A Russian Triptych: Intellectuals before and after 1917

Abstract

Abstract This article deals with three Russian intelligenty – the historian Vasilii Ivanovich Semevskii, the historian and journalist Sergei Petrovich Mel’gunov, and the literary critic Mstislav Aleksandrovich Tsiavlovskii – with their contributions to the journal Golos minuvshego and successor journals. It analyzes their scholarly and political interests against the background of revolution and civil war that intensified partisanship in Russia and led to the fracturing, but not to the complete destruction, of the intelligentsia.