Soviet Historical Science in the Current Historiographical Approaches

The break in the social fabric of the Russian society that took place in the early 1990s turned into a break in the historiographical process. The fundamental task of modern historians is to heal and restore the broken unity. This requires understanding the journey made by domestic historical studies and determining the place of the recent changes in it. The relevance of the task is fully recognized by Russian scholars, as testified by the rise of historiographical research focused on the study of the Soviet period. In assessing the specifics of Soviet historical studies, its dynamics, the fate of scholars, the issue of “historian and power” plays the main role. This objectively reflects the key role of power structures — from the ideological apparatus to party organizations and state security agencies. At the same time, the problem field itself has undergone beneficial changes over the past decades. The attraction to harsh political and ideological assessments was replaced by cultural, sociological, and scientific approaches. Using the example of two latest monographs, the article analyzes one of such approaches, the biographical approach, in its genre of the “historiographical portrait” and other the institutional-structural approach. In both cases, the scholar’s personality and his professional path are at the centre of research. V. A. Poghosyan consistently and systematically reproduces the historiographic portraits of his characters using a standard biographical approach. In the book of S. B. Krikh, the structure is more complex: career paths of various scholars are compared, and this allows to establish the criteria for “success in Soviet style”, as well as the factors that determine the “central” position of some researchers in Soviet science and the “peripheral” places for others. In both cases, the authors reflect on the correlation of ideology and science in historical studies, and on the pressure of the regime requirements and the dogmatic provisions of "Soviet Marxism” on the historians.

Keywords

Soviet historiography, Marxism-leninism, D. B. Riazanov, history of France, V. A. Poghosyan, V. M. Dalin, A. Mathiez, S. B. Krih, periferiinost’

Received

23.07.2020

Publication date

21.10.2020

Number of characters

37302

Cite

GOST	Gordon A. Soviet Historical Science in the Current Historiographical Approaches // Novaia i noveishaia istoriia – 2020. – Issue 5 C. 28-41 [Electronic resource]. URL: https://nni.jes.su/S013038640011359-2-1 (circulation date: 26.04.2024). DOI: 10.31857/S013038640011359-2
MLA	Gordon, Alexander "Soviet Historical Science in the Current Historiographical Approaches." Novaia i noveishaia istoriia 5 (2020):28-41. DOI: 10.31857/S013038640011359-2
APA	Gordon A. (2020). Soviet Historical Science in the Current Historiographical Approaches. Novaia i noveishaia istoriia (5), pp.28-41 DOI: 10.31857/S013038640011359-2

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