HISTORY AND HISTORIANS IN THE ERA OF STALINISM: A REVIEW OF MODERN RUSSIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32461/2226-3209.1.2018.178164Abstract
Abstract. The problem under discussion is sure to be relevant due to the fact that the Stalinism as a historical phenomenon represents a significant element of the Soviet and Russian reality without understanding of which the comprehensive research of problems of the present seems to be impossible. "The Stalinism era" is a definition that covers a phenomenon that attracts the unflagging attention of modern Russian society, as well as the wide thematic range of researches of modern Russian historians united by this term that has developed in historical science. This determines the problematic nature of the proposed review, in which historiography is viewed not as a closed system, but as a mobile research field that is subject to both external (social, political) and internal (scientific, historical,
methodological) influence. The purpose of the article is to characterize modern national historical literature, which examines the history of Stalin's influence and Stalinism as a system for historical science in general and for certain aspects of it in particular. The authors came to the conclusion that modern Russian historians characterize this influence as a whole as negative (narrowing of pluralism, appearance of "forbidden" topics, repressions against historians), but some researchers also highlight positive aspects (restoration of the system of historical education). Equally contradictory assessment historians give to the position of historical science in the 1930s-50s: starting with the loss of
history its status of science to an important element in the system of government and society. The materials of the article can be useful for historians, university professors, teachers who deal with the history of Soviet (Russian) historical science and the history of Russia during the era of Stalin.
Key words: Stalinism, history, historians, historiography, the cult of personality, totalitarianism.
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