G.A. Bordyugov. – M.: AIRO-XX, 2003.S. 179-202.
Kravtsov V.N. Transformation of the foundations of the professionalism of historical knowledge in the modern historiographic process.//Images of historiography: Collection of articles / Nauchn. ed. A.P. Logunov. M.: RGGU, 2000.
Myths and Mythology in Modern Russia / Edited by K. Aimermacher, F. Bomsdorf, G. Bordyugov. M., 2003.
Naumova G.R. Historiography of the history of Russia: textbook. allowance for students. Higher educational institutions / G.R. Naumova, A.E. Shiklo. M., 2009. pp.225-240.
Sokolov A.K. The path to a modern laboratory for studying the modern history of Russia.//History and philosophy of Russian historical science. M., 2007. S.275-341
Chubaryan A.O. Historical Science in Russia at the Beginning of the 21st Century // New and Contemporary History 2003. No. 3.
1. What do you think shows the gap and continuity of Russian and Soviet historical science?
2. How are modern Russian and foreign historical sciences connected?
3. What theoretical and methodological issues are being developed by modern Russian historians?
4. Describe the themes, problems, directions and prospects of modern historical research in Russia.
Topic 30. BN Mironov.
1. "The social history of Russia in the period of the empire" as the first generalizing study of social history in world historiography.
2.Methodology of the study of the social history of Russia.
3. Modernization concept of the history of Russia B.N. Mironov.
4. Revision B.N. Mironov of the well-established provisions of Soviet historiography about the role of the autocracy in social changes, about its connection with the public, etc.
Literature:
Getrel P., Macy D., Freese G. Social history as metahistory.// Mironov B.N. Social history of Russia in the period of the empire (XVIII - early XX centuries): in 2 volumes, 3rd ed. Correction, add. – St. Petersburg: “Dmitry Bulanin”, 2003., vol. 1, pp. I – XIV.
Discussion around the "Social history of Russia in the period of the empire." // Mironov B.N. Social history of Russia in the period of the empire (XVIII - early XX centuries): in 2 volumes, 3rd ed. Correction, add. – St. Petersburg: “Dmitry Bulanin”, 2003., v. 1, p. XV-XL.
Mironov B.N. Social history of Russia in the period of the empire (XVIII - early XX centuries): in 2 volumes, 3rd ed. Correction, add. - St. Petersburg: "Dmitry Bulanin", 2003.
Control tasks, problem questions and exercises:
1. What methodological approaches and principles does Mironov use to study the social history of Russia? What is the advantage of these approaches and principles and what is their limitation?
2. What are the main provisions of the concept of the history of Russia B.N. Mironov. What are the features of the history of Russia and features of modernization in Russia?
3. What well-established provisions of Soviet historiography are refuted by BN Mironov? Read one of the chapters of the "Social History of Russia" and analyze how B.N. Mironov achieves a revision of traditional ideas.
4. What are the causes and nature of the October Revolution according to the concept of B.N. Mironov?
5. How does BN Mironov characterize and evaluate Soviet modernization?
6. What are the prospects for the historical development of Russia from the standpoint of the historical concept of BN Mironov?
7. What ideas of pre-revolutionary Russian, Soviet, post-Soviet and foreign historians does the author of the Social History of Russia rely on?
Boris Nikolaevich Mironov
Biographical information. B. N. Mironov in 1959 entered the Faculty of Economics of St. Petersburg state university. In 1961, he was expelled from the university for anti-Marxist views. In the same year, the rector of the university A.D. Alexandrov restored as a student at the Faculty of History. After graduating from the history department in 1965, he served in the army. In 1966 he entered the graduate school of the Leningrad branch of the Institute of History of the USSR. In 1969 he defended his Ph.D. thesis, in 1984 his doctoral thesis. Since 1970 he has been working at the St. Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences and teaching at St. Petersburg universities and abroad. Author of seven books and over one hundred articles, many of which have been published abroad.
"The social history of Russia in the period of the empire (XVIII - early XX century) The genesis of the individual, the democratic family, civil society and the rule of law." The main scientific work of B.N. Mironov is devoted to social history. The so-called "new social history" refers to the research arsenal of sociology in describing the internal state of society, its individual groups and relations between them. She was born in the second half of the 20th century.
Approaches borrowed from anthropology and social psychology. An integral component of the analysis of a social system is the reconstruction of a picture of the world characteristic of a given human community or a set of images, ideas, values that guided the behavior of members of a particular social group.
Particular attention in social history is paid to the content side of the consciousness of people who form social reality by their actions. Therefore, social history is still the history of mentalities. Under mentalities, as B.N. Mironov, social and psychological stereotypes, automatisms of consciousness and habits laid down by upbringing and cultural traditions, value orientations, significant ideas and views that do not belong to individuals, but to one or another class or social group, are implied.
One of the guiding principles of social history has become interdisciplinarity: "the use of concepts, concepts and methodology of sociology, political economy, geography, anthropology, psychology, demography, statistics, political science."
Social history does not describe events in their sequence. Social history analyzes predominantly strong social structures, systems, institutions, long-term social processes and phenomena. Society is considered as an integral organism in which all elements interact in a complex system of resonant, direct and feedback, excluding the possibility of reduction and finding any one that can determine the entire historical development. Social history is based on a structuralist approach. Mironov follows him and builds a model and interprets the fundamental processes and forces that changed Russian society and the state during the imperial period. The study consists of two parts: - in the first we are talking about social dynamics, in the second - about law, the state and civil society. At the same time, he finds in the development of Russia "a certain degree of historical inevitability" (progress), but does not indicate specifically what controls this process.
Social history is comprehended and conceptualized in the spirit of modernization. Mironov is not limited to the period of the empire and gives a meta-description of Russian history to demonstrate its "normality". Revealing models in the social development of certain areas of demography, family structure, etc. the author shows that Russia, though with some delay, followed the general pattern of development characteristic of Western Europe.
The fact that Russia lags behind Western Europe, according to Mironov, does not at all mean that it is a backward country. Mironov notes that psychologists have the concept of a “socially neglected child.” This child was born normal, but in a difficult family. Poor parents drank, they did not take care of the child, so his development was slowed down. Mental development the child is late and at school he cannot cope with the program. But under favorable circumstances, a socially neglected child can catch up with the bulk of his peers, but not the best. According to Mironov, to say that Russia is a backward country is the same as to call it a socially neglected child. So in Kiev time, the Rusichs were normal Europeans, but in the middle of the 13th century. for 250 years she fell into the difficult conditions of the Mongol-Tatar yoke (difficult childhood). Freed from the yoke, Russia fell under serfdom for 250 years (difficult adolescence). This slowed everything down and made Russia underdeveloped, which cannot catch up with peers from Western European countries. Mironov does not agree with this approach.
The historian says that Russia is belatedly going through the same processes, but not because it is mentally retarded or socially neglected, but because Russia as a state and civilization was simply born later than Western European ones. Already Kievan Rus was not a feudal state in the European sense of the term. Feudal features appeared a few centuries later in the XIII-XVI centuries. But Russia has always, at least for the last thousand years, when statehood arose, fled as fast as its neighbors in the West. Therefore, the scientist argues: Russia is not backward, but a young and rapidly growing country, and comparing it with Western Europe is the same as comparing an adult and a teenager.
Mironov insists on the inconsistency of the idea of the originality of the historical development of Russia. Despite periodic crises and deviations, from the point of view of BN Mironov, Russia as a whole followed the road of modernization together with the West.
The main difference between Russia and Europe lies in the asynchrony of development, and not in the essence of the development process. The autocracy sought to speed up the process of development and introduced incredible tension into social life. So it was in the implementation of the Soviet modernization project.
The scientist gives a favorable forecast for the future of Russia, if it continues its development according to the Western European model and in due time achieves prosperity and the rule of law and civil society are established.
The author strives, avoiding both negativism and apologetics in relation to national achievements, to revise many provisions and myths of Russian historiography that are not distinguished by positive attitude towards our history. Particularly unlucky in our historiography, as Mironov emphasizes, Russian reformers and government policy. Their achievements were underestimated and even depreciated. For example: the abolition of serfdom in 1861 is not considered an achievement, since in Western Europe it happened several centuries earlier and better. Mironov proposes to take a broader and deeper look at this problem, from the point of view of the correspondence of state policy to the economic, social, psychological and other possibilities of society. And also think about what would happen if the Western European model were implemented in Russia. Moreover, Mironov sees the reasons for the negative assessments of his own history in the fact that they were created in the era of the struggle of society against the authoritarianism of state power in the name of establishing a legal society and state in Russia back in pre-revolutionary historiography and then were picked up by Soviet historiography. The historian notes: nihilistic sentiments among the intelligentsia have always been in vogue in Russia (here there is a clear analogy between Mironov’s idea and the thoughts of the so-called “conservative” historians on this matter), it was and is still considered good form to condemn Russian orders and history, even if there is no reason for this.
Mironov refutes the position that:
Russia was a typical colonial empire that oppressed the peoples inhabiting it.
Russian society was closed.
The Russians did not know self-government.
Serfdom blocked the socio-economic development of the country.
Russia was ruled not by laws, but by people.
The state and the bureaucracy did not care about society and the people.
All or almost all of the reforms failed.
Autocracy in the XVIII - XX century. was an institution that hindered the development of the country.
Arbitrariness reigned in the courts.
The author writes that social institutions became more “rational”, more and more relied on certain legal norms, and not on custom and tradition. narrow and limited social interaction changed to more open and wide. Real merit, not privilege, became the basis for promotion. The personality was given greater opportunities for its manifestation, individuals successfully asserted their dignity and protested against the interference of the corporation in their personal lives, whether this interference was based on the power of the patriarch within the extended family or on the power of the traditional land community. Or other corporate institutions.
Autocracy was positive and driving force social changes in the country, going, as a rule, ahead of society. The autocracy for the most part worked in cooperation with the public. Basically, during the imperial period, the process of modernization was successful. At the beginning of the twentieth century. Russia has become a legal de jure state, and civil society was in the process of formation. Why did the autocratic state not survive the First World War. The fact is that modernization was successfully promoted with the leading role of the state, and was held back by the people, who also participated in this process, but their mentality changed extremely slowly. This widened the gap between the Europeanized elite and the people and created asynchrony and tension in social processes and phenomena. The revolution, from Mironov's point of view, was a natural phenomenon. Revolution is a normal, even positive reaction, as a temporary social calamity of modernization, designed to harmonize traditional Russian values with those of a market economy. The October Revolution was not the Marxist progressive revolution that the revolutionaries believed they were fighting for, but rather a revolution against modernization and in defense of tradition. However, the Soviet government continued the process of modernization and created conditions that ensured a peaceful transition to the final stage of modernization, the formation of an open and democratic society.
Specialists are amazed by the huge source base of the book. The author relies on the methodology and achievements of pre-revolutionary Russian, Soviet, post-Soviet, American, Canadian, Australian and European scientists, as well as on his own research on a wide range of problems in Russian archives and libraries. The scientist mastered the array of accumulated data on the social history of Russia and creatively processed them on the basis of his own concept. Mironov is fluent in cliometry and provides extensive statistical data. His work has an unparalleled scientific apparatus, including footnotes, bibliography in alphabetical order, subject and index of names, illustrations, tables.
However, one should not forget that the modernization model is one of the possible ones in representing the dynamics of society. It tends to view the past through the prism of dichotomies tradition/modernity, static/mobility, which does not limit understanding and minimizes the search for the uniqueness of Russia's historical development. In addition, even foreign experts note that the concept of "normality" of Russia's historical development is in perilous proximity to the absolutization of Western European and American standards of political and social development. It is not axiomatic that this Western model is desirable and has a long life ahead of it.
Exam questions:
1. The state of historical consciousness and the historical and scientific community of Russia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
2. Petersburg and Moscow schools of historians in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
3. D.I. Ilovaisky (scientific interests, methodological orientations, the general concept of Russian history, etc.)
4. The phenomenon of N.I. Kostomarov in Russian historiography.
5. V.O. Klyuchevsky. Main works and ideas.
6. V.O. Klyuchevsky about the subject and method of historical knowledge.
7. V.O. Klyuchevsky. "The course of Russian history and its concept". The concept of the history of Russia.
8. History of Russia in the 19th century. in the works of A.A. Kornilov.
9. Vlad in historical science A.A. Kiesevetter.
10. P.N. Milyukov as a public figure and historian. Continuity and novelty in his historical and scientific work. The history of Russia as the history of Russian culture.
11. S.F. Platonov Features of personality and historical and scientific creativity.
12. S.F. Platonov "Lectures on Russian history" (theoretical, methodological and conceptual foundations).
13. S.F. Platonov. The concept of the history of the Time of Troubles in Russia.
14. A.E. Presnyakov as a representative of scientific realism.
15. Proceedings of A.E. Presnyakov on the history of Kievan Rus, the Great Russian state.
16. Eurocentrism in the concept of Russian history E.F. Shmurlo
17. The study of feudalism in the works of N.P. Pavlov-Silvansky.
18. Contribution of N.P. Pavlov-Silvansky. in the study of the history of the social movement.
19. Masters of the biographical genre in historical research - N.K. Schilder and Grand Duke Nikolay Mikhailovich.
20. Historian-diplomat S.S. Tatishchev.
21. The historical concept of K.N. Leontiev.
22. The historical concept of L.A. Tikhomirov.
23. Methodology and philosophy of history in the works of A.S. Lappo-Danilevsky.
24. The historical concept of A.S. Lappo-Danilevsky.
25. Development of theoretical and methodological foundations of source studies by A.S. Lappo-Danilevsky.
26. Marxism and pre-revolutionary historical science.
27. "Legal Marxism". Dispute about the role of violence in history. P.B. Struve, M.I. Tugan-Baranovsky and others.
28. "Subjective school" in Russian historiography. P.L. Lavrov, N.K. Mikhailovsky and others.
29. Historiosophy V.S. Solovyov.
30. N.I. Berdyaev as a representative of the religious and philosophical paradigm of history.
31. The Eurasian concept of Russian history (G.V. Vernadsky, N.S. Trubetskoy, P.N. Savitsky, R.O. Yakobson)
32. general characteristics historical science in the Soviet period.
a. Periodization of the historical science of the Soviet period.
33. Secular historical science in the 1920s-1930s.
34. Sociological method of studying the historical process in the works of N.A. Rozhkov.
35. M.N. Pokrovsky and his role in the formation of the Marxist image of historical science.
36. B.D. Grekov, M.N. Tikhomirov, L.V. Cherepnin as researchers of the history of ancient and medieval Rus'.
37. M.N. Druzhinin as a researcher peasant question in Russia.
38. A.L. Sidorov. The personality of the historian and the priorities of scientific research.
39. M.V. Nechkin. Contribution to the study of the revolutionary movement, the history of historical science and the popularization of historical knowledge.
40. P.A. Zaionchkovsky. Themes and features of the historian's work.
41. I.D. Kovalchenko is a methodologist, source expert, historian-researcher.
42. L.N. Gumilev. The theory of ethnogenesis and the concept of the history of Russia.
43. Domestic historiography of the second half of the 80s - early 90s.
44. The current state of historical science in Russia.
45. B.N. Mironov. Social history of Russia.
46. I.Ya. Froyanov is a researcher of ancient and medieval Rus'. Works on recent history Russia.
Trans… (from lat. trans- through, through, behind) the first part of compound words meaning here: 1). Movement through any space, crossing it; 2). The designation of transmission through the medium of something. The second part compound word"form" means that the correspondence of manifestations of the same features or various signs in the same manifestations is carried out through and in a new configuration of connections, the highest configuration of which is Meaning.
The disintegration of the "holistic personality" occurs not only as a result of a normatively and procedurally organized technique of thinking, but also as a result of the specialization and technologization of material production. The issue of turning a person into an appendage of a machine under conditions of differentiated capitalist production was actively discussed by representatives of the “subjective school” (P.L. Lavrov, N.K. Mikhailovsky, N.I. Kareev, etc.). Mikhailovsky likened a narrow specialist to a “toe” .
See Berdyaev N.A. The meaning of creativity. - Kharkov: Folio, M .: AST, 2002. P. 36.
In the states of coexistence, the representative, holistic and world-forming connection acts as a being born, emerging and being formed.
In Russian philosophy, the idea of a break in continuity was put forward by representatives of the Moscow philosophical and mathematical school in the theory of arrhythmology long before M. Foucault. In the sphere of thinking, arrhythmology, unlike analytics, manifests itself in a creative act - insight, intuitive grasp of meaning, in the social sphere - in catastrophes, revolutions, upheavals that interrupt linear evolution. Arrhythmology can be understood as the emergence of new impulsive centers with their inherent rhythms, the redistribution of energy and a new tuning of rhythms in general.
In Western historiography, the primacy in the conceptual design of the principle of multifactorial historical development belongs to the French historical school "Annals".
Karsavin L.P. Philosophy of history / L.P. Karsavin. - St. Petersburg: AO Kit. 2003. P.31.
Karsavin L.P. Philosophy of history / L.P. Karsavin. - St. Petersburg: AO Kit. 2003.S.97-98.
Klyuchevsky V.O. Russian history: Full course lectures. T.1. / V.O. Klyuchevsky - Minsk: Harvest, 2003. P.16.
See Leontieva O.B. Marxism in Russia at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Problems of methodology of history and theory of historical process / O.B. Leontiev. - Samara: Samara University Publishing House, 2004.
In exile, Russian scientists came up with the concept of Eurasianism.
Berdyaev N.A. The meaning of history. New Middle Ages / N.A. Berdyaev. – M.: 2002. P.183.
They themselves put forward an ethical criterion of progress, thereby emphasizing the role of mental states in the dynamics of social reality.
See Rumyantseva M.F. Theory of history / M.F. Rumyantsev. - M.: Aspect Press, 2002. S.23-30.
See Koposov N.E. Stop killing cats! Criticism of social sciences / N.E. Koposov. - M .: New Literary Review, 2005. P. 142-157.
Various versions of a non-linear "global" or "total" history are proposed by representatives of the Annales school.
It should be noted that ideological and political views and knowledge, like any other, are necessarily included in the context of the historian's free and spontaneous activity. However, purposeful normative conduct ideological and political attitudes in historical research reduces its scientific potential.
Ilovaisky was married twice. He buried his first wife and all the children from his first marriage. The last to die in 1890 was the daughter of Varvara, in the marriage of Tsvetaeva. Son-in-law of Ilovaisky I.V. Tsvetaev married a second time. and in this marriage M.I. Tsvetaeva was born.
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