{"title":"Cyclic Concepts of Russian History in Modern Historiography","authors":"B. Mironov","doi":"10.21638/spbu02.2023.108","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu02.2023.108","url":null,"abstract":"In post-Soviet historiography, the concept of the cyclic pendulum, or inversion, of Russia’s development has become widespread. According to it, Russia, unlike the West, is characterized not by progressive, but by spasmodic pendulum development: progress is replaced by reaction, movement goes in a vicious circle. The article verifies four variants of the concept and makes conclusions about its strengths and weaknesses. Three most significant shortcomings are noted. The first is anti-historicism: fundamental changes that took place in the Russian society are ignored, which contradicts the principle of historicism. The second is Eurocentrism: the West is idealized and regarded as the highest manifestation of civilization, as a model for imitation and comparison, and deviations from this model, reforms that do not lead to Westernization, are condemned. The third is apriorism, weak empirical validity: explanations in most cases are hypothetical, even guesswork. The main methodological strategies are comparison, analogy, good examples, deduction as a selective ordering of facts to substantiate a certain hypothesis. Historians, as a rule, consider such methods to be unreliable, opening up opportunities for many ill-founded hypotheses. The concept objectively reflects the characteristic features of the Russian historical process: the presence of cycles; the pulsating nature of the reform; widespread authoritarian management style; low general culture of the population; the great role of traditional institutions, popular political culture and specific cognitive practices; strong historical inertia — dependence on the past path, due to civilizational stereotypes. However, the shortcomings inherent in the Russian society are exaggerated, and achievements are minimized. The imbalance creates a bias, and the representation of the course of Russian history is inadequate.","PeriodicalId":53995,"journal":{"name":"Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo Universiteta-Istoriya","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90883425","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Historiosophical Problems in Russian Thought in the Modern Time","authors":"Elena V. Koren’","doi":"10.21638/spbu02.2023.114","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu02.2023.114","url":null,"abstract":"The article deals with the historiosophical problems of Russian thought in the Modern time. The historiosophical problems of Russian thought were determined by the peculiarities of spiritual and socio-political life, the development of national and civil consciousness of society, the formation of the intelligentsia. The major historiosophical problems of Russian thought since the XIX century have been the reflection on the fate and role of Russia in the global historical process; conceptualization of the meaning of history; analysis of social development options; the definition of progress criteria; the clarification of the role of an individual and people in history, understanding of the meaning of human existence. A number of historiosophical issues were identified in ideological searches of earlier times. Historiosophical ideas also influenced the development of historical science in Russia. The history of philosophy was interconnected with ontology and anthropology, gravitating towards metahistory. One of the most relevant problems for the Russian historiosophy was the meaning of history, which attracted the attention of historians, philosophers and other cultural leaders, in the context of the essence, content, criteria, driving forces of historical development; specifics of historical knowledge; political and moral significance of historical memory. The problem of the meaning of history was often revealed in moral and religious contexts, in connection with spiritual and moral problems of the meaning of human life. In the works of Russian thinkers, the remarkable ideas were expressed about socio-anthropological and moral meaning of history, which retain their significance to modern philosophical and historical research, to the spiritual and value-based self-determination of an individual and society.","PeriodicalId":53995,"journal":{"name":"Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo Universiteta-Istoriya","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85884074","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Russian-Chinese Borderland in the Late Imperial Period in the Revision of Trade and Economic Relations","authors":"D. Yanchenko","doi":"10.21638/spbu02.2023.202","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu02.2023.202","url":null,"abstract":"The article based on the analysis of modern Russian historiography, archival materials, and press information characterizes a number of problems of economic policy in the Russian-Chinese borderland from 1880–1890 until the crisis in relations between the two powers in 1911. The methods of the 19th century were becoming less and less effective as the economy of the Qing Empire was being put on new capitalist “tracks”. Materials of periodicals, documents of personal origin received by governmental chanceries of Russia allow to reveal patterns of social thought of the turn of the 19th–20th centuries, describing the eastern lines of internal and foreign policy. The article outlines the opinions of the involved Russian regional population and the administration on trade and economic relations. The principles of the Treaty of Saint Petersburg and trade rules of 1881 did not stand the test of time. The Russian population in Eastern Turkestan, Mongolia, and later in the alienation zone of the Chinese Eastern Railway faced numerous problems related to property rights, illegal expropriation, barriers to commerce from the residents and the Chinese Qing authorities who saw in Russia a threat to their territory and even to the existence of the Qing dynasty. Foreign invasion into Manchzhuria, the construction of Russian settlements and cities in Chinese land, and then Russia’s defeat in the war with Japan forced the authorities of the two powers to look for new approaches to resolving trade and economic conflicts.","PeriodicalId":53995,"journal":{"name":"Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo Universiteta-Istoriya","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82371594","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Experience of Restructuring the Russian National Economy and Management during the First World War","authors":"I. Shapkin","doi":"10.21638/spbu02.2023.101","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu02.2023.101","url":null,"abstract":"The article analyzes the content and the main ideas of the monograph by I. V. Potkina “On the eve of a catastrophe. The state and the economy of Russia in 1914–1917”, which was brought out by the publishing house “Nestor-Istoriia” in 2022. The presented topic is not among those fully and comprehensively researched by the Russian historiography. Quite a large number of issues related to the transition of the Russian economic system from a peaceful to a military state and the formation of a mobilization model of the economy require additional research. Individual aspects of the formation and development of the military economy have been studied by Russian scholars quite well, but before the publication of this monograph, this problem had not been considered comprehensively. The author of the monograph set a goal to analyze the complex of legislative and administrative documents of the central executive authorities in the field of socio-economic policy and, on this basis, to determine the priority directions by year. The reviewed documents made it possible to show the changes taking place in the sectoral structure of the country’s economy and the management system. The author comes to the conclusion that, despite mistakes and miscalculations, the Imperial government, unlike the Provisional Government, generally managed to cope with the difficulties that arose. This is evidenced by the legislative acts of the government, statistical data of state institutions and public organizations provided by the author. The definition of the main features of the mobilization economic model is innovative.","PeriodicalId":53995,"journal":{"name":"Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo Universiteta-Istoriya","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89672620","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From Cyclism to Theologism, or Again about the Peculiarities of Russian History","authors":"A. Dvornichenko","doi":"10.21638/spbu02.2023.214","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu02.2023.214","url":null,"abstract":"This article was written as a response to the discussion in the previous issue. The concept of the author was regarded by B. N. Mironov as cyclic-pendulum, or inversion nature of Russia’s development. According to it, Russia, unlike the West, is characterized not by progressive, but by spasmodic pendulum development: progress is replaced by reaction, movement goes in a vicious circle. However, this concept is only a part of the whole theory of Dvornichenko, which states, in essence, that the state emerged in the Russian history late, only in 16th century, and in time acquired unique features of state-serfdom system. This system was from time to time disturbed by so called “Smutas” (crises). It is possible to regard these phenomena as cyclic, but it is necessary to take into account that the state after a period of crisis, on the one hand, revives, but on the other hand, there is a tendency towards collapse during such periods and a possibility of the state’s final dissolution. Some neglect of these phenomena in our history and the desire to study only so-called modernization leads historians to a biased picture of the Russian history, which glosses over the truth. This is evident in the works of B. N. Mironov and his adherents, particularly, in the articles published within the framework of this discussion. One could not overestimate a positive impact of authoritarian power in our history because it is a main cause of every “smuta”. In general, we shouldn’t exaggerate the achievements of the country because the price of every crisis period with the process of demodernization is dear. For the further understanding of the Russian history new and active discussions are necessary.","PeriodicalId":53995,"journal":{"name":"Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo Universiteta-Istoriya","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90084231","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Defense of Dissertations by Nikolai Il’ich Pokrovskii at Leningrad University","authors":"N. Alevras","doi":"10.21638/spbu02.2023.115","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu02.2023.115","url":null,"abstract":"This article is a discussion of the career path of N. I. Pokrovskii. The author attempts to uncover the key points of his biography and research career. Both of his defense procedures that took place in 1938–1939 are examples of the revival of the pre-revolutionary dissertation culture implemented through the practicing of the legal framework of its Soviet counterpart. The article focuses on the procedure and progress of the defense of the historian’s doctorate dissertation. The availability of the transcript enables the author to reveal the principles, style, atmosphere, and ideological components of this academic event typical of the early Soviet dissertation culture. The author highlights the specifics of the selection of opponents, the defense procedure and academic audit organization as well as the ensuing discussion. The opponents included well-known researchers from St Petersburg, I. Yu. Krachkovskii, an Arabist scholar acting as the candidate’s promoter, and B. D. Grekov and S. N. Valk, Doctors of history who were not authorities on the problems covered in the dissertation and treated the candidate with caution. I. P. Petrushevskii, an Orientalist historian, played a special role: he was an opponent during Pokrovskii’s candidate thesis defense and an unofficial expert during his doctoral defense debate. The debate in question involved the members of the Board of the Historical Faculty and the ‘public’ and demonstrated ambivalent attitudes towards the candidate’s position. The article attempts to understand the critical perception of Pokrovskii’s concepts and the impact of the political and ideological atmosphere in the pre-war USSR on the defense procedure and the historian’s life.","PeriodicalId":53995,"journal":{"name":"Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo Universiteta-Istoriya","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89672721","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Political Portrait of Brezhnev","authors":"A. Puchenkov","doi":"10.21638/spbu02.2023.207","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu02.2023.207","url":null,"abstract":"The article analyzes the features of the era of L. I. Brezhnev and its perceptions. The author presents his views on the political portrait of the Soviet leader. The article considers distinctive characteristics and stereotypical features of the image of the long-term leader of the Soviet state formed in the national and foreign historiography. The article indicates the key events and phenomena related to the foreign and domestic policy of the USSR under Brezhnev and describes the specific aspects of his managerial style. The author focuses on the details of the conspiracy to remove N. S. Khrushchev from power, and specifically point out that it was L. I. Brezhnev who headed this conspiracy, and not M. A. Suslov and A. N. Shelepin, as it is indicated in some research papers on the problem. The article also specifically examines the achievements of the foreign policy of the era of “détente”, the role of L. I. Brezhnev in the successes of the policy of those years, the model of his behavior in relations with foreign leaders, such as R. Nixon, J. Ford, V. Brandt, and others. The research is based on the testimonies of people who worked closely with L. I. Brezhnev and those who were in his inner circle. According to the author, L. I. Brezhnev was ready to retire at the end of the 1970s, but members of the Politburo insisted that he should keep his post. Brezhnev did not manage to survive as a politician; his death remained practically unnoticed by the Soviet people.","PeriodicalId":53995,"journal":{"name":"Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo Universiteta-Istoriya","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87618800","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Age, Number of Children and Activity of Women in Russian Politics","authors":"N. Pushkareva, I. Pushkareva","doi":"10.21638/spbu02.2023.113","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu02.2023.113","url":null,"abstract":"The article reflects the specifity of women’s participation in the Russian political process for more than a century — from the creators of the first women’s political organizations, the Women’s Mutual Charitable Society and the Women’s Progressive Party, to modern leaders of the ruling party, systemic and non-systemic opposition. A list of pre-Soviet, Soviet, and post-Soviet women politicians, who were quite famous during the years of their public activity and were often mentioned in the media, has been compiled. It comprises more than fifty prominent public activists who held important government posts or were nominated by public opinion, including not only among those loyal to the authorities, but also dissidents in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. Their age, marital status, presence or absence of children are analyzed. The article attempts to identify the correlation between such parameters as gender, age, and time of entry into an active political life; to correlate these inputs with the number of children; and to substantiate the differences in the social expectations of the electorate of men and women in the political process. The hypothesis that married men with children dominate in the Russian politics has been confirmed. Women politicians in Russia are most often childless or have few children. Unlike foreign participants in the electoral process, Russians’ readiness to see women among representatives of the political elite does not grow every year but is constantly declining — and regardless of whether these women politicians become mothers or remain childless.","PeriodicalId":53995,"journal":{"name":"Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo Universiteta-Istoriya","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86711514","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Historian in a Military Overcoat of a Volunteer","authors":"O. Morozova","doi":"10.21638/spbu02.2023.216","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu02.2023.216","url":null,"abstract":"The article is a review of the monograph by the St Petersburg historian A. S. Puchenkov “The first year of the Volunteer Army: from the emergence of the Alekseevskaia organization to the formation of the Armed Forces in the South of Russia (November 1917 — December 1918)” (St Petersburg: Vladimir Dal, 2021. 813 p.). The main task of the book is to present the most comprehensive chronology of events. The conclusions of the monograph about the role of key events and figures during the initial stage of the existence of the Volunteer Movement — M. V. Alekseev, A. M. Kaledin, V. V. Shulgin, A. I. Denikin, ataman P. N. Krasnov — are of the greatest interest for the review. This article focuses on the author’s position on debatable issues: on the correctness of choosing the Don as a springboard for gathering the future army; on the consequences of the decisions concerning the directions and goals of the First and Second Kuban campaigns; on the influence of relationships between leaders on the fate of the movement; on the results of military and state building for the first year of the existence of the Volunteer Movement. The review also makes critical remarks regarding the methods of working sources, too heterogeneous and contradictory to be used as a single explanatory basis. The approach of the author of the monograph is also characterized by his selective attitude to the opinions of eyewitnesses, in particular, more favourable to representatives of the mainstream, pro-Denikin, direction of white émigré literature.","PeriodicalId":53995,"journal":{"name":"Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo Universiteta-Istoriya","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82256432","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Organization of the Clothing Supply of the Russian Army during the First World War","authors":"S. D. Belov","doi":"10.21638/spbu02.2023.203","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu02.2023.203","url":null,"abstract":"The article deals with an under-researched problem of the history of the supply of the Russian army during the First World War — the organization of clothing supply. The author adopts a micro-historical approach, focusing his interest on the Shuiskii district of the Vladimir province. On the basis of the analyzed archival documents, the author comes to the conclusion that during the first year of the war, supplies were provided without the creation of special organizations. The situation changed in the summer of 1915. In July — August 1915, a network of army supply committees was created in the Vladimir province. This was the result of an attempt by the state and public organizations to build a single vertical of supply. After that, a range of items supplied to the army from the Shuiskii district expanded significantly — in addition to short fur coats, it includes sledges, carts, bushings, wheels, shell boxes. However, in the real process of fulfilling these orders the administrative and technological chain for the procurement of complex items of equipment was constantly faltering. This led to the refusal to work on complex orders — from the summer of 1916, the Shuiskii Committee switched exclusively to the delivery of cloth for foot wraps and woolen gloves to the army. In general, a detailed analysis of the work of the Shuiskii Supply Committee reveals the main reasons for the inconsistency in the work of zemstvos for supplying the army in 1914–1917.","PeriodicalId":53995,"journal":{"name":"Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo Universiteta-Istoriya","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80974286","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}