![Pokrovskiy MN](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Pokrovskiy_MN.jpg)
Mikhail Nikolayevich Pokrovsky (russian: Михаи́л Никола́евич Покро́вский; – April 10, 1932) was a Russian
Marxist
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...
,
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
revolutionary and a public and political figure. One of the earliest professionally trained historians to join the Russian revolutionary movement, Pokrovsky is regarded as the most influential Soviet historian of the 1920s and was known as “the head of the Marxist historical school in the USSR”.
Pokrovsky was neither a Bolshevik nor a
Menshevik
The Mensheviks (russian: меньшевики́, from меньшинство 'minority') were one of the three dominant factions in the Russian socialist movement, the others being the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries.
The factions eme ...
for nearly a decade prior to the
October Revolution
The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...
of 1917, instead living in European exile as an independent radical close to philosopher
Alexander Bogdanov
Alexander Aleksandrovich Bogdanov (russian: Алекса́ндр Алекса́ндрович Богда́нов; – 7 April 1928), born Alexander Malinovsky, was a Russian and later Soviet physician, philosopher, science fiction writer, and B ...
. Following the Bolshevik seizure of power, Pokrovsky rejoined the Bolshevik Party and moved to Moscow, where he became the deputy chief of the Soviet government's new department of education, the
People's Commissariat of Enlightenment.
Pokrovsky played a leading role in the early Soviet educational establishment, editing several of the major historical journals of the period, and guiding the restructuring of the higher education system and its personnel as head of the
Institute of Red Professors. He was also the author of influential and pioneering works of Russian history, presenting semi-official reinterpretations of the Russian past presented through the lens of
class struggle
Class conflict, also referred to as class struggle and class warfare, is the political tension and economic antagonism that exists in society because of socio-economic competition among the social classes or between rich and poor.
The forms ...
and the
progress of history through concrete stages of development. Pokrovsky was harshly critical of the nature of the multi-national Tsarist empire and deemphasized the personal role played by individuals such as the modernizing Tsar
Peter the Great
Peter I ( – ), most commonly known as Peter the Great,) or Pyotr Alekséyevich ( rus, Пётр Алексе́евич, p=ˈpʲɵtr ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ, , group=pron was a Russian monarch who ruled the Tsardom of Russia from t ...
.
Biography
Early years
Mikhail Pokrovsky was born August 29, 1868 in
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
into the family of a state official who had gained
hereditary nobility from the Tsar.
[Roman Szporluk, "Introduction" to Roman Szporluk and Mary Ann Szporluk (ed. and trans.), ''Russia in World History: Selected Essays.'' Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1970; pg. 3.] He was well educated as a boy, completing work at a classical
gymnasium before enrolling in the History Department of
Moscow University
M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...
at the age of 19, where he studied under
Vasily Klyuchevsky
Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky (russian: Василий Осипович Ключевский; in Voskresnskoye Village, Penza Governorate, Russia – , Moscow) was a leading Russian Imperial historian of the late imperial period. Also, he addres ...
and
Paul Vinogradov
Sir Paul Gavrilovitch Vinogradoff (russian: Па́вел Гаври́лович Виногра́дов, transliterated: ''Pavel Gavrilovich Vinogradov''; 18 November 1854 (O.S.)19 December 1925) was a Russian and British historian and medieval ...
, two of the most renowned historians of the era.
[George Jackson with Robert Devlin, ''Dictionary of the Russian Revolution.'' Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1989; pp. 451-453.] He would graduate from that institution in 1891, going on to pursue a
Master's degree
A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice. with Klyuchevsky; this work was not completed due to personal differences.
Undeterred by his lack of an advanced academic degree, Pokrovsky began teaching in secondary schools and university extension programs, pursuing his ambition of becoming a professional historian.
He did not gain a university teaching position, however, instead being forced to settle for teaching history courses in secondary schools, evening extension courses, and non-university courses for women.
[Szporluk, "Introduction," pg. 4.] A young man of progressive sympathies, Pokrovsky was finally prohibited from giving public lectures in 1902 owing to his radical views.
Specifics of Pokrovsky's early political activity are sparse, with Pokrovsky himself acknowledging many years after the fact that he had participated in the
Union of Liberation
The Union of Liberation (russian: Союз Освобождения, ''Soyuz Osvobozhdeniya'') was a liberal political group founded in Saint Petersburg, Russia in January 1904 under the influence of Peter Berngardovich Struve, a former Marxist. ...
, a middle class organization seeking the establishment of a constitution for Russia that was a forerunner of the
Constitutional-Democratic Party (Cadets).
From 1905 to 1917
![A A Bogdanov](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/A_A_Bogdanov.jpg)
Pokrovsky became a
Marxist
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
during the
Russian Revolution of 1905
The Russian Revolution of 1905,. also known as the First Russian Revolution,. occurred on 22 January 1905, and was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. The mass unrest was directed again ...
, joining the
Bolshevik Party
" Hymn of the Bolshevik Party"
, headquarters = 4 Staraya Square, Moscow
, general_secretary = Vladimir Lenin (first)Mikhail Gorbachev (last)
, founded =
, banned =
, founder = Vladimir Lenin
, newspaper ...
.
He was invited by party leader
V.I. Ulianov (Lenin) to contribute to the party's official newspaper published in exile, ''Proletarii'' (The Proletarian).
Inside the Bolshevik organization, Pokrovsky was close to the radical faction surrounding
Alexander Bogdanov
Alexander Aleksandrovich Bogdanov (russian: Алекса́ндр Алекса́ндрович Богда́нов; – 7 April 1928), born Alexander Malinovsky, was a Russian and later Soviet physician, philosopher, science fiction writer, and B ...
, the ''
Vpered
Vpered ( rus, Вперёд, p=fpʲɪˈrʲɵt, a=Ru-вперёд.ogg, ''Forward'') was a subfaction within the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). Although Vpered emerged from the Bolshevik wing of the party, it was critical of Lenin. ...
'' (Forward) group.
[Sheila Fitzpatrick, ''The Commissariat of Enlightenment: Soviet Organization of Education and the Arts under Lunacharsky, October 1917-21.'' Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1970; pg. 6.] Other key members of this faction included future Bolshevik education chief
Anatoly Lunacharsky
Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky (russian: Анато́лий Васи́льевич Лунача́рский) (born Anatoly Aleksandrovich Antonov, – 26 December 1933) was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and the first Bolshevik Soviet People's ...
and prominent writer
Maxim Gorky
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (russian: link=no, Алексе́й Макси́мович Пешко́в; – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (russian: Макси́м Го́рький, link=no), was a Russian writer and social ...
.
The failure of the 1905 revolution caused Pokrovsky to emigrate, first to
Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
, before making his way to
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
in 1908.
[Szporluk, "Introduction," pg. 5.] Pokrovsky would remain in French exile until the coming of the
October Revolution
The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...
in 1917.
It was in French exile that Pokrovsky wrote his first major historiographic work, ''The History of Russia from Earliest Times'', published in five volumes from 1910 to 1913.
Bogdanov and the ''Vperedists'' established a Marxist party school on the Italian island of
Capri
Capri ( , ; ; ) is an island located in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Sorrento Peninsula, on the south side of the Gulf of Naples in the Campania region of Italy. The main town of Capri that is located on the island shares the name. It has been ...
early in 1909, with a view to educating and training ordinary working class Russians as future party leaders, intending the project to be open to adherents of the Bolshevik and
Menshevik
The Mensheviks (russian: меньшевики́, from меньшинство 'minority') were one of the three dominant factions in the Russian socialist movement, the others being the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries.
The factions eme ...
organizations alike.
Pokrovsky was called upon as a party academic to lecture at the Capri school on the topic of Russian history.
The ''Vperedists'' in exile established a second Russian party school in
Bologna
Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...
, Italy from 1910 to 1911, again seeking participation from both Bolshevik and Menshevik wings of the
Russian Social Democratic Labor Party
The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP; in , ''Rossiyskaya sotsial-demokraticheskaya rabochaya partiya (RSDRP)''), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or the Russian Social Democratic Party, was a socialist pol ...
.
[Fitzpatrick, ''The Commissariat of Enlightenment,'' pg. 7.] Pokrovsky again participated in this project as a history lecturer, being joined by Lunacharsky, Bogdanov, and others.
Chief factional leaders Lenin and Georgy Plekhanov were hostile to the project, however, and the Bologna school — and with it the ''Vpered'' group itself — subsequently disintegrated.
After Bogdanov's expulsion from the Bolshevik fraction within the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in 1909, Pokrovsky followed him out of that organization.
He would remain a non-Bolshevik radical until the revolutionary year of 1917, when he returned to Russia in August 1917, following the
February Revolution
The February Revolution ( rus, Февра́льская револю́ция, r=Fevral'skaya revolyutsiya, p=fʲɪvˈralʲskəjə rʲɪvɐˈlʲutsɨjə), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and somet ...
, which overthrew
Tsar Nicholas II
Nicholas II or Nikolai II Alexandrovich Romanov; spelled in pre-revolutionary script. ( 186817 July 1918), known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer,. was the last Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Polan ...
.
[Szporluk, "Introduction,'' pg. 8.] He was formally readmitted to the Bolshevik Party the following month and was soon in a position of trust and authority, editing the daily newspaper of the Moscow Soviet, ''
Izvestiia.''
He became a member of the
Moscow Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.
Years after the October Revolution
Following the
October Revolution
The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...
which brought the Bolshevik Party to power, Pokrovsky was named as Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Moscow Soviet.
He was also chosen for the commission which drafted the first
Constitution of Soviet Russia in 1918 and in March 1918 was elected Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars for the Moscow region.
When former ''Vperedist'' Anatoly Lunacharsky was tapped as the first head of the
People's Commissariat of Enlightenment (successor to the Russian Ministry of Public Education), Lenin directly suggested to him that his own wife,
Nadezhda Krupskaya
Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya ( rus, links=no, Надежда Константиновна Крупская, p=nɐˈdʲeʐdə kənstɐnˈtʲinəvnə ˈkrupskəjə; 27 February 1939) was a Russian revolutionary and the wife of Vladimir Lenin ...
, and Pokrovsky should be included as prime organizers with Lunacharsky of the new government body. Pokrovsky would become Deputy Commissar of the reformed educational ministry in May 1918, overseeing direction of that body during Lunacharsky's frequent absences from Moscow during the rest of 1918.
Pokrovsky again ran afoul of charges of oppositionism in 1919 when he lent his support to
Nikolai Bukharin
Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin (russian: Никола́й Ива́нович Буха́рин) ( – 15 March 1938) was a Bolshevik revolutionary, Soviet politician, Marxist philosopher and economist and prolific author on revolutionary theory. ...
and the
Left Communists
Left communism, or the communist left, is a position held by the left wing of communism, which criticises the political ideas and practices espoused by Marxist–Leninists and social democrats. Left communists assert positions which they rega ...
in opposition to the
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (also known as the Treaty of Brest in Russia) was a separate peace, separate peace treaty signed on 3 March 1918 between Russian SFSR, Russia and the Central Powers (German Empire, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Kingdom of ...
— a matter of bitter and divisive debate within the Russian Communist Party.
Impact on Soviet institutions
Several Soviet educational entities are credited in some measure to Pokrovsky's influence. These include the "workers' faculties" ''(
rabfaki)'' established to provide college preparatory education for factory workers to allow their admission to higher education without having completed from a formal secondary education process.
[Szporluk, "Introduction," pg. 9.] In 1918 he was the founding rector of the
Socialist Academy of Social Sciences The Socialist Academy of Social Sciences (SAON) was an educational establishment created in Russia in October 1918 with “the aim of studying and teaching social studies from the point of view of scientific socialism.” The original name of the ac ...
, later renamed the
Communist Academy. Pokrovsky was also instrumental in the establishment of the
Institute of Red Professors (IKP), a de facto graduate school for the advanced training of historians, economists, philosophers, jurists, and natural scientists.
He was head of the IKP from 1921 to 1931.
Pokrovsky also wrote a ''Brief History of Russia'', published in 1920 to much acclaim from
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...
, who said in the preface to the first edition that he "like
the book immensely".
Pokrovsky also was a co-founder of the Russian Association of Social Science Research Institutes (RANION), a sort of think tank which allowed non-Marxist scholars to engage in sociological research projects.
Pokrovsky was a consistent advocate of bringing moderate critics of the regime into the educational establishment, unsuccessfully attempting to gain teaching positions at Moscow University for prominent Menshevik intellectuals
Iulii Martov and
Nikolai Sukhanov
Nikolai Nikolaevich Sukhanov (russian: Никола́й Никола́евич Суха́нов; 29 June 1940) was a Russian Menshevik Internationalist and chronicler of the Russian Revolution.
Life
Nikolai Sukhanov (a pseudonym, his real name ...
.
[Szporluk, "Introduction," pg. 11.]
In 1925 Pokrovsky was chosen as the first president of the Society of Marxist Historians and was for a time also the editor of its journal, ''Istorik-marksist.''
He was also a founder of the Central State Archives of the RSFSR and the editor of its journal, ''
Krasnyi arkhiv'' (Red Archive), one of the major scholarly history publications of the Soviet 1920s.
[Szporluk, "Introduction," pg. 10.]
His influence was at its peak during the first and only All-Union Conference of Marxist Historian held in December 1928 and January 1929, when, to quote the historian
Konstantin Shteppa:
In 1929, Pokrovsky was elected to the
Soviet Academy of Sciences
The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991, uniting the country's leading scientists, subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (until 1946 ...
. He achieved his highest position in the Communist Party apparatus the following year, when he was named as a member of the presidium of the Central Control Commission, a disciplinary body elected and sitting in parallel to the governing Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party.
Pokrovsky was also a member of the All-Union and All-Russian Central Executive Committees of Soviets,
officially non-party bodies which atrophied in importance over time.
Historical ideas
In his own historigraphic writing, Pokrovsky emphasized
Marxist
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
theory and the brutality of the upper classes. He repeatedly described the Russian Empire as "a prison of peoples".
In his ''Russian History from the Most Ancient Times'' (1910–13), he wrote that "Great Russia was built on the bones of the non-Russian nations...in the past we Russians were the greatest robbers on earth".
He also downplayed the role of personality in favor of
economics
Economics () is the social science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services.
Economics focuses on the behaviour and intera ...
and the
class struggle
Class conflict, also referred to as class struggle and class warfare, is the political tension and economic antagonism that exists in society because of socio-economic competition among the social classes or between rich and poor.
The forms ...
as the driving force of history. An example was his analysis of the destruction of the
Boyar
A boyar or bolyar was a member of the highest rank of the Feudalism, feudal nobility in many Eastern European states, including Kievan Rus', Bulgarian Empire, Bulgaria, Russian nobility, Russia, Boyars of Moldavia and Wallachia, Wallachia and ...
class, the owners of large feudal estates, during the reign of
Ivan the Terrible
Ivan IV Vasilyevich (russian: Ива́н Васи́льевич; 25 August 1530 – ), commonly known in English as Ivan the Terrible, was the grand prince of Moscow from 1533 to 1547 and the first Tsar of all Russia from 1547 to 1584.
Ivan ...
, which Pokrovsky attributed to the development of a market economy that favoured smaller, more efficient estates, whose owners allied with townspeople in 1564 to overthrow the boyars, which, he argued, would have happened whoever was on the throne.
Of
Peter the Great
Peter I ( – ), most commonly known as Peter the Great,) or Pyotr Alekséyevich ( rus, Пётр Алексе́евич, p=ˈpʲɵtr ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ, , group=pron was a Russian monarch who ruled the Tsardom of Russia from t ...
, Pokrovsky wrote: "Peter, whom fawning historians have called the Great ... lowered the well-being (of the populace) terribly and led to a colossal increase in the death rate".
Death and legacy
Mikhail Pokrovsky died of cancer on April 10, 1932. His ashes were buried at the
Kremlin Wall Necropolis
The Kremlin Wall Necropolis was the national cemetery for the Soviet Union. Burials in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Moscow began in November 1917, when 240 pro-Bolshevik individuals who died during the Moscow Bolshevik Uprising were buried in m ...
. Though there had been some criticism of him in the early 1930s, he continued to be honoured posthumously for two years after his death. His name was given to the Leningrad Pedagogical Institute and the Novgorod Agro-Pedagogical Institute. Also from October 20, 1932 to November 11, 1937 Moscow State University bore his name. His name was given to the Vologda Pedagogical School. In some cities (in particular, in
Izhevsk
Izhevsk (russian: Иже́вск, p=ɪˈʐɛfsk; udm, Ижкар, ''Ižkar'', or , ''Iž'') is the capital city of Udmurtia, Russia. It is situated along the Izh River, west of the Ural Mountains in Eastern Europe. It is the 21st-largest city i ...
), to this day there are streets named after Pokrovsky.
But a "new period in the development of Soviet historiography began on May 16, 1934" with the publication of a decree that criticised the way history was being taught in Soviet schools and universities. Dozens of scholars were put to the task of writing a new standard history textbook in 1934 and 1935.
The decree followed a discussion in March by the
Politburo
A politburo () or political bureau is the executive committee for communist parties. It is present in most former and existing communist states.
Names
The term "politburo" in English comes from the Russian ''Politbyuro'' (), itself a contraction ...
of the Russian Communist Party that took up the question of national history textbooks, with General Secretary
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
forcefully opining that Pokrovsky's influence had been decisive in propagating an overly abstract and schematic presentation of national history.
[Brandenberger, "Politics Projected into the Past," pg. 204.]
Though the decree did not mention Pokrovsky by name, its effect was to discredit the entire school of history that he had led. In January 1936 another history textbook commission was launched, this chaired by
Andrei Zhdanov
Andrei Aleksandrovich Zhdanov ( rus, Андре́й Алекса́ндрович Жда́нов, p=ɐnˈdrej ɐlʲɪˈksandrəvʲɪtɕ ˈʐdanəf, links=yes; – 31 August 1948) was a Soviet politician and cultural ideologist. After World War ...
and including a number of top Communist Party functionaries, including
Nikolai Bukharin
Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin (russian: Никола́й Ива́нович Буха́рин) ( – 15 March 1938) was a Bolshevik revolutionary, Soviet politician, Marxist philosopher and economist and prolific author on revolutionary theory. ...
,
Karl Radek
Karl Berngardovich Radek (russian: Карл Бернгардович Радек; 31 October 1885 – 19 May 1939) was a Russian revolutionary and a Marxist active in the Polish and German social democratic movements before World War I and a C ...
,
Yakov Yakovlev
Yakov Arkadyevich Yakovlev (real name: Epstein; russian: Я́ков Арка́дьевич Я́ковлев, 9 June 1896, Grodno – 29 July 1938) was a Soviet politician and statesman who played a central role in the forced collectivisation of ag ...
, and
Karl Bauman Karl Yanovich Bauman (russian: Карл Янович Бауман, lv, Kārlis Baumanis; August 29, 1892 – October 14, 1937) was a Latvian-born Soviet politician and functionary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
He was born in Viļ ...
, among others.
In conjunction with the work of this commission, Bukharin authored a lengthy critique of Pokrovsky and his methodology, accusing the deceased historian of mechanistic adherence to abstract sociological formulas, failure to properly understand and apply the
dialectic method, and a tendency to depict history as a crudely universal process. The Zhdanov Commission, in consultation with Stalin, issued an influential communique which categorized historians of the Pokrovsky school as conduits of harmful ideas that were at root "anti-Marxist, anti-Leninist, essentially liquidatorist, and anti-scientific." Pokrovsky's relentless attack on the
Tsarist
Tsarist autocracy (russian: царское самодержавие, transcr. ''tsarskoye samoderzhaviye''), also called Tsarism, was a form of autocracy (later absolute monarchy) specific to the Grand Duchy of Moscow and its successor states ...
old regime as a "prison of peoples" and "international gendarme" was henceforth deemed to be anti-patriotic "national nihilism" and a new Russian nationalist historical orthodoxy was established.
[Brandenberger, "Politics Projected into the Past," pg. 208.] This new official orthodoxy remained in place for the duration of Stalin's life.
Pokrovsky's life's work was comprehensively trashed in two collections of essays, ''Against the Historical Conceptions of M.N.Pokrovsky'' and ''Against the Anti-Marxist Conceptions of M.N.Pokrovsky'', published in 1939 and 1940 respectively, when the new school of history honoured past military heroes and emphasised the positive effects of the spread of Russian rule. In the 1939 volume,
Anna Pankratova
Anna Mikhailovna Pankratova (russian: Анна Михайловна Панкратова, 4 February 1897 – 25 May 1957) was a leading Soviet historian, educator and member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Academy of Sciences of the USSR. A ...
, who was emerging as one of the authoritative Stalinist historians, wrote that:
In 1942, during the war with Germany, another volume, ''Twenty Five Years of Historical Scholarship in the USSR'', one of the contributors summarised what Pokrovsky had allegedly got wrong:
Only after the Soviet leader's death and the subsequent renunciation of his policies by the
Communist Party
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...
did Pokrovsky's work regain some influence among academic historians in the USSR. Although regarded as a rigid Marxist
polemic
Polemic () is contentious rhetoric intended to support a specific position by forthright claims and to undermine the opposing position. The practice of such argumentation is called ''polemics'', which are seen in arguments on controversial topics ...
ist by his critics, Pokrovsky is also acknowledged as a "conscientious scholar who would not sacrifice intellectual honesty to the demands of propaganda" by others, leaving his an ambiguous legacy.
[Roman Szporluk, "Introduction," pg. 1.]
See also
*
Soviet historiography
Soviet historiography is the methodology of history studies by historians in the Soviet Union (USSR). In the USSR, the study of history was marked by restrictions imposed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Soviet historiography i ...
*
World-systems theory
World-systems theory (also known as world-systems analysis or the world-systems perspective)Immanuel Wallerstein, (2004), "World-systems Analysis." In ''World System History'', ed. George Modelski, in ''Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems'' (E ...
Footnotes
Works
* ''7 let proletarskoi diktatury'' (7 years of proletarian dictatorship). Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel'stvo, n.d. (1924).
* ''History of Russia From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Commercial Capitalism.'' D.S. Mirsky, trans. New York: International Publishers, 1931.
* ''Brief History of Russia, Volume II.'' D.S. Mirsky, trans. New York: International Publishers, 1933.
* ''Izbrannye proizvedeniia v chetyrekh knigakh'' (Selected Works in four volumes). Moscow: Mysl, 1966.
* ''Russia in World History: Selected Essays.'' Roman Szporluk and Mary Ann Szporluk, ed. and trans. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1970.
Further reading
* John F. Barber, ''Soviet Historians in Crisis, 1928-1932.'' London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1981.
* David Brandenberger
"Politics Projected into the Past: What Precipitated the Anti-Pokrovskii Campaign?"in Ian D. Thatcher (ed.), ''Reinterpreting Revolutionary Russia: Essays in Honour of James D. White.'' Houndmills, England: Palgrave, 2006; pp. 202–214.
* David Brandenberger, "Who Killed Pokrovsky (the Second Time)? The Prelude to the Denunciation of the Father of Soviet Marxist Historiography, January 1936," ''Revolutionary Russia,'' vol. 11, no. 1 (1998), pp. 67–73.
* D.Dorotich, Disgrace and Rehabilitation of M.N.Pokrovsky, ''Canadian Slavonic Papers'', v.8 (1966), pp. 169 - 181
* Bernard W. Eissenstat, "M.N. Pokrovsky and Soviet Historiography: Some Reconsiderations," ''Slavic Review,'' vol. 28, no. 4 (Dec. 1969), pp. 604–618
In JSTOR* George M. Enteen, "Soviet Historians Review their Own Past: The Rehabilitation of M.N. Pokrovsky," ''Soviet Studies,'' vol. 20, no. 3 (1969).
* George M. Enteen, ''The Soviet Scholar Bureaucrat: M.N. Pokrovskii and the Society of Marxist Historians.'' University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1978.
* Jonathan Frankel, "Party Genealogy and the Soviet Historians (1920-1938)," ''Slavic Review,'' vol. 25, no. 4 (Dec. 1966), pp. 563–603
In JSTOR* Boris Dmitrievich Grekov, ''Против исторической концепции М.Н. Покровского; сборник статей.'' (Against the Historical Conceptions of M.N. Pokrovsky: Collection of Articles). In two volumes. Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1939-1940.
* John Keep, "The Rehabilitation of M.N. Pokrovskii," ''Power and the People: Essays on Russian History.'' Boulder, CO: Eastern European Monographs, 1995; pp. 383-404.
* Alexandr Mazour, ''Modern Russian Historiography.'' Princeton, NJ: D. Van Nostrand Company, 1958.
* M.V. Nechkina, "Vopros o M.N. Pokrovskom v postanovleniiakh partii i pravitel'stva 1934-1938 gg." (The question of M.N. Pokrovsky in the regulations of the party and government 1934-1938), ''Istoricheskie zapiskie,'' no. 118 (1990), pp. 232–246.
* Konstantin Shteppa. ''Russian Historians and the Soviet State.'' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1962.
* Oleg Dmitrievich Sokolov, ''М.Н. Покровский и советская историческая наука'' (M.N. Pokorovsky and Soviet Historical Science). Moscow: Misl', 1970.
* Roman Szpoluk, "Pokrovsky and Russian History," ''Survey,'' October 1964.
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Boris Kagarlitsky
Boris Yulyevich Kagarlitsky (russian: Бори́с Ю́льевич Кагарли́цкий; born 29 August 1958) is a Russian Marxist theoretician and sociologist who has been a political dissident in the Soviet Union. He is coordinator of ...
Разгадка сфинкса Забытая история Михаила Покровского
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pokrovsky, Mikhail
1868 births
1932 deaths
Chairpersons of the Executive Committee of Mossovet
Communist Party of the Soviet Union members
Russian Marxist historians
Moscow State University alumni
Old Bolsheviks
Burials at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis
Russian communists
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party members
Russian socialists
Russian Marxists
20th-century Russian historians
Full Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences
Russian Constituent Assembly members
Soviet Marxist historians