Tolstoy Nekrasov. XVI

KLYUCHEVSKY Vasily Osipovich, Russian historian, academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences in the category of Russian history and antiquities (1900) and honorary member in the category of belles-lettres (1908); Privy Councilor (1903). From the family of a village priest. He graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University (1865), where he attended lectures by F. I. Buslaev (history of Russian literature), S. V. Eshevsky (general history), P. M. Leontiev (Latin philology and literature), S. M. Solovyov (Russian history), B. N. Chicherin (history of law), etc. He taught courses in general history at the 3rd Alexander Military School (1867-83), Russian history at the Moscow Theological Academy (1871-1906; from 1882 professor , since 1897, emeritus professor, since 1907, honorary member of the academy), at the Guerrier courses (1872-88), at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1898-1910), a course in Russian history and special courses at Moscow University (1879-1911; from 1879 private assistant professor, from 1882 professor, in 1887-89 dean of the Faculty of History and Philology, in 1889-90 assistant rector of the university, in 1911 honorary member of the university). In 1893-95, he taught in Abastuman (a mountain climatic resort in the Akhaltsikhe district of Tiflis province) the course “Recent history of Western Europe in connection with the history of Russia” to the seriously ill Grand Duke Georgy Alexandrovich. Member of the Society of Russian History and Antiquities (since 1872; chairman in 1893-1905), Society of Amateurs Russian literature(since 1874; honorary member since 1909), Moscow Archaeological Society (since 1882).

Klyuchevsky's political worldview was characterized by a desire to find a middle line between extremes: he denied both revolution and reaction, and avoided active political activity. Already after D.V. Karakozov’s assassination attempt on Emperor Alexander II (1866), Klyuchevsky spoke with disapproval of “extreme liberalism and socialism.” During the Revolution of 1905-1907 he shared the cadet program and ran (unsuccessfully) for electors to the 1st State Duma. Member of the Special Meeting to draw up a new Charter on the press (1905-06), advocated the elimination of censorship. He was invited by Emperor Nicholas II to discuss the draft law on the “Bulygin Duma” (1905), insisted on granting the Duma legislative rights, on the introduction of universal voting rights, objected to the idea of ​​class representation, citing the obsolescence of the class organization of society. In 1906 he was elected a member of the State Council from the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences and Universities, but refused this position, not finding his stay “independent enough to freely discuss emerging issues of public life in the interests of the cause.”

Essence national history Klyuchevsky believed that there was a unique combination of factors in its development. He singled out geographical, ethnic, economic, social and political factors among them, none of which, according to Klyuchevsky, was unconditionally predominant. The engine of history, according to Klyuchevsky, is the “mental labor and moral feat” of man. Klyuchevsky also wrote about three forces that “build human society” - “the human personality, human society, the nature of the country.” He paid great attention to the sense of national unity inherent, in his opinion, in the Russian people at all times, which was realized in the unity of power and people, that is, in the state. Klyuchevsky’s creative style and historical concept were distinguished by: the combination of source research and historical narrative in a single text; choosing the realities of economic and social life as the subject of study; knowledge of the life of various social strata and insight into their everyday psychology; polished style and language of storytelling, bordering on literary and artistic techniques. From S. M. Solovyov and the “state school” of Russian historiography, Klyuchevsky inherited the idea of ​​Russia as a country whose territory was constantly being developed by its population. However, he translated the thesis about the “country being colonized” from a general philosophical and historical premise into a system of observing population movements with the aim of plowing new lands (“Economic activity of the Solovetsky Monastery in the White Sea Territory”, 1867, “Pskov disputes”, 1872, etc.) .

Systematized and compared information from about 40 embassy reports, notes from travelers, letters from foreigners about the Russian state, published in various European languages ​​(“Tales of foreigners about the Moscow state,” 1866). In search of new historical sources, Klyuchevsky, on the advice of S. M. Solovyov, turned to the lives of Russian medieval saints - the founders of monasteries and organizers of a large monastic economy in North-Eastern Rus'. He was the first to study the development of Russian medieval hagiography and develop methods of scientific criticism of hagiographic texts (“Old Russian Lives of Saints as a Historical Source”, 1871). He analyzed the lives of 166 saints (about 5 thousand lists, compiled by Klyuchevsky in about 250 editions), established the time and place of origin of the lists, as well as their sources. I came to the conclusion that they were created according to literary models, reflected abstract Christian moral ideals and therefore do not contain information about economic and social history and are not reliable historical evidence. At the same time, Klyuchevsky subsequently used the lives as a source for characterizing the life, culture, national consciousness, and economic development of North-Eastern Rus'.

According to contemporaries, Klyuchevsky laid the foundation for the socio-economic trend in historiography. In the book “Boyar Duma of Ancient Rus'” (1881), having studied big circle phenomena and processes (“from markets to offices”) using a huge array of legislative, record-keeping and legislative sources, Klyuchevsky examined the emergence and evolution in the 10th - early 18th centuries of social classes, identified by him on the basis of the differences in their occupations, rights and responsibilities: “industrial ", by which Klyuchevsky understood the "military-commercial aristocracy", "servicemen" - the princely squad, which was replaced by the nobility, "urban" - artisans and traders. According to Klyuchevsky, classes were formed both under the influence of economic processes and under the influence of the state. The norm of their existence was mutual cooperation, in maintaining which Klyuchevsky assigned a large role to the state. The Boyar Duma, according to Klyuchevsky, was “a flywheel that set in motion the entire government mechanism,” an essentially constitutional institution “with extensive political influence, but without a constitutional charter.” The latter, as well as the lack of feedback from society, led, according to Klyuchevsky, to the decline of its role and its replacement by the Senate.

Based on the analysis of bread prices, Klyuchevsky developed methods for assessing the purchasing power of the ruble in the 16th-18th centuries, opening the way to the study and interpretation of evidence from historical sources of a financial and economic nature (“Russian ruble of the 16th-18th centuries in its relation to the present”, 1884). He transferred the problem of the emergence of serfdom from the political to the socio-economic sphere. In contrast to the theory of enslavement of all classes by the state, developed by the “state school” of Russian historiography, Klyuchevsky formulated (on the basis of order and loan records, which he first studied) the concept of the origin of serfdom as the result of peasant debt to landowners. According to Klyuchevsky, the state, which considered peasants, first of all, as the main payers of taxes and executors of government duties, only regulated the existing serfdom [“The Origin of Serfdom in Russia”, 1885; “Poll tax and the abolition of servitude in Russia”, 1886; “History of estates in Russia”, 1887; “Abolition of serfdom” (created in 1910-11, published in 1958)].

Klyuchevsky is the author of the extensive university “Course of Russian History” (the author brought it up to the reforms of the 1860-70s inclusive), which became the first generalizing historical work in Russian science, which, instead of the traditional sequential presentation of political (“event”) history, contains an analysis of the main, according to Klyuchevsky, the problems of the Russian historical process, attempts to substantiate the patterns of development of the people, society, and state. In Russian history, depending on the direction of the flow of colonization of the vast spaces of Russia by the Russian people, Klyuchevsky distinguished four periods: Dnieper (8-13 centuries; the bulk of the population was located on the middle and upper Dnieper, along the line Lovat River - Volkhov River; the basis economic life- foreign trade and the “forestry trades” caused by it, and political - “fragmentation of the land under the leadership of cities”); Upper Volga (13th - mid-15th centuries; concentration of the bulk of the Russian population in the upper reaches of the Volga with its tributaries; the most important occupation is agriculture; political system - fragmentation of the land into princely appanages); Great Russian, or Tsar-boyar (mid-15th century - 1620s; resettlement of the Russian people “along the Don and Middle Volga black soil” and beyond the Upper Volga region; the most important political factor is the unification of the Great Russian people and the formation of a single statehood; social structure - military-landowning ); All-Russian, or imperial-noble (from the 17th century; the spread of the Russian people from the Baltic and White Seas to the Black and Caspian Seas, the Urals and “even... far beyond the Caucasus, the Caspian and the Urals”; the main political factor is the unification of the Great Russian, Little Russian and Belarusian branches of the Russian people under a single government, the formation of an empire; the main content of social life is the enslavement of peasants; the economy is agricultural and factory). Klyuchevsky did not always adhere to the position of a plurality of equally significant forces in the historical process: as he approached modern times, political and personal factors became increasingly important in his constructions. Klyuchevsky’s course was distinguished by high artistic merits; often all students of Moscow University gathered at his lectures; originally distributed in student handwritten and hectographed notes, first published in 1904-10 (parts 1-4; reprinted several times).

Klyuchevsky proposed new solutions to a number of major problems in Russian history. He believed that East Slavs came to the Russian Plain from the Danube River in the Carpathians in the 6th century they formed a military alliance; noted the diversity of political forms in the Old Russian state (princely-Varangian power, city “regions”, power of the Kyiv prince). He put forward a version of the consistent involvement of all layers of Russian society “from top to bottom” into the Troubles of the 17th century. Klyuchevsky’s schemes and assessments have been and continue to be the subject of discussion and research among scientists. Klyuchevsky also studied the problems of general history, primarily from the point of view of their influence on the history of Russia.

Klyuchevsky is an outstanding master of historical portrait, created a gallery of images of the rulers of Russia (Tsars Ivan IV Vasilyevich the Terrible, Alexei Mikhailovich, Emperor Peter I, Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, Emperor Peter III, Empress Catherine II), statesmen(F. M. Rtishchev, A. L. Ordin-Nashchokin, Prince V. V. Golitsyn, His Serene Highness Prince A. D. Menshikov), church leaders (St. Sergius of Radonezh), cultural figures (N. I. Novikov, A. S. Pushkin, M. Yu. Lermontov), ​​historians (I. N. Boltin, N. M. Karamzin, T. N. Granovsky, S. M. Solovyov, K. N. Bestuzhev-Ryumin, F. I. Buslaev ). Possessing the gift of artistic and historical imagination, Klyuchevsky consulted literary and artistic figures (thus, F.I. Chaliapin, with the help of Klyuchevsky, developed stage images of the kings Ivan IV the Terrible, Boris Fedorovich Godunov, Elder Dosifei and was shocked by how skillfully Klyuchevsky himself during consultations played Tsar Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky). Artistic gift Klyuchevsky was embodied in his aphorisms, remarks, and assessments, some of which were widely known in the intellectual circles of Russia.

The name of Klyuchevsky is associated with the Klyuchevsky school that developed at Moscow University in the late 19th and early 20th centuries - historians (not only students) who gathered around Klyuchevsky or shared his scientific principles. At different times, it included M. M. Bogoslovsky, A. A. Kizevetter, M. K. Lyubavsky, P. N. Milyukov, M. N. Pokrovsky, N. A. Rozhkov and others; Klyuchevsky influenced the formation of the scientific views of M. A. Dyakonov, S. F. Platonov, V. I. Semevsky and others. Outstanding artists who were teachers and students of the Moscow School of Painting and Sculpture testified to Klyuchevsky’s influence on the development of historical themes in the fine arts and architecture (V. A. Serov and others).

In the house where Klyuchevsky lived in Penza, the V. O. Klyuchevsky Museum has been operating since 1991.

Works: Works: In 8 vols. M., 1956-1959; Letters. Diaries. Aphorisms and thoughts about history. M., 1968; Unpublished works. M., 1983;

Works: In 9 vols. M., 1987-1990; Historical portraits. Figures of historical thought. M., 1990; Letters from V. O. Klyuchevsky to Penza. Penza, 2002; Aphorisms and thoughts about history. M., 2007.

Lit.: V. O. Klyuchevsky. Characteristics and memories. M., 1912; V. O. Klyuchevsky. Biographical sketch. M., 1914; Zimin A. A. Archive of V. O. Klyuchevsky // Notes of the Department of Manuscripts of the State Library named after V. I. Lenin. 1951. Issue. 12; Chumachenko E. G. Klyuchevsky - source scientist. M., 1970; Nechkina M. V. V. O. Klyuchevsky. The story of life and creativity. M., 1974; Fedotov G. P. Klyuchevsky’s Russia // Fedotov G. P. Fate and sins of Russia. St. Petersburg, 1991. T. 1; Klyuchevsky. Sat. materials. Penza, 1995. Vol. 1; Kireeva R. A. Klyuchevsky V. O. // Historians of Russia. Biographies. M., 2001; Popov A. S. V. O. Klyuchevsky and his “school”: a synthesis of history and sociology. M., 2001; V. O. Klyuchevsky and the problems of Russian provincial culture and historiography: In 2 books. M., 2005; History of historical science in the USSR. Pre-October period. Bibliography. M., 1965.

Igor KLYAMKIN:
Our meeting today is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the death of Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky. And we will talk specifically about him. This topic arose at the intersection of two areas of work of the Liberal Mission. Firstly, we are helping Alexei Alekseevich Kara-Murza in his activities to update the heritage of Russian liberal thinkers, among whom, with certain reservations, Klyuchevsky can be counted. Secondly, we have recently been paying a lot of attention to the problems of national history and its conceptualization. I will refer, in particular, to, which revealed significant disagreements between people holding the same or similar ideological positions.
Today we have the opportunity to refocus the discussion on those traditions of historical knowledge that were laid down by old Russian historians. How useful is their legacy for us to understand the pre-Soviet history that they studied, and what can we take from them to understand the Soviet and post-Soviet history that they did not know? It is advisable to start with Klyuchevsky, if only because most modern historians have established a skeptical attitude towards him: referring to him has become almost bad form among them. So let’s try to figure out how outdated the story “according to Klyuchevsky” is, and what its obsolescence is, if any. As well as figuring out why non-historians still find Klyuchevsky of interest, which cannot be said about many modern authors.
I will first give the floor to Alexey Alekseevich Kara-Murza. After him, two co-speakers will speak - Olga Anatolyevna Zhukova and Mikhail Nikolaevich Afanasyev. And then - everyone who wants. Please, Alexey Alekseevich.

Alexey KARA-MURZA (head of department, Institute of Philosophy RAS):
« Main lesson Klyuchevsky’s idea is that any political revolution is preceded by a moral revolution.”
Dear colleagues and friends, the topic of my introductory report is: “Lessons of Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky.” I decided to limit myself today to just one of these lessons, which, in my opinion, can set the tone for our discussion. I would formulate this lesson like this: a moral, spiritual revolution always precedes a political revolution. Of course, Vasily Osipovich was far from the first to formulate this thesis, but it was he who gave it the status of the main justification for the integral concept of Russian history, and not only the history of the state, but also the social, national-civil history.
To begin with, I will briefly illustrate this lesson of Klyuchevsky using the example of his own analysis of two fragments of Russian history - fragments that are among Klyuchevsky’s own favorites. This is, firstly, the period of the rise of Moscow and the country gaining national independence, i.e. way out of the “time of troubles” in the 18th and 19th centuries. And, secondly, the entrance to the “Russian Troubles” at the beginning of the 12th century. I think that turning to the problems of the Russian Troubles, when fermentation in the minds gives rise to rapid socio-political transformations, is very, very relevant today.
In both cases, Klyuchevsky shows how changes in the sphere of consciousness then imply the unfolding of a whole chain of social and political changes. He shows that spiritual and moral revival leads to political revival. And vice versa: spiritual and moral impoverishment inevitably leads to political pogrom. Remember, Mikhail Bulgakov has a famous phrase: “Devastation is not in closets, but in heads.” Professor Preobrazhensky, apparently, was an ideological student of Professor Klyuchevsky. I will add: in the same way, overcoming devastation begins in the minds. And I, too (following Klyuchevsky, Bulgakov and Preobrazhensky) laugh when some “new baritones” shout: “Down with devastation!”
Let me remind you that Klyuchevsky’s analysis regarding Russia’s acquisition of national independence begins with the recording of three seemingly insignificant and disparate facts that took place in the early 40s of the 18th century. First. The 40-year-old monk Alexy, the future Metropolitan of Moscow, who was in hiding, was summoned from the Moscow monastery to the church-administrative field. Second fact. At the same time, one 20-year-old hermit (the future Venerable Sergius) built a small wooden cell-church in the forest, in the area of ​​​​the future Lavra. And third. The future saint of the Perm land, Saint Stephen, was born in Ustyug. Only later will it become clear, says Klyuchevsky, that “not one of these names can be pronounced without remembering the other two.” And he continues: “This trinity shines like a constellation in our 19th century, making it the dawn of the political revival of the Russian land.”
And then Klyuchevsky describes in detail and masterfully the picture of how this seemingly very weak spiritual impulse begins to respond in society. Alexy, Sergius, Stefan initially influenced a few. Such people were a drop in the ocean, writes Klyuchevsky, but “even in the dough you need a little substance that causes fermentation. Moral influence does not act mechanically, but organically, as Christ himself pointed out when he said: “The Kingdom of God is like leaven.” The result is a gradual but steady strengthening of the feeling of moral vigor and spiritual strength, which over time bring their own political fruits. This, so to speak, is a positive example: moral concentration and spiritual asceticism give impetus to national and state consolidation.
An example of the exact opposite is the plunge of Russia into turmoil at the beginning of the 12th century. The formal reason here is the suppression of the dynasty, but the “underlying” of the unrest, as Klyuchevsky convincingly shows, is purely metaphysical. Now we would call this process a process of “ideological delegitimization of power.” And indeed, the prologue to the Troubles was the successive change of figures on the Russian throne, carrying, in the words of Vasily Osipovich, some kind of “spiritual wormhole.”
Here is Fyodor Ioannovich, the last of Kalita’s family - blessed, a holy fool on the throne (some said simply: a fool or a madman), constantly smiling guiltily and running around churches to ring the domes. And this became for society a visible manifestation of the degradation of traditional power.
And here is Boris Godunov, who replaced Fedor. From a purely managerial point of view, Klyuchevsky believes, he was a completely “effective manager.” His misfortune (and, accordingly, the country’s misfortune) lay elsewhere: “Boris was one of those unfortunate people who both attracted and repelled: attracted by the visible qualities of the mind and talent, repelled by the invisible, but felt shortcomings of the heart and conscience. . He knew how to evoke surprise and gratitude, but he did not inspire confidence in anyone, he was always suspected of duplicity and deceit, and was considered capable of anything.” That is why so many people immediately believed in the version of the murder of Tsarevich Dmitry Godunov. Popular rumors haunted Godunov both under Tsar Fedor and after his death. As a result, according to Klyuchevsky, “the minds of the Russian people became clouded, and turmoil began.” Godunov, the zemstvo elect, turned into “a cowardly police coward, he showed that he was afraid of everyone, like a thief, constantly afraid of being caught.” And so on, the chain of these arguments can be continued in relation to Vasily Shuisky, and impostors, and other characters of the troubled times.
So: any political revolution is preceded by a moral revolution. The correctness of this thesis, which appeared in the 11th and 12th centuries, was confirmed in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. Klyuchevsky himself, especially after the defeat in the Japanese war and “Bloody Sunday,” which Vasily Osipovich called “our second Port Arthur,” managed to state the inevitability of the psychological discrediting of the Russian ruling regime. “Alexey will not reign,” Klyuchevsky repeated publicly in 1905 his earlier diary guess.
It was this phenomenon of converting negative spiritual processes into socio-political ones that became the subject of research by a brilliant cohort of historiosophists of the Silver Age. Their historiosophy appeared in two different forms, sometimes sharply conflicting with each other. Let us recall the discussion between “Vekhi” and the cadet “Anti-Vekhi” opposing them. But, nevertheless, one can insist that these flows represented different directions among the methodological followers of Vasily Klyuchevsky.
The first stream, let's call it religious and philosophical, was represented by the authors of the Vekhov movement - Sergei Bulgakov, Nikolai Berdyaev, Semyon Frank, Pyotr Struve and others. The focus of their attention is precisely “Klyuchevsky’s theme”: a study of the metamorphoses of Russian consciousness, the religious metaphysical foundations of politics. Let us recall such fundamental works as “Karl Marx as a Religious Type” by Sergei Bulgakov, “The Soul of Russia” by Nikolai Berdyaev, or the collective collections “Vekhi” and “From the Depths”. But Klyuchevsky’s direct followers also included their opponents, whom I would classify as belonging to the Cadet-positivist camp. Let me remind you that outstanding cadet historians, leaders of the constitutional democratic party Pavel Milyukov, Alexander Kiesewetter, Alexander Kornilov were direct students of Vasily Osipovich.
I can also assert that the best of what has been written in Russian émigré historiosophy, be it “Thoughts about Russia” by Fyodor Stepun, “The Fate and Sins of Russia” by Georgy Fedotov, discussions about the relationship between “Russia and Freedom” by Vladimir Veidle - that everything This is also a direct development of the “Klyuchevsky theme.” Just look at Fedotov’s relatively early work “The Revolution is Coming” from 1926, which made him famous in exile. This is a work that directly applies the principle used by Klyuchevsky in his analysis of the origins of the Russian Troubles. We can say that this is generally a demonstratively student article outstanding student. Fedotov “copied” Klyuchevsky’s methodology just as Bryullov cut his teeth by copying Michelangelo in the Vatican.
What is the situation with Klyuchevsky’s methodology in relation to the latest events in Russia, by which I mean the anti-communist revolution and the entire post-Soviet period? It cannot be denied: we have developed an excellent school of economic-deterministic analysis of the last years of the existence of the communist regime and its collapse. I would call Yegor Gaidar’s “The Fall of an Empire” a brilliant example of such an analysis. But this does not negate another fact - the absence in literature of fundamental humanitarian texts based on the above-mentioned lesson of Klyuchevsky. "Death of an Empire - 2" has not yet been created. Despite the fact that among our contemporaries there are brilliant examples of research of the type I am talking about, they have nothing to do with our recent history.
I remember Alexander Mikhailovich Panchenko, with whom I happened to be closely acquainted. It was the winter of 1990-1991, when he gave a series of lectures on Russian culture in Paris for Russian scholars. There were very few Russians in Paris at that time; I communicated with Panchenko almost every day. I remember his great book about spiritual shifts in Russia on the eve of Peter’s reforms - this is undoubtedly a continuation of Klyuchevsky’s line. But about the period I’m talking about, we don’t have anything like that.
Of course, we also had literature that dealt with the problems of the values ​​of the communist era and their gradual degradation. But which one? Let us recall, for example, the 1988 collection “No Other Given.” It is not written at all in an economic-deterministic manner; there are an overwhelming minority of such texts. This is a collection in which spiritual and psychological themes dominate. However, the main body here consisted of articles that, in the words of the well-known opposition Nikolai Berdyaev, did not represent “philosophical truth,” but a concentrated “intelligentsia truth.” By the way, the very formulation of the question: “No other way is given” (I spoke and wrote about this immediately after the book came out) is absolutely fruitless in a methodological sense. Just like another popular expression from the era of the anti-communist revolution: “You can’t live like that.” This could have been formulated by people who, most likely, had not read Klyuchevsky or had not learned his main lessons. You can live in very different ways, and “different” is always given.
But a fundamentally new, sustainable “other” is always the result of positive changes in the moral state of society. Were there such serious developments that, in addition to economic reasons, caused the collapse of communist society? I think there were, but they were almost unexplored. The question that now divides political camps: is perestroika and the anti-communist revolution the result of modernization or the degradation of public morality and political consciousness? What was perestroika - a democratic revolution or a “catastrophe”, as the late Alexander Zinoviev called it? What happened in the 1990s? Were we then beginning to emerge from the turmoil towards national revival or, on the contrary, were we finally plunged into turmoil? The questions are not at all rhetorical. By the way, my cousin He wrote dozens of books about the fact that Gorbachev’s perestroika and Yeltsin’s reforms are precisely the result of degradation, demoralization, sometimes inspired from the outside, the result of the dismantling of the people, accompanied by an unprecedented manipulation of consciousness. I understand that most of those present do not agree with this position, but we have almost no serious texts on this topic.
Meanwhile, Fyodor Stepun - a direct, in my opinion, student of Klyuchevsky and a man whose liberalism cannot be doubted, our indisputable ally - repeatedly wrote in exile that the exit from communism would not be at all blissful, but very, very difficult. Worse than Bolshevism will be the ruins of Bolshevism - this is Stepun’s prophecy. He foresaw that a positive (and not just destructive) exit from communism in Russia would have too few spiritual and moral prerequisites. And, unfortunately, he turned out to be right.
I think that the victory over Bolshevism became possible as a result of the combined actions of at least two spiritual authorities: I mean Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov. Their work to delegitimize communism was unprecedented. Unfortunately, with their equally anti-communist life positions, their pictures of the world were not only different, but also conflicting, which could not but leave a negative imprint on our spiritual, and then political development. This was shown, for example, by the subsequent polemics of such figures, who individually can be treated with sympathy - Nathan Eidelman and Viktor Astafiev, a Westerner-liberal and a democrat-soilist.
Remember their sensational correspondence of 1986, then reprinted several times? This, of course, was already a degradation of the dispute between Westerners and originalists, which led to the gradual demoralization of the anti-communist camp. And such an emasculation of anti-communist pathos, coupled with a delay in the growth of democratic consciousness, led to the curtailment of reforms and to political anti-democracy. The political pogrom was preceded by an ideological anti-democratic pogrom, which, in my opinion, has not ended to this day, and it is this that continues to create the ground for authoritarian actions.
Is a new rise of democratic and liberal tendencies in Russia possible? If you follow the lessons of Klyuchevsky, the answer will be: “Yes, it is possible.” Moreover, this rise is simply inevitable if first a new one will do stage of democratization and liberalization of consciousness. By the way, Klyuchevsky perfectly showed what false starts of liberalization and civil consolidation can be, using the example of the leader of the first people’s militia during the Time of Troubles, the outstanding citizen Prokopiy Lyapunov. He doomed himself to defeat, since in the eyes of many he was very closely associated with temporary allies that ruined his reputation. Speaking for “Zemstvo Russia,” he, however, did not disdain an alliance with either Bolotnikov or Shuisky. These compromises led to his moral self-discreditation.
My conclusion, which I bring to our discussion, is this: what happened in Russia, and what is happening now, is further confirmation of the effectiveness of Klyuchevsky’s lessons. But I still want to conclude my speech on an optimistic note, and I will quote Osip Mandelstam’s words about Klyuchevsky, about what his name means in experiencing Russian tragedies. Mandelstam, a brilliantly educated humanist, knew what he was writing about: “Klyuchevsky is a kind genius, a homely patron spirit of Russian culture, with whom no disasters, no trials are scary.”

Igor KLYAMKIN:
Thank you, Alexey Alekseevich. You have singled out only one moment in Klyuchevsky’s legacy, focusing our attention on the spiritual and moral component of his understanding of Russian history. From this perspective, it looks like an alternation of spiritual and moral degradations and spiritual and moral revivals of Russia. But the question remains open about why degradations occur, why they are replaced by revivals, and why revivals lead to new degradations. Does Klyuchevsky have approaches that answer this question? I wish we could return to this story again. In the meantime, I give the floor to Olga Anatolyevna Zhukova.

Olga ZHUKOVA (Professor, Department of Cultural Studies, Moscow Pedagogical State University):
“Klyuchevsky showed the main contradiction of Russian history as a problem of the relationship of the Russian mind to Russian reality”
Continuing the line of reasoning of Alexey Alekseevich, I want to start with the question that Igor Moiseevich Klyamkin has already raised - regarding the relevance of the legacy of Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky. In this regard, the situation looks, in my opinion, quite paradoxical. Since the statement that Klyuchevsky is a classic is absolutely true, his legacy must be constantly updated. But if you look at the real demand for his texts and the real interest in the issues that he touches on in his works, then the circle of readers turns out to be very narrow. And this despite the fact that today there is no competent description, and, even more so, any verified value-normative view of Russian history. Klyuchevsky precisely created such a deeply thought-out historical narrative, and therefore it would be productive to turn to his verified view. Moreover, Klyuchevsky’s political identity from the point of view of liberal inclination cannot be questioned.
Let us remember the words of G.P. Fedotov, who said that at least two generations of Russian educated society - the cultural environment in which the classics of Russian liberalism were brought up - perceived history in the spirit of Klyuchevsky or, as Fedotov said, “we knew history the way Klyuchevsky saw it.” We, of course, may not be interested in archiving the legacy of Vasily Osipovich, because the past for the sake of the past is a purely research interest. But if the past is perceived as part of living experience modern man, then Klyuchevsky can contribute to the historical self-knowledge of the nation. Then his works and his questions asked of future generations become that fermenting element and stimulus for reflection that is so lacking today. And first of all, the basis here is the plots around which Klyuchevsky built the socio-political history of Russia. In what ways are Klyuchevsky’s ideas and concepts authentic to modern times?
You, of course, paid attention to the issues that were brought up for discussion today. But this is mainly Klyuchevsky’s aphorism. In preparing today's meeting, we simply “reformatted” it, turned it to the future, using Vasily Osipovich’s vocabulary and, in part, borrowing his style. And if we start from this, then thematize it, saying philosophical language, Klyuchevsky’s legacy we can use one question: “Are there liberal prospects for Russian state and society, which, as a rule, in all its turns and civilizational choices, for some reason leans toward the conservative option, the conservative tendency?” And Klyuchevsky very clearly identified this conservative tendency, assessed it and tried, keeping it in mind, to find means for self-correction of society. How and where did he look for these funds?
First of all, he tried to identify the main contradiction in Russian history. It, according to Klyuchevsky, lies in the fact that the educated Russian mind was saturated with the stock of moral and political ideas of the European cultural world, borrowed them, but did not develop his own ideas. A very complex combination of two phenomena has emerged - the existing spiritual and political tradition and the stock of advanced ideas that could form the basis for the evolutionary development of Russian society, the Russian world. And so Klyuchevsky showed the most important contradiction in Russian history as the problem of the relationship of the Russian mind to Russian reality. What he called in his famous lectures “a double process in the Russian mind”: on the one hand, there is a critical attitude towards historical reality, based on borrowed ideas, on the other, a critical attitude towards these borrowed ideas themselves.
This is the contradiction, the inorganic duality that Klyuchevsky captures and tries to overcome. At the same time, he seems to warn the present and future creators of Russian history that it is impossible to sow in cleared soil, bare of cultural layers, but it is necessary to continue working on adaptation moral and social order national existence to the advanced stock of those same political European ideas. By the way, Vasily Osipovich himself considered himself a link in this process and said that the post-reform society and, above all, those people who were involved in the work of self-correction of this society, raised these questions, but solved them quite poorly. This conclusion concludes his course on Russian history - an assessment of the historical contribution of his generation and his own work. And if today we read history “according to Klyuchevsky,” then he will help us select tools for an adequate understanding of not only the past, but also today - in particular, such an important issue as cultural and political identity. In this case, we will see that there is still a split in the Russian mind and the Russian world, a split in the Russian political nation in the absence of basic value foundations and, accordingly, a value consensus of society.
Speaking about Klyuchevsky, one cannot ignore the fact that he, being a great student of a great teacher, moved away from the statist ideology of S.M. Solovyov in historical science and put the interests of the human person and human community at the forefront. He reasoned in terms of modernity, i.e. in the categories of the nation state and national culture. However, in this case, isn’t history according to Klyuchevsky already outdated because it returns us to the vocabulary of the national and universal, to the philosophical question that arose in the era of romanticism? No, it is not outdated, because this issue itself has not yet been resolved in Russia. Klyuchevsky managed to show that the predisposition of Russian history to a conservative version of development occurs due to the special relationship between reason and faith in Russia. But the origins of this problem also go back to the era of romanticism, and it, too, as in the time of Vasily Osipovich, still remains a problem for Russia
Klyuchevsky, recalling the importance of religious school in his education, was forced to admit that it did not so much teach him as teach him. Without ceasing to be a man of Christian culture, he acted as a critic of ritualized, everyday Orthodoxy. Perhaps, few others will find such harsh assessments of the clergy, about whom he says that they taught “not to know and love God, but to fear devils.”
However, Klyuchevsky’s cultural identity is the identity of a person of the Russian world and the Christian tradition. Therefore, as a scientist, he is forced to recognize the dual role of the Orthodox Church in the creation of social and cultural order: on the one hand, the positive role of its spiritual and moral ideals, and on the other, the negative role, which manifested itself in the conservation of not the best aspects of life, legitimizing, among other things, , and human enslavement. How can this contradiction be resolved? Klyuchevsky’s answer: it cannot be removed in the absence of reflection and rationalization of meanings. Vasily Osipovich repeatedly points out this problem - in particular, when he examines stories related to the Russian religious schism. He talks about the fear of Latins and disrespect for reason that has developed in Russia - especially for its presence in the department of faith.
According to Klyuchevsky, a disdainful attitude towards reason became one of the reasons that did not allow Russian society to develop evolutionarily. What could it be historical creativity of the nation, when the school handbooks for students directly state that the brethren should not be highly intelligent, avoid Hellenic greyhounds and rhetorical astronomers, should not sit next to wise philosophers, run away from philosophy in order to study the books of the sacred law, thinking about how to save their sinful soul from sins. This memorable example from the “Course of Russian History” testifies to the dramatic divergence of the experience of reason and faith in the absence of a school of thought - that thought that triggers the mechanism of self-knowledge and reflection on one’s own cultural tradition.
Accordingly, it turned out that any line of development, any modernization project in Russian history was associated with a rupture and a split in relation to the previous tradition. For example, the project of Peter I, who treated antiquity as a rebellion. And Klyuchevsky reconstructs this logical connection: antiquity is a schism, a schism is a rebellion, which means antiquity is a rebellion. How can you treat your basic cultural tradition, how to rebellion? After all, this is a national tragedy. And, nevertheless, under such circumstances, any overcoming of inertia becomes a radical rejection of the previous system of values. Thus, Klyuchevsky’s unlearned lesson, according to his vision of history, is the constant split of the nation, which is between radicalism and security. And the problem posed by the author of the Russian history course, in my opinion, can be defined as a problem synthesis of European ideas by the Russian mind within the framework of a historically acquired spiritual tradition.
Today we really need Klyuchevsky’s critical mind. And if we understand and interpret his legacy in the problem field today, then the experience of liberalizing Russia and implementing a liberal project in it will be successful if the basis for such a project turns out to be the values ​​of national culture. This is the main conclusion that arises when reading Klyuchevsky’s story.

Igor KLYAMKIN:
Thank you, Olga Anatolyevna. The problem, in my opinion, is to determine which ones exactly Liberalism in Russia could rely on the values ​​of national culture. The second co-rapporteur is Mikhail Afanasyev. Please, Mikhail Nikolaevich.

Mikhail Afanasiev (Director of Strategies and Analytics, Niccolo M Group):
“Social antagonism and general distrust – this is the mechanism of the systemic crisis of Russian society diagnosed by Klyuchevsky”
I have five difficult questions and ten minutes of time. I’ll start answering the first question, and maybe I’ll have time to answer it. So, “does Klyuchevsky help us understand Soviet and post-Soviet society?”
Of course, you need to read Klyuchevsky in order to know and feel Russian history, without which it is impossible to understand Soviet and post-Soviet society. However, one should not think that in his lectures on Russian history or in the “Boyar Duma” one can find comprehensive explanations of the Soviet system and post-Soviet disorder. In general, I think that Soviet and post-Soviet societies are not a reproducing invariant of Russian history, no matter what they call it: “state serfdom”, “authoritarianism” or something else. In any case, Klyuchevsky did not say anything about such a socio-historical “matrix system”, which we often talk about.
The concept of Russian history according to Klyuchevsky can perhaps be reduced to two general theses. The first thesis: the relative weakness of the estates and, accordingly, the relative strength of state power at the end of the 15th and first half of the 16th centuries, i.e. at a time when the Russian version of European absolutism was taking shape, which led to the enslavement of the classes. And then, from the 18th century - and this is the second thesis - a reverse process of emancipation of the classes began, or, in the words of Klyuchevsky himself, “a return to the joint historical action of the Russian people.”
On this path, Klyuchevsky singled out and identified with the position of “people of measure and order,” as he called them, explaining that such people were equally alien to the desire to cause chaos for the sake of establishing a new order, and the willingness to sacrifice faith itself for the sake of Old Believer orthodoxy. By the way, he described Catherine the Great with these words. Moreover, unlike the legion of “progressives” who are always ready to talk about modernization, Klyuchevsky clearly indicated two simple goals and two simple criteria for actual modernization:
a) “common good” (the welfare of the people);
b) “political community” that ensures the achievement of such a common good.
It should be recalled that Klyuchevsky diagnosed not only the weakness of the Russian estates-classes before the sovereign power, but also, no less important, their enmity with each other. That is, social antagonism is not only vertical, but also horizontal. He spoke of “triple antagonism” in relation to the situation in the mid-19th century, when the Great Reform was being prepared and carried out. Then the government, the nobility and the peasantry came together in Russian antagonism, and then, twenty to thirty years later, the bourgeoisie and the working class entered the circle of antagonists.
So, social antagonism and general distrust are the mechanism of the deepening systemic crisis of Russian society diagnosed by Vasily Osipovich. This leads to a general conclusion: the “smallness”, “thinness” of the social experience of peaceful inter-class interaction is the main socio-historical problem of Russia, as Klyuchevsky saw it. Accordingly, the accumulation of experience of broad social, “inter-class” interaction was (and still remains) the main socio-historical task facing Russia.
Here, as we see, we get a vicious circle or what Douglas North called a bad “institutional rut.” How to overcome and is it possible to overcome this fundamental social disadvantage? Is it possible to get out of this circle of national history and into the spiral of sustainable development?
According to Klyuchevsky, you can and should go out. He associated the solution with the activities of an enlightened government awakening and developing national forces. He saw this as a peculiarity of the historical situation in Russia and the “roundabout path of the Russian.” In his essay about Catherine, he says that in “Europe the lower classes dictate to the government, but in Russia the government awakens the lower classes and draws them into working together" He speaks, please note, without any sarcasm, about the awakening of the people to the call of the government. The government structure of the social world, the pacification of social antagonisms, the compulsion of social compromise, the establishment of rules and mechanisms of political life - this, in fact, is nothing more than a program developing state or, in the language of modern social science, “developmental states.”
Thus, if we talk about the lessons of Klyuchevsky, I deduce from his works the following historical-sociological triad.
First point - the European genesis of Russian history. Klyuchevsky, of course, loved to emphasize Russian identity, but he described it within the framework of European history and through European concepts. From the starting point of national history follows a national super task - Russian revival, understood as the Russian-European Renaissance.
Second The historical and sociological lesson concerns the need for the success of Russia's national development to have a strong and authoritative developmental state, or in Klyuchevsky's terminology, an active, enlightened government.
Third The lesson is methodological in nature, and it consists of transformative pochvennichestvo or pochvennichestvo reformism, which the historian-educator-publicist Klyuchevsky advocated and adhered to. This is a reformism that does not devalue and squander, but, on the contrary, saves and increases the social capital of the nation and local communities.
This is still a very relevant program today. Alas, to solve the national super-task, Russia usually lacked an active, enlightened government and transformative pochvennichestvo. And Vasily Osipovich himself, without excessive optimism, looked at the readiness for creative interaction between Russian radicals and conservatives, the upper and lower classes of Russia. In an essay dedicated to the 50th anniversary of Granovsky's death - and it coincided with the revolutionary situation of October 1905, Klyuchevsky wrote about the tragic fate of independent Russian public figures - such as Granovsky, Solovyov the Elder, Kavelin, Chicherin (he clearly included myself). These are the same “people of measure and order,” and all of them, as Klyuchevsky noted, passed away with the stamp of tragedy on their faces. In October 1905, when everyone in Russia was talking about the Constitution, it was a tragic premonition.

Igor KLYAMKIN:
Thank you, Mikhail Nikolaevich. We heard three meaningful messages. In all of them, it seemed to me, Klyuchevsky was considered not so much as a historian, but as a thinker, looking for a way out from the past to the future, and in the past itself, looking for support for changing the historical route of Russia. And I would like that during the discussion we would pay more attention to the question of what exactly there is in Russian history “according to Klyuchevsky”, what kind of positive capital that allows not only to be temporarily revived after degradations, but also to overcome the very dead-end cyclicality of these degradations and revivals.
Mikhail Nikolaevich Afanasyev said that Klyuchevsky stated the European beginning of Russian history. Let's discuss this too, I have questions here. Olga Anatolyevna referred to the famous statement of Vasily Osipovich that the Russian mind grasps at what is alien and cannot connect this alien with its own. But what does such a connection mean and how to make it? It seems that Klyuchevsky did not find the answer. When he talks about Slavophiles and Westerners, he does not align himself with either one or the other, but he also fails to organically synthesize their ideas into something third. And therefore I have the impression that for him the question of the dynamics of Russian history remained open. Yes, he, as Mikhail Nikolaevich reminded us, saw the main developing and consolidating force in the government, but he did not detect real reform potential in the governments of his time.
So it is not at all by chance, perhaps, that Klyuchevsky did not continue his course in relation to post-reform Russia, ending it with the era of Nicholas I. It is also significant that at the beginning of the twentieth century he somehow noticed that intellectually and psychologically he remained in the nineteenth century. m. In short, Klyuchevsky’s legacy, in my opinion, also reveals the question of what are the specific features of Russian history, what is its modernization potential and what are the prospects for its possible evolution. I emphasize: a question, not an answer.
Let's move on to free discussion.

Alexander OBOLONSKY (Professor at the Higher School of Economics):
“The relevance of Klyuchevsky is that he showed: in Russia, with an abundance of legislation, there has always been little Law”
Not everything, but I will try to respond to two of the questions brought up for discussion. Lately I have often been reminded of a phrase from Klyuchevsky’s diaries that history teaches nothing, but it severely punishes for unlearned lessons. And the entire history of our 20th century, as well as the first decade of the 21st century, serves for me as a sad confirmation of this maxim.
First of all, in connection with what Mikhail Nikolaevich Afanasyev said, I remembered Klyuchevsky’s wonderful phrase about Catherine’s Commission for the development of the Code. When it met, as Klyuchevsky writes, the main thing was to overcome the deep-rooted public distrust of the government’s call for assistance, because society knew from experience that nothing would come of it except stupid orders and new burdens. I think this phrase provides a lot of material for allusions near and far.
Now on the first question: does Klyuchevsky help us understand the history of our twentieth century? This is the most convenient moment to talk about Klyuchevsky’s attitude to the reforms of Peter I. At the beginning of his texts on this topic, especially in public lectures, Klyuchevsky says general positive, “politically correct” things: he calls the reformer Great, notes in him “a happy combination of talents " and so on. But if we take and carefully read the fourth volume of his course, dedicated to Peter’s reform, we will see something else. We will see that his differentiated analysis of various aspects of Peter’s activity literally does not leave one stone unturned from our beloved thesis about the wonderful Peter, to whom there was supposedly darkness, and with him light descended on Russia.
Let me remind you of the main conclusions of Vasily Osipovich.
Firstly, he states Peter’s purely instrumental attitude towards the West. Peter, according to Klyuchevsky, took only means from the West - primarily technical and military, but absolutely distanced himself from the spirit that gave birth to these means, which was manifested in Peter’s phrase quoted by Klyuchevsky: “We need Europe for several decades, and then we will turn to her backside.”
Secondly, Vasily Osipovich writes about the monstrous human cost of Peter’s policies. He gives the following figures: in 1710, by the middle of Peter’s reign, the population in Russia decreased by a quarter compared to 1680.
Thirdly, an incredible rise in corruption under Peter is noted. Klyuchevsky has this wonderful phrase: “The clerks and clerks of the 17th century acted more moderately and carefully, and knew their business better than their Europeanized successors, who were distinguished by complete fearlessness about abuses.” And he also says that it was under Peter that a bureaucratic state appeared, which fenced itself off from society with a wall.
In general, my reading of Klyuchevsky and his attitude towards Peter is as follows: Peter was a pseudo-modernizer who only saddled and turned for the worse those tendencies towards modernization that had already developed at the beginning of his reign, and he saddled them only in order to strengthen state despotism, to make it more effective, but from the point of view of the same despotic, anti-human, imperial goals. Of course, any historical analogy is conditional and can even be misleading, but in Peter’s modernization, with reservations, but quite definitely a prototype of Stalin’s modernization is visible.
Is Klyuchevsky relevant today? I will answer with his own remarkable passage: “I am often accused of paying little attention to the law in Russian history. But Russian life taught me to this, which for centuries did not recognize any right.” And further: “A lawyer, and only a lawyer, will not understand anything in Russian history, just as a chaste paramedic will never understand a chaste obstetrician.” Because in Russia, with an abundance of legislation, there has always been very little Law itself. In essence, we can say that Klyuchevsky in this sense was a kind of forerunner of libertarianism on Russian soil.
Has modern Russian society lost the means for “self-correction”? From my point of view, no, it has not lost it. And I hope that empirical evidence for this point of view will emerge within five to six years. It will appear contrary to our very popular idea of ​​historical fatality, the supposed immutability of our mentality, from which it follows that nothing good, including Western, is suitable for us and will not take root in us. Moreover, it is curious that this paradigm is popular on directly opposite ideological flanks. For liberals, it has the connotation of hopelessness and at the same time serves as an indulgence for passivity when they talk about it in a decadent way: they say, unfortunately, our people are such that nothing good can come of it. On the other hand, conservative guardians of all kinds talk about this with visible pleasure, they like to quote Pushkin: they say, the government is the only European in Russia. In fact, this was far from the case even in Pushkin’s time, and even more so now. I quote Vernadsky’s entry from his diaries (made in 1938): “The political elite in business and moral terms is worse than the average mass of the people, the party contains scum, thieves...” So Alexei Navalny has good predecessors in this regard.
And the last thing I want to say. There is an endlessly repeated thesis that history has no subjunctive mood. Of course, as a chronicle of events it does not have one, but as soon as it begins to become a science, it is simply obliged to include in the discourse a discussion of various development alternatives. And it’s very good that the Institute of World History has published several collections specifically about alternative history. I will remind you of Husserl’s phrase that the experience of unrealized historical alternatives is a necessary attribute of historical consciousness. And the so-called value free approach and other fashionable things are good at the level of obtaining and analyzing facts. But most often this is a cover for a certain indifference to the fate of real countries and people, a kind of indifference of an observer from an ivory tower. Klyuchevsky never had this, as those who spoke before me rightly said here.

Igor KLYAMKIN:
As far as I can judge, there is no general praise of Peter in the intellectual community these days. Rather, the opposite is true. But Klyuchevsky, in my opinion, was not as “anti-Petrine” as you presented him...

Alexander OBOLONSKY:
Take the fourth volume and see for yourself.

Igor KLYAMKIN:
Yes, he said that they took the means from the West, but did not take the means to achieve them. This is true. But this does not mean that he critically assessed the very fact that funds were taken.

Alexander OBOLONSKY:
That’s the point: to take the fruits of someone else’s development, but in no case not the spirit of freedom and intellectual search that gave birth to them. For this spirit is fundamentally incompatible with Petrine despotism.

Igor KLYAMKIN:
Klyuchevsky stated this, but, as far as I remember, he did not put forward an alternative to Peter’s development option in retrospect. And in general, predilections for the “subjunctive mood”, i.e. I did not find any alternativeist approach in his works. Maybe I didn't notice something or forgot something. Let's listen to what a professional historian will tell us

Sergei SEKIRINSKY (leading researcher at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences):
“A modern historian, regardless of the subject of his studies, is often closer not to Vasily Klyuchevsky, but rather to Nikolai Karamzin”
Klyuchevsky died a hundred years ago, but he still remains the most widely read Russian historian far beyond the professional circle. Sometimes one even gets the impression that, just as in other times, according to the ironic remark of Vasily Osipovich, “the entire philosophy of our history came down to an assessment of Peter’s reform,” and “the whole meaning of Russian history was compressed into one question: about the significance of Peter’s activities,” so now the entire historiography of Russian history is reduced to Klyuchevsky’s “Course”. There is hardly any need to prove that this is not the case. But Klyuchevsky, of course, did not deserve exceptional recognition in vain.
Every time has its own strong point. And our own historians, who do not stand aside from life. Therefore, speaking about Klyuchevsky, read today, one cannot help but talk about the prevailing everyday mentality of a significant segment of the modern scientific and historical community. This mentality is briefly defined by the formula “longing for the past,” and it greatly influences the professional activities of those who share it. This happens both when we are talking about the relatively recent past, which forms part of the historian’s own life, and when he extrapolates his acquired experience to much more distant times. Although who, if not a historian, should know that the “past” is an extremely changeable category: it is enough to compare pre-revolutionary Russia and the one that also disappeared into oblivion Soviet Union. Any “stagnation” sooner or later loses its last adherents among contemporaries who are sensitive to life, and “retrospective utopias” that return the appearance of charm to “stagnation” are created in other times, one of which we are experiencing now.
However, Klyuchevsky himself did not belong to this type of historian. In the middle of the 19th century, domestic historiography in the person of K. Kavelin, S. Solovyov, B. Chicherin, self-defining as a historical scientific knowledge, also gave her forecast of the socio-political development of Russia. At the same time, the myth of Peter the Great - the first free person in Russia and an exemplary reformer - remained the core link in the historical justification of liberal reforms. Klyuchevsky lived in a different era. Giving Peter his due, the historian no longer saw him as an example to follow, proposing to expand the scope critical analysis of the Russian past due to those “techniques and habits of management” that finally took shape under Peter, but were not at all justified by the changed conditions at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries.
And these days, it is becoming fashionable among historians not so much to write about the transformations that have ripened at one time or another, but to talk about the ability or inability of society to perceive the destruction of traditional institutions, about the discrepancy between its adaptive capabilities and the pace of modernization. All this could be welcomed, but with one caveat, borrowed from Talleyrand: “Don’t be too zealous!” After all, a historian is not an “archaeologist” (in the ancient sense of the term), not just a “lover of antiquities”, completely immersed in the world of the past, although precisely this attitude to the craft has recently become fashionable. A historian is someone who is able to feel in history, in the language of the people of the 19th century, its “transformative spirit.” The one who carries in his heart, as was noted about one of its important subjects - Alexander II, "the instinct of progress." Shining with the absence of these qualities of mind and soul, the modern historian, regardless of the subject of his studies, is often closer to the bright galaxy of his predecessors and contemporaries of the Great Reforms and, even more so, not to Klyuchevsky, who continued their work. He is closer, rather, to Nikolai Karamzin, who, as you know, believed that “all news in the state order is evil.”
Today's historians are not like Klyuchevsky, also because in his time in Russia the attitude towards historians was different than now. In the summer of 1893, in one of the imperial palaces of St. Petersburg, a remarkable conversation took place about the upbringing of august children. The interlocutors were Klyuchevsky and the Minister of the Imperial Court I. Vorontsov-Dashkov, a personal friend of Alexander III. A university professor, called to fulfill a new role for him as a mentor to Grand Duke Georgy Alexandrovich, soon the heir to the throne, immediately asked the minister about the extent of freedom allotted to him and heard in response: “You must remember that you are a professor and teach what you find.” necessary. Do what you have to do, but what comes of it is not your responsibility... It is necessary to dispel the opinions and prejudices of self-confident ignorance: “The Constitution is an absurdity, and the Republic is a stupidity.” Russia has common principles of life with Western Europe, but it also has its own characteristics. What is now untimely cannot yet be called absurdity...”
In this instruction for the mentor, what is striking is not only the very course of reasoning, which ran counter to the pseudo-Russian rhetoric of the last reigns, but also the clearly expressed trust in the scientist, the recognition of the intrinsic value of his craft. The readiness of even unlimited power to self-restraint in those cases when it came to the division of non-political functions is the secret of its compatibility with the bright phenomena of Russian culture, science, enlightenment and, accordingly, with European influence. The European trajectory of the historical movement of the empire predetermined such a feature of the political thinking of a number of representatives of its ruling elite as the distinction between “always ridiculous” and “today untimely.” The loss of historical perspective, the basis of which was the observation of the real experience already gained by Europe, opened the way for retrospective utopias. They began to look for a way out of modernization conflicts in imitation of dialogue with the patriarchal people, “ ordinary people", the last of whom was Grigory Rasputin.
In the hundred years that have passed since Klyuchevsky’s death, people in his profession have suffered a lot. Accordingly, the criteria of professionalism have also changed, which for the best of them has become real armor against the pressure of ideology and politics, and therefore noticeably “petrified”. The highest achievement The historian began to consider the increment of facts, an acceptable weakness - timidity of thought, and methodological sophistication - the deliberate confusion of conclusions. After all, any meaningful reflection on the past could only exist as an exact fragment of Soviet ideology, and any generalizing work was quite reasonably associated not so much with the lost freedom of a lecture course, but with forced collective work, erasing individuality and for this even being nicknamed a “mass grave” .
But the flip side of this defensive reaction from science was the loss of active public attention to it. It is not surprising that in such a context, Klyuchevsky with his “Course of Russian History” turned out to be “more alive than all the living.” His lectures, aphorisms, diary entries with vivid sketches, witty paradoxes and a touch of sarcasm can be considered on a par with the never-losing examples of Russian classical satire or such works of the 19th century as Custin’s “Russia in 1839” and the diary of Professor A.V. Nikitenko. Works that sometimes turned out to be even more convincing not so much as evidence of the Russian reality of that time, but as a forecast for the entire next century. Reading Klyuchevsky’s reviews, for example, about Peter’s employees, in whose hands after his death “the fate of Russia found itself,” one cannot escape the feeling that easily recognizable modern images: “Reform employees unwillingly, these people were not its sincere adherents at heart, they did not so much support it as they themselves clung to it, because it gave them an advantageous position... The people closest to Peter were not reform figures, but his personal servants servants...No important thing could be done without giving them a bribe...These people had neither the strength nor the desire to continue or destroy Peter’s work; they could only spoil it.”
The anger of the day breathes with the words given by Klyuchevsky 105 years ago (in diary entry) a commentary on the history of the relationship between government and society in our country, starting from the era of Alexander I. Likening the reforms to political provocation, the historian explained that the government gave society exactly as much freedom as was needed to evoke its first manifestations in it, and then covered “ simpletons." Vasily Osipovich also noted the opposite effect: “The opposition against the government gradually turned into a conspiracy against society.” But was it only about the imperial Poles and only about the Poles that they were told in such a way that even now it sounds sharp and is painful to read: “We annexed Poland, but not the Poles, we gained a country, but lost a people.”
Klyuchevsky was endowed not only with a premonition of a tragic future, but also with the ability to transform into long-gone historical characters. Fyodor Chaliapin, who had the opportunity to consult with a historian while working on the image of Boris Godunov, testified: “He spoke... so amazingly brightly that I saw the people he portrayed. I was especially impressed by the dialogues between Shuisky and Boris performed by Klyuchevsky. He conveyed them so artistically that when I heard Shuisky’s words from his lips, I thought: “What a pity that Vasily Osipovich does not sing and cannot play Prince Vasily with me!”

Igor KLYAMKIN:
Thank you. Very interesting, in my opinion, is your remark about the different understanding of “professionalism” by pre-Soviet historians and their Soviet and post-Soviet successors. Next is Sergei Magaril.

Sergey MAGARIL (teacher at Russian State University for the Humanities):
“We must remember Klyuchevsky’s thesis that Russian history does not teach anything, but only punishes for unlearned lessons.”
Not being a professional historian, I will not undertake to discuss how Vasily Osipovich’s scientific work adequately reflected the Russian historical process. I will only try to illustrate how Klyuchevsky’s scientific ideas work. In particular, his thesis will be illustrated: “Domestic history, in essence, does not teach anything, it only punishes for unlearned lessons.”
In 1906, Max Weber published an article “Russia's Transition to Pseudo-Constitutionalism,” in which he wrote: “When you get acquainted with the documents of the Russian Empire, you are amazed at the amount of work put into them, how carefully they are developed, but always aimed at the same goal - self-preservation police state. The meaninglessness of this goal is terrifying.” Eleven years have passed, and history has clearly demonstrated: the police are not the most reliable integrator of society. The empire collapsed.
What did the victorious revolutionaries erect on the ruins of the police imperial state? They erected an even more brutal and merciless police force in the form of a dictatorship. Once again, history has confirmed that the police state is short-lived. It is impossible to imagine: the Soviet Union - the second superpower - collapsed in peacetime, in the absence of critical external threats, protected by the most powerful nuclear missile potential and possessing the fullness of state sovereignty.
What is the ruling class of post-Soviet Russia building? Not long ago, even President Medvedev himself reminded: “You shouldn’t tighten the nuts too much.” But they have already delayed it, which means that we will face another punishment for “unlearned lessons.” And the type of this punishment is also known. I'll give just one example.
In May 1862 (just a year after the abolition of serfdom), a proclamation entitled “Young Russia” appeared in St. Petersburg and large provincial cities. It began with the words: “Russia is entering a revolutionary period of its existence.” Calling for a revolution, "bloody and inexorable", ideological predecessors radical revolutionaries of the early twentieth century wrote: “We are not afraid of it, although we know that a river of blood will be shed, that perhaps innocent victims will die... We will not be afraid if we see that in order to overthrow the modern order, three times as much blood will have to be shed , than was shed by the Jacobins in the 1790s... Soon, soon the day will come when we will dissolve... the banner of the future, the red banner and with a loud cry: “Long live the Russian social and democratic republic!” Winter Palace, to exterminate those living there... We will utter one cry: “To the axes!”, and then whoever is not with us will be against, whoever is against is our enemy, and enemies should be exterminated by all means... How many regions will the Russian land split into - we don't know that. A war will begin, recruits will be needed, loans will be made and Russia will go bankrupt. This is where an uprising will break out, for which an insignificant reason will be enough!
The text of the proclamation contains almost all the main conceptual provisions of the coming Bolshevism. His historical predecessors clearly formulated the most important elements of the revolutionary strategy, including merciless terror, the extermination of the ruling dynasty, war as the main prerequisite for the uprising, rivers of blood, and the collapse of Russia.
History has shown: the Young Russia program was a stern warning to the authorities and educated society of the country, indicating the maturation of an acute historical challenge and political crisis. However, this challenge was practically not noticed, much less properly comprehended. Society did not realize the preconditions for the impending social catastrophe that were emerging before its eyes and did nothing to prevent it. The historical ending is known - the imperial state collapsed; Millions died in the crucible of civil conflict.
100 years have passed. Soviet scientists tried to warn the leadership of the USSR about the growing crisis. There were reports - first by a group of scientists led by Academician Kirillin (late 1970s), and then by a group of scientists led by the current academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Gelovani (1985). Moreover, the second group indicated that with the country’s further movement along the inertial trajectory at the turn of the 1990s, collapse was possible. Again, no conclusions were drawn.
While working on one of my texts, I decided to see what modern social scientists think about the trends in post-Soviet Russia. It was not difficult for me to find more than 60 of the most alarming assessments of the systemic risks that Russia’s movement along an inertial, historically dead-end rut is once again generating. However, neither the authorities nor society react to these assessments and forecasts. Where is the ability to learn the lessons of history?
Naturally, the question arises: why is this so? I will refer to the report of Theodor Shanin, who is present here, which he read three years ago at the Bilingual discussion club. According to Mr. Shanin, in Russia, unlike English-speaking societies, which understood themselves in the process of development social sciences, Russian society understood itself from literature.

Igor KLYAMKIN:
As far as I understand, you will never get to Klyuchevsky?

Sergey MAGARIL:
So I’m just illustrating his ideas, how they work in our modern society and why we are chronically unable to learn from the warnings of the classic and sage. Sir Isaiah Berlin, who worked at the British Embassy in Moscow from 1945 to 1955, wrote an article in 1957 where, outlining his impressions of the Soviet intelligentsia, he also touched upon the quality of education in the USSR. In his opinion, young people are more likely to be encouraged to take an interest in technical sciences. And the closer to politics, the worse the education. It is put in the worst way by lawyers, economists, and historians of our time.
And one last thing. The sociocultural divide was mentioned several times during the discussion. I dare to suggest that it was precisely this - the sociocultural split - that gave rise in the twentieth century in Russia to such mechanisms of national self-destruction as Civil War, collectivization, famine, massive state repression. It was also said that the sociocultural divide is unfortunately being reproduced. Indeed, this is evidenced by the extremely high level of mutual distrust among Russians and the deepest and continuing to grow property polarization. The highest level of alienation of the people from power has also been reproduced.
Dear Colleagues! The preservation and reproduction of a sociocultural split means: the prerequisites for a new start of self-destruction mechanisms remain in society. We all have something to think about. We are the ones who transmit socio-humanitarian knowledge to society. And the current ruling pseudo-elite was raised by you and me, dear colleagues.

Igor KLYAMKIN:
Thank you. We have gathered to discuss how Klyuchevsky’s history can be useful for understanding our history - pre-Soviet, Soviet, post-Soviet, and not to talk about Russian history in general and its lessons. This is another topic. It’s not that we don’t want to discuss it in principle, but it’s different and takes away from the subject of today’s discussion. Please, Lipkin Arkady Isaakovich.

Arkady LIPKIN (Professor of the Russian State University for the Humanities):
“Klyuchevsky does not have the conceptual tools necessary to comprehend the modern complex situation”
I'll be brief. I am not a historian, but a philosopher, so I will only express a number of general methodological theses.
Let me start with the fact that the sociocultural structure and institutions today and for the last 300 years in Russia are basically the same. Hence the relevance of analyzing Peter’s activities. But the adequacy of the analysis depends on the conceptual apparatus, the conceptual tools that are used. I believe that Klyuchevsky does not have such tools. He provides interesting material, you should watch it, but it is impossible to derive anything useful today based on the methodology he offers, since it is all inadequate, not enough to grasp the modern complex situation.
As for the question of how to learn to live with your own mind with the help of the Western European mind, the answer to it, in my opinion, is obvious: you need to master the intellectual means that are proposed by the West. But they too may not be sufficient. Both because the Russian material is different, and because in connection with the new round of globalization everything has become qualitatively more complicated, and the apparatus developed by the West is not enough to solve even its own problems.
About other issues proposed for discussion. Has modern Russian society lost the ability to “self-correct”? Who knows? In any case, you need to “churn the sour cream.” To what extent can history be taught? Well, firstly, in a way that schoolchildren and students are able to master it if taught well. And secondly, it is better to teach well.
A few words about ignorance and responsibility for ignorance, as one of the speakers spoke about. Here the first question is: ignorance of whom? Where are the “progressive” actors who are called upon to take into account the views of experts? I don’t see such subjects, and this is again connected with the sociocultural structure of society, and not only now. As I said, it has been basically the same for the last 300 years. As an analysis of many phenomena (for example, the development of science and technology) shows, October 1917 is not such a break in the main institutional tradition of the “vertical of power,” which is an analogue of “Koshchei’s needle.” Many pre-Soviet structures and institutions were reproduced in the Soviet and then in the post-Soviet period. But, I repeat, Klyuchevsky will not help us understand their nature.

Igor KLYAMKIN:
Thank you, Arkady Isaakovich. I would, of course, like to know more about what exactly is the inadequacy of Klyuchevsky’s tools. As well as what tools are adequate. But we don’t have time for this now. Next is Alexander Borisovich Kamensky.

Alexander KAMENSKY (Dean of the Faculty of History, Higher School of Economics):
“There is no need to make an icon out of Klyuchevsky”
I apologize in advance if what I say may seem too harsh. First of all, I want to ask: are we trying to find answers to the questions posed on the basis of scientific knowledge or on the basis of historical myths? If based on historical myths, then it is clear what the result will be. What we hear today mainly relates to historical myths. And one of them is the myth of Klyuchevsky as a great Russian historian.
When we say “great mathematician” or “great physicist”, we understand that this is determined by achievements in science. Klyuchevsky's achievements in science are a number of monographs he wrote. And the “Course of Russian History” is not a scientific study, it is precisely a course of lectures. It was said here several times: “Klyuchevsky wrote...” But he did not write, but gave lectures that were recorded for him. And what we have is his edited reconstruction of his lecture notes. These are popular texts that for the most part have no scientific research behind them. And the examples that have been heard today to a large extent only confirm this.
For example, Alexey Alekseevich Kara-Murza at the very beginning formulated a moral lesson drawn from Klyuchevsky, and confirmed it with two historical examples from the 18th and early 12th centuries. But Klyuchevsky’s interpretation completely contradicts what historians know today about the events of the 18th century and the Time of Troubles. Or here was a quote from Klyuchevsky about Catherine’s Statutory Commission. It testifies to Klyuchevsky’s complete lack of understanding of what was happening in the Legislative Commission. They also talked about Peter and the discussion about Peter. Gentlemen, but let’s remember that Klyuchevsky’s point of view on Peter evolved, it was not the same all the time, and the fact that Klyuchevsky played, to put it mildly, not a very nice role in the fate of Pavel Nikolaevich Milyukov, was of no small importance. Klyuchevsky blocked the award of a doctorate to him for a dissertation in which Miliukov proposed a completely different view of Peter and Petrine reform. And those quotes from the late Klyuchevsky that were heard here indicate that, having done this, he, in fact, used Miliukov’s materials, rethinking Peter’s reform. And Miliukov, in turn, was refuted in the twentieth century. There are studies that prove that, contrary to Klyuchevsky, there was no decrease in the tax-paying population by 25%. This didn't happen! He thought incorrectly and used unreliable sources. And here Vasily Osipovich is like an icon.
It is strange that many people who are trying to comprehend the fate of their fatherland and reflect on its future base their knowledge of Russian history solely on Klyuchevsky. If he has something written, that means it was so. But 100 years have passed since Klyuchevsky. Hundreds of scientific studies have been written that for some reason no one wants to read. And I'll tell you why. Because, unlike Klyuchevsky’s lectures, they are written in dry scientific language. And Klyuchevsky (the quotes that were heard today testify to this) has a very vivid, very figurative language that is easy to remember. For example, I always told my students: Klyuchevsky wrote that under Anna Ioannovna, the Germans fell on Russia like peas. You read this once and immediately remembered it. And all of Russia remembered this. But this did not happen, it was already refuted by Klyuchevsky’s contemporaries, and he, by the way, knew about it.
Alexey Alekseevich spoke about the philosophers of the 20th century who owed their ideas about Russian history to Klyuchevsky. I honestly can't agree with this. I believe that the people whose names Aleksey Alekseevich mentioned were much more educated in the sense that they read not only Klyuchevsky. Their ideas about Russian history went far beyond what was proposed by Klyuchevsky. Therefore, it seems to me that, first of all, there is no need to make an icon out of him.
Yes, I would agree that no one has surpassed Klyuchevsky as a popularizer of Russian history. But when we seriously think about the fate of the fatherland, let's focus not on Klyuchevsky, but on science. And even those voiced moral lessons, as it seems to me, these are not some revelations that cannot be read anywhere else, and which can only be found in Klyuchevsky. No, that's not true.

Alla GLINCHIKOVA (Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Moscow State Linguistic University):
Could you name a couple of these “others”, i.e. real historians who should be read?

Alexander KAMENSKY:
The historiography of the subjects touched upon here is enormous. There was such a wonderful historian Alexander Alexandrovich Zimin, who wrote, among other things, about the 18th century. About a dozen monographs came from his pen. We, say, remember that Klyuchevsky spoke about Sergius of Radonezh. But historians today know that Dmitry Donskoy did not go to receive the blessing of Sergius of Radonezh on the eve of the Battle of Kulikovo. This is a myth that dates back at least 150 years after their deaths. Do you understand? That's what we're talking about. If we are talking about the 18th century, then I would name Evgeniy Viktorovich Anisimov, his works. In 1982, he published a monograph “Tax Reform of Peter I”, in which he examines the same subjects as Miliukov in his monograph “State Economy of Russia”, and largely refutes Miliukova. We are talking about hundreds of works, hundreds of major studies.

Igor KLYAMKIN:
Thank you. Are you satisfied with the answer?

Alla GLINCHIKOVA:
Not really…

Igor KLYAMKIN:
In this case, try contacting Alexander Borisovich privately. Anyone else willing to speak? Please, Oleg Budnitsky.

Oleg BUDNITSKY (leading researcher at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences):
“Now Klyuchevsky is more about good literature than history, and that’s why let’s love him”
I would like to stand up a little for Klyuchevsky. Basically, I agree with Alexander Borisovich: it is ridiculous now to think that Klyuchevsky is the last word in science. But he still lectured at the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow State University. Yes, they were open, but this did not mean that they were intended for people from the street. Lectures were given to history students, and Klyuchevsky’s students recorded them, and he edited them. So he is responsible for what is written there, and it is not only a matter of style, but also of content.
Vasily Osipovich was a very versatile person, but by no means as benevolent as he appears in some of his speeches. Alexander Borisovich has already spoken about this. When Miliukov defended his master's thesis, rather than his doctorate, it was proposed to award him a doctorate. Klyuchevsky rebelled against this, and rebelled incorrectly, because “State Economy” was a work that undoubtedly corresponded to a doctorate. But he could not overcome himself and allow the student to immediately receive such recognition.
What I heard here today was interesting. But it seems to me that in some speeches Klyuchevsky was used as a “nail” on which reasoning was “hung”, either having nothing to do with Klyuchevsky, or based on individual phrases taken out of context. It is simply impossible to consider Klyuchevsky’s works now as some kind of basis for understanding the past and future from the point of view of professional historians. And here I completely agree with Alexander Borisovich.
Another thing is Klyuchevsky’s very attitude to national history. I want to pay attention to only one side. Klyuchevsky felt the irony of history, something that many historians and politicians lack. I read Klyuchevsky a long time ago and I could be wrong, but I think that it was not without reason that he paid attention to the remark of Catherine II, who, while sorting out Peter’s papers, said that in order to prevent disorder, he was ready to destroy any order. How did Vasily Osipovich feel about heroic myths? Describing the campaign of the Russian fleet, when Alexey Orlov promised Catherine that “soon you will hear about miracles,” Klyuchevsky ironizes: “...And the miracles really began: in Europe there was a fleet worse than the Russian one.” Fortunately, it was the Turkish fleet with which the battle took place. You had to be Klyuchevsky to be able to rise above Russian history and look at it ironically.
Many of us lack this. We fall into too much pathos and do not always feel some of the irony of history, and sometimes our reasoning acquires, on the contrary, an overly catastrophic character. Everything in life is better than we sometimes think. And in general, when we try to find meaning in history and try to deduce patterns, it is good to remember Shakespeare: as one famous film said (I am paraphrasing what was said in relation to history), history is a terrible fairy tale told by a fool; it has little meaning, but a lot of sound and fury. And this is largely true. The 20th century is the best confirmation: wars (especially the First World War), the suicide of Europe, which happened out of the blue. But at the same time, fortunately, history contains not only terrible and tragic, not only crazy pages.
Klyuchevsky's works are soul-saving reading. When you read it, it somehow reconciles you a little with the past and makes you think more optimistically about the future. You just need to be aware that now Klyuchevsky is more about good literature than history. And that's why let's love him.

Igor KLYAMKIN:
Evgeny Grigorievich, now you.

Evgeniy YASIN (President of the Foundation« Liberal Mission» ):
“I suggest that our historians write a history of Russia that would be as fascinating to read as Klyuchevsky’s course, and would not have the shortcomings that modern historians find in this course.”
The speeches of respected historians that I heard here did not change my extremely respectful, even loving attitude towards Klyuchevsky. It seemed symbolic to me that Alexander Borisovich Kamensky, speaking about historians who “surpassed” Klyuchevsky, named the names of authors whose works are devoted to individual historical periods. These works are probably good, they are probably better documented than Klyuchevsky’s, and much is clarified and detailed in them. But have modern historians completed the work that Vasily Osipovich did for his time? Do we have a presentation of Russian history as a whole, in which some through lines would be traced, historical continuity and historical dynamics would be recorded? By the way, this kind of work was carried out not only by Klyuchevsky in his time, but also by others, but you did not mention them among those who meet modern scientific criteria. Let it be so, but the fact is that there are no such courses as Klyuchevsky’s today.
Alexander Borisovich contrasts science and popularization. But I would not be as dismissive as he is of the historian’s popularizing mission. Because she is very important. Otherwise, our society will not learn to think historically, will not learn to see traces of history in modernity, will not learn to learn from it.
For example, I would be interested in a popular history course that traces what happened in Russia with various institutions. In my opinion, it is in our institutions that the influence of the past is manifested in us - usually negative. It, this past, is characterized by the fact that it constantly killed any attempts at institutional control of society over the state. And today people should know that ultimately nothing good came of it. They must learn this lesson, but our historians, unfortunately, do not teach it to them. And they excommunicate those who try to do such work from their science, relegating them to the secondary role of popularizers.
I would like to invite dear gentlemen historians to write a history of Russia that would be as fascinating to read as Klyuchevsky’s course, and would not have the shortcomings that Alexander Borisovich spoke about. So far they have not written anything similar. Yes, others do this: I like, say, the book by Akhiezer, Klyamkin and Yakovenko “History of Russia: the end or a new beginning?” However, they are not historians. Historians ignore such work, but they themselves do not undertake anything similar. And I can only wish them that, feeling themselves ahead of Klyuchevsky in terms of scientific knowledge, they do not discard that tradition of historical enlightenment, which is largely connected with his legacy.

Igor KLYAMKIN:
Thank you, Evgeniy Grigorievich. I have the opportunity to give three minutes to the main speakers. Alexey Alekseevich has a desire. And Olga Anatolyevna. Who is first?

Alexey KARA-MURZA:
“Klyuchevsky was not only a historian, but also a historiosophist who answers questions other than those of a “pure” historian.”
Dear colleagues, it is good that Klyuchevsky is discussed by representatives of various specialties. I think that for those who understand the context of today’s conversation, it is obvious that not only historians participated in it, but also people involved in historiosophy, the philosophy of history. But even for them, of course, it is absolutely obvious that that particular history according to Klyuchevsky, as it is understood by “pure” historians, could not help but become outdated. Such “history” always becomes outdated when new sources are discovered and new texts appear. Therefore, Zimin or Anisimov knew the history of certain periods better than Klyuchevsky knew it.
But the fact is that, unlike “pure” historians who answer the question: “How was it?”, Klyuchevsky was also a historiosophist, and in this he is close to those people who study the philosophy of history and the philosophy of culture. But the philosophy of history answers other questions. How and why is this or that possible in Russia? What is the meaning of Russian history?
I personally have no doubt that this difference was quite clear to all talented students and followers of Klyuchevsky. For example, to the same Pavel Milyukov, who, contrary to the statement made here, did not at all become a “victim of Klyuchevsky,” who allegedly “cut down” his doctoral dissertation out of jealousy. Milyukov, as Oleg Budnitsky rightly noted, defended not a doctoral dissertation, but a master’s thesis, and although a number of Council members proposed awarding him a doctorate immediately, the majority (including Klyuchevsky) considered this “non-pedagogical” in relation to the young researcher.
And in general, talking about Klyuchevsky as Miliukov’s “evil genius” is extremely unhistorical. Suffice it to recall that Vasily Osipovich, using his connections, literally pulled his student, who had gone into politics, out of prison twice, and helped the young family a lot, since Miliukov’s wife was Klyuchevsky’s favorite student and the daughter of his friend. And Miliukov himself, after Klyuchevsky’s death, responded to him with deepest gratitude: read his extensive obituary on the death of his teacher. This is the best and warmest memoir about Klyuchevsky.
Let me also remind you that Georgy Fedotov, a professional historian, although he came from the St. Petersburg historical school of Ivan Mikhailovich Grevs, always considered himself also a student of the Muscovite Klyuchevsky, primarily in historiosophical terms. Fedotov understood perfectly well that from the point of view of understanding the newly discovered facts, in his “Saints of Ancient Rus'” he himself went much further than Klyuchevsky’s old works on the same topic. However, the phrases “Klyuchevsky is outdated”, “Klyuchevsky is a myth” would sound blasphemous for Fedotov.
Well, the last thing is about what could unite us in the “Klyuchevsky theme”. There is not a single memorial plaque in Moscow in memory of Vasily Osipovich, who lived in Moscow for half a century. Indeed, it so happened that many houses, especially in Zamoskvorechye, where Klyuchevsky lived, were destroyed. But there are two memorial places. This is the famous student “dorm” in Kozitsky Lane, where Klyuchevsky lived for several months, having arrived from Penza, where he left the seminary, to Moscow University. And this is a well-preserved house on Malaya Polyanka, where Klyuchevsky lived for twelve years, and where, by the way, the future leader of Russian liberals Pavel Milyukov met his future wife. I will say that the Russian Liberal Heritage Foundation, which I head, is going to install a memorial plaque on one of these houses, and I am sure that the Liberal Mission Foundation will become a good partner for us in this noble cause.

Igor KLYAMKIN:
Thank you, Alexey Alekseevich. Olga Anatolyevna, please.

Olga ZHUKOVA:
I will limit myself to a remark addressed to respected historians. I think Klyuchevsky’s figure is such that different positions and assessments of his contribution to Russian historiography are inevitable. But, of course, we, as the main speakers, did not at all strive to present Klyuchevsky as a person who once said the last word in science. This is a naive accusation and cannot be accepted. We tried to show Klyuchevsky as a person who posed the problem of understanding history and proposed his own meaningful narrative.
Thank you very much, Evgeniy Grigorievich, for appreciating the work of Vasily Osipovich in this regard. Klyuchevsky’s narrative turned out to be the historian’s responsible word addressed to the future, and it is no coincidence that the name of Shakespeare arose here. Shakespeare in his chronicles “embroidered” the fabric of time. Probably, Klyuchevsky also “embroidered,” but he proposed a productive move, emphasizing the question of the relationship between thought and reality. And this remains a central problem in our understanding of history today.

Igor KLYAMKIN:
Thank you, Olga Anatolyevna. That's it, we'll finish it.

Alla GLINCHIKOVA:
I also have a replica. Can? Dear colleagues, I just want to say one thing: in the course of this discussion, it seems to me that we are faced with a very important problem - a problem that confronts historians, philosophers, and philologists today. We often interfere with each other instead of collaborating. We are infected with arrogance, we do not listen to each other. And we can break out of the stereotypes in which we live today if we open up to each other and do not deprive philosophers of the right to analyze Russian history, or deprive historians of the right to invade the sphere of philosophy. But this is only possible if we interact with each other. We inherited a very narrow specialization from the Soviet period. And this bothers us. I call for constructive, friendly dialogue without arrogance.

Igor KLYAMKIN:
“The relevance of Klyuchevsky is that, without knowing either the Soviet or post-Soviet periods, he poses and tries to answer the same questions that concern us today”
Thank you, Alla Grigorievna. Let's finish. I understand our professional historians: their science has gone far ahead since the time of Klyuchevsky. But Klyuchevsky was not just a historian, his course of lectures became a general cultural phenomenon that influenced society and its historical consciousness a huge impact. And in this capacity he is still interesting today, in this capacity, I dare say, no one has yet succeeded in surpassing him.
Yes, there are excellent works by Soviet and post-Soviet historians - both those who were named by Alexander Borisovich Kamensky, and many others who were not mentioned. Including the works of Alexander Borisovich himself. But what do I personally miss about them? I don’t have enough conceptual insight in them regarding Russian history as a whole, its uniqueness. I miss posing the question of why it developed in this or that period in one way and not another, and how this period is connected with the previous and subsequent periods. And Klyuchevsky, as Evgeny Grigorievich Yasin rightly noted, is interested in Russian history as a whole. His course of lectures, and his other works, are not only a description of it, but also consistent attempts at its conceptual understanding, its understanding as a special phenomenon. But whether he goes beyond the boundaries of “pure” history into the field of historiosophy, or remains within these boundaries, is not so important.
That is why I cannot agree with the characterization of Klyuchevsky only as a popularizer. To popularize, you must have something to popularize. You can popularize someone else’s understanding, or you can popularize your own. Klyuchevsky, as a rule, popularizes his own, not someone else’s. And this, manifested primarily in numerous analytical deviations from the presented factual material, is still of interest. Vasily Osipovich, who did not know either the Soviet or post-Soviet periods, poses and tries to answer the same questions that concern us today. Questions about the specific features of Russian history.
Let's say, we still cannot get away from the old dispute about whether Russia is Europe or not; in this dispute we still follow the old Slavophile-soil or Westernization schemes. But Klyuchevsky already understood the limitations and inadequacy of both. Russia in his eyes is not Europe. And Europe is not even lagging behind, as most Westerners believed. But he is not inclined to interpret its originality in the Slavophile-soil spirit. He is trying to comprehend its originality differently, and this search of his, in my opinion, is still relevant today.
Let us recall his remark in his dissertation on the history of the Boyar Duma that already in Kievan Rus Some artificiality of development was observed: at the time when she lived on black soil, she traded furs, and having moved to forests and swamps, she began to grow bread.
Let us remember his statement that Russia did not know European feudalism or feudalism in general, and therefore the situation with law was different in it than in Europe.
Let us recall his statements regarding the fact that in Muscovy local government, unlike European self-government, was an instrument of central power, and zemstvo councils, unlike European parliaments, were designed not to limit individual power, but to strengthen it.
But if Russia is not Europe, then what is it? Klyuchevsky has approaches to answering this question. I mean his characterization of post-Mongol Muscovy as a service state with a “combat system”, as a “servant of the land”, organized on the principle of a “military camp”, as a society consisting of “commanders, soldiers and workers”, commanders and serving soldiers. We are talking, to put it differently, about a militarized state and a militarized society, governed not only in wartime, but also in peacetime according to the model of army management, which, by the way, could not but affect its spiritual and moral nature. And this conceptual perspective of Klyuchevsky is still, in my opinion, underestimated. An angle that allows us to talk about the significance of Vasily Osipovich and for understanding the national history of the twentieth century, the principles of the “service state” were revived. As for Klyuchevsky’s understanding of the logic of the post-Petrine transformation of this type of state, here, in my opinion, he is not so insightful. However, as far as I can judge, our professional historians are not interested in his conceptual approach at all, just as, in my opinion, many of them are not interested in conceptualism itself.
Alla Grigorievna Glinchikova called on historians for closer meaningful cooperation with representatives of other areas of social science. I think it would be useful for everyone. In particular, for the development of such a direction as historical sociology, in which we are clearly lagging behind. There are works by Boris Nikolaevich Mironov, but I personally haven’t come across anything else. But it is precisely the “outdated” Klyuchevsky who can be considered the founder of historical sociology in Russia. So, I repeat, I support the call for interaction between historians and non-historians. But, knowing the situation in our humanities, I am not sure that such a call will find a response.
I thank Alexey Alekseevich Kara-Murza and other speakers, as well as all those who spoke during the discussion for their participation in it. I think overall the discussion was useful. We may continue to return to the legacy of old Russian historians and consideration of their modern significance.

IV. PECHERSK ASCETS. THE BEGINNING OF BOOK LITERATURE AND LEGISLATION

(continuation)

Origin of Russian Truth. - Judicial rule. - Difference by class. – Economy and trade. - Woman. - Foreigners.

A very important monument to the civil status of Rus' in those days dates back to the era of Yaroslav, his sons and grandsons. This is the so-called Russian Truth, or the first recorded collection of our most ancient laws. Among the Russians, as elsewhere, established customs and relationships served as the basis for legislation. The first collections of laws usually responded to the needs of court and reprisal as the most necessary conditions for a somewhat organized human society. The most important social need is to protect personal and property security; and therefore all ancient legislation is primarily criminal in nature, i.e. First of all, it determines punishments and penalties for murder, beatings, wounds, theft and other crimes against person or property.

The beginning of Russian Truth goes back to times more ancient than the reign of Yaroslav. Already under the first historically known prince of Kiev, under Oleg, there are references to articles of Russian law, namely in the treaty with the Greeks. The same instructions are repeated in Igor’s contract. Yaroslav, known for his love for the zemstvo organization and the book business, apparently ordered the collection of rules and customs related to legal proceedings and the compilation of a written code to guide judges for the future. The first article of this code determines the penalty for the most important crime, for murder. This article represents a clear transition from a barbaric, almost primitive, state to a more civil state. Among the Russians, like other peoples who were at low levels social development, personal safety was protected primarily by the custom of family revenge, i.e. the duty for the death of a relative to avenge the death of the murderer. With the adoption of Christianity and the success of citizenship, this article naturally had to be softened or changed, which did not happen suddenly, but very gradually, because the custom of bloody revenge was so ingrained in popular morals that it was not easy to eradicate it. Vladimir the Great, according to the chronicles, is already wavering between the death penalty and vira. After his baptism, under the influence of the new religion, he apparently abolished the death penalty and the right of bloody revenge, and imposed a monetary penalty, or vira, for murder; then, when the robberies increased, on the advice of the bishops themselves, he began to execute the robbers by death; and in the end he again canceled the execution and ordered that the penalty be exacted.

Yaroslav in the first article of Russian Pravda allowed bloody revenge for murder, but only to close relatives, namely sons, brothers and nephews. If there were no locals (due to the lack of close relatives or their refusal to take bloody revenge), then the killer must pay a certain fee. But this exception for close degrees of kinship existed only before the sons of Yaroslav.

After him, Izyaslav, Svyatoslav and Vsevolod gathered for a general council on the structure of the zemstvo together with their main boyars; there were thousand people, Kiev Kosnyachko, Chernigov Pereneg and Pereyaslav Nikifor, in addition, boyars, Chudin and Mikula. They revised the Russian Truth, supplemented it with new articles and, by the way, completely abolished the right of bloody revenge, replacing it with vira in all cases for a free person. Vladimir Monomakh, soon after his approval in Kyiv, began a new revision of the Russian Truth, caused, of course, by new circumstances and developing needs. In his country courtyard on Berestov, he, according to custom, for advice on such an important matter, called his thousand, Ratibor of Kyiv, Procopius of Belgorod, Stanislav of Pereyaslavl, boyars Nazhir and Miroslav. In addition, Ivanko Chudinovich, boyar of Oleg Svyatoslavich, was present at this council. Vladimir’s most important addition seems to have related to the statute of cuts, or growth; Let’s not forget that after the death of Svyatopolk-Mikhail, the people of Kiev rebelled and plundered the Jews, who, of course, aroused hatred towards themselves with their usual covetousness. Additions and changes to Russian Pravda continued after Monomakh; but its main parts remained the same.

Let us now see in what form the social concepts and relations of our ancestors appear before us on the basis of Russian Truth.

At the head of the entire Russian land is the Grand Duke of Kiev. He takes care of the zemstvo system, establishes justice and punishment. He is surrounded by boyars or senior squads, with whom he consults about all important matters, confirms old statutes or makes changes to them. In zemstvo affairs, he especially consults with the thousand; their name indicates the military-popular division that once existed into thousands and hundreds; but in this era, by all indications, these were the main zemstvo dignitaries, appointed from among the honored boyars and helping the prince in governance; a thousand no longer designated a numerical division as a zemstvo or volost division. Sometimes the Grand Duke, to resolve the most important zemstvo affairs, gathers the elders among the appanage princes, such as Izyaslav and Svyatopolk II. But Yaroslav and Vladimir Monomakh, who knew how to actually be the head of the princely house, issue statutes for the entire Russian land, without asking the necessary consent of the appanage princes.

Reading the Russian Truth to the people in the presence of Grand Duke Yaroslav the Wise. Artist A. Kivshenko, 1880

The place for the court is the court of the prince, and in regional cities - the court of his governor; the court is carried out by the prince personally or through his tiuns. In determining the different degrees of punishment, the division of the people into three states, or three classes, is clearly visible: the princely squad, the smerds and the slaves. The bulk of the population were smerds; it was a general name for free residents of cities and villages. Another common name for them was people, in the unit. number of people For the murder of a human being, a vira, or fine, was paid, determined at 40 hryvnia. The highest status was the military class, or princely squad. But the latter also had different degrees. Simple warriors bore the names of children, youths, gridi and swordsmen; for the murder of such a simple warrior, an ordinary vire was assigned, as for a merchant or other smerd, i.e. 40 hryvnia. The senior warriors were people close to the prince, his boyars or, as they are called in Russian Pravda, princely men. For the murder of such a husband, double fines are imposed, i.e. 80 hryvnia. Judging by this double version, Pravda also includes among the “princely men” the chief princes, or servants, who filled the positions of judges, housekeepers, village elders, senior grooms, etc. The people of Dorogobuzh once, under Izyaslav Yaroslavich, killed the equerry tyun, who was part of the herd of the Grand Duke; the latter imposed a double virus on them; This example is turned into a rule in similar cases and for the future.

Next to the free population in cities and villages lived unfree people who bore the names of serfs, servants, and slaves. The initial source of slavery in ancient Russia, as elsewhere, was war, i.e. the prisoners were turned into slaves and sold along with any other booty. Russian Truth defines three more cases when a free person became a full or white slave: who is bought in front of witnesses, who marries a slave without a row, or an agreement with her master, and who goes without a row to tiuns or key holders. The serf had no civil rights and was considered the complete property of his master; for the murder of a serf or a slave there was no punishment; but if someone kills someone else’s slave innocently, he had to pay the lord the cost of the murdered person and the prince 12 hryvnia so-called. sale (i.e. penalty or fine). In addition to the full serfs, there was also a semi-free class, hirelings, or purchases; these were workers hired for a certain period of time. If a worker, having taken the money in advance, ran away from the master, then he turned into a complete or white slave.

If the killer escaped, then the virus had to pay the rope, i.e. community, and such a vira was called wild. Then penalties for wounds and beatings are determined. For example, for cutting off a hand or other important injury - half a vira, i.e. 20 hryvnia, to the prince's treasury; and for the mutilated - 10 hryvnia; for a blow with a stick or an undrawn sword - 12 hryvnia, etc. The offended person must first of all announce the theft at the auction; if he did not announce it, then, having found his thing, he cannot take it himself, but must take it to the vault of the person from whom he found it, i.e. find the thief, gradually moving on to each person from whom the item was acquired. If the thief is not found and the community, or the community, does not provide all the necessary assistance, then it must pay for the stolen item. A thief caught in the act at night could be killed with impunity “in place of the dog”; but if the owner kept him until the morning or tied him up, then he should already lead him to the prince’s court, i.e. submit to court. To prove the crime, the plaintiff was obliged to provide evidence and hearings, i.e. witnesses; In addition to witnesses, a company, or oath, was required. If no witnesses or clear evidence of the crime were presented, then a test with hot iron and water was used.

For unimportant crimes, the perpetrator paid a sale, or penalty, to the prince's treasury; and the more important ones, such as robbery, horse theft and incendiary, led to a flood, or imprisonment, and plunder of property. Part of the vir and sales was assigned to the prince's servants, who helped carry out the trial and reprisal and were called virniks, metelniks, yabetniks, etc. In the regions, during the trial and investigation, these princely servants and their horses were maintained at the expense of the residents. Repayments, or interest, are allowed in monthly and third periods, the former only for short-term loans; for too large cuts the moneylender could be deprived of his capital. Allowed cuts extended to 10 kunas per hryvnia per year, i.e. up to 20 percent.

Along with agriculture, cattle breeding, hunting and livestock, or beekeeping, also had an important place in the Russian economy of that time. For theft or damage to any livestock, a special penalty has been established, namely for a mare, ox, cow, pig, ram, sheep, goat, etc. Special care is seen for horses. The horse thief was given to the prince for free, while the caged thief paid the prince 3 hryvnia as a penalty. If anyone mounts someone else's horse without the owner's permission, he is punished with a three-hryvnia penalty. For digging up boundaries, bevels and rolls (arable land), 12 hryvnias of sale are assigned; the same amount for cutting down a boundary oak and for cutting a side sign. Beekeeping, obviously, was still primitive, forest, and property was indicated by special signs notched on the sides, i.e. in hollows that served as hives. For damaging the advantage, the culprit paid the owner a hryvnia, and the prince a penalty of 3 hryvnia. An advantage was a net set up in a clearing in the forest or some other place with special devices for catching wild birds. The unthreshed grain was stored on the threshing floor, and the threshed grain was hidden in pits; for the theft of both, 3 hryvnia and 30 kuna were charged for sale, i.e. fine the prince; and the offended person was either given back what was stolen, or a lesson was paid, i.e. its cost. For burning down someone else's threshing floor or yard, the culprit not only paid the victim for his entire loss, but he himself was handed over to the prince for free, and his house was handed over to the prince's servants for plunder.

Russian Truth also testifies to the development of trade, which was quite significant for that time. It protects, for example, a merchant from final ruin in the event of an accident. If he has lost the goods entrusted to him due to a shipwreck, war or fire, he is not responsible; but if he loses or spoils it through his own fault, then the trustees do with him as they wish. Obviously, trade in Rus' was then conducted largely on faith, that is, on credit. In the event of various debts being presented against a merchant, the foreign guests or traders who trusted him were first to be satisfied, and then their own, native ones, from the remains of their property. But if anyone had a princely debt, then the latter was satisfied first of all.

Corporal punishment, judging by Russian Pravda, was not allowed for a free person in those days; they existed only for slaves. Free people also differed from the latter in that they carried weapons with them, at least they had or could have a sword at their hip.

The rights of women under this ancient legislation are not clearly defined; but her position was not without rights at all. So, for the murder of a free woman half a vira is paid, i.e. 20 hryvnia. The inheritance (ass) of the smerd, who left no sons, goes to the prince, and only the unmarried daughters are given a certain part. But in the boyar and generally in the druzhina class, if there are no sons, then the daughters inherit the parental property; with sons they do not inherit; and brothers are only obliged to marry off their sisters, i.e. bear the associated costs. Children born to slaves do not inherit, but receive freedom along with their mother. The widow only wears what her husband has prescribed for her; however, she manages the house and the estate of young children, unless she remarries; and the children are obliged to obey her.

Russian Pravda partly divides the various populations of Ancient Rus' by class or occupation by region. So, she distinguishes between Rusin and Slovenin. The first obviously means a resident of Southern Rus', especially the Dnieper region; and under the second - a resident of the northern regions, especially the Novgorod land. In addition, Pravda mentions two foreign categories, namely the Varangians and Kolbyagi. For example, if a runaway slave hid with a Varangian or a kolbyag and the latter holds him for three days without announcing him, then he pays three hryvnias to the slave’s owner for the insult. On charges of fighting, only a company was required from a Varangian or Kolbyag, i.e. oath; whereas the native had to present two more witnesses. In the case of slander (accusation of murder), a full number of witnesses was required for the native, i.e. seven; and for the Varangian and Kolbyag - only two. In general, the legislation clearly shows protection or mitigation of conditions for foreigners. These articles confirm the constant presence of the Varangians in Rus' in the 11th and 12th centuries, however, from the second half of the 11th century, more as traders than mercenary warriors. It has not yet been decided exactly who the kolbyags were. The most likely opinion is that they mean the southeastern foreigners of Ancient Rus', known in part under the name of the Black Klobuks.

The truth does not mention the custom that was known among medieval peoples under the name of the Judgment of God, i.e. about the trial fight. But this custom, undoubtedly, existed in Rus' since ancient times and was completely in the spirit of the warlike Russian tribe. When two litigants were dissatisfied with the court verdict and could not come to any agreement, then, with the permission of the prince, they settled their litigation with the sword. Opponents entered into battle in the presence of their relatives, and the vanquished surrendered to the will of the winner.

Page of the Trinity List of Russian Truth. XIV century

... Let's move on to the social division of ancient Kievan Rus. It should be noted that a society at the first stage of development always has the same social division: among all the peoples of the Aryan tribe we find the following three groups: 1) the bulk (people in Kievan Rus), 2) a privileged layer (elders, boyars) and 3) slaves deprived of their rights (or slaves in the ancient Kiev language). Thus, the original social division was created not by some exceptional local historical condition, but by the nature of the tribe, so to speak. Already before the eyes of history, local conditions have developed and grown. Evidence of this growth is "Russkaya Pravda" - almost the only source of our judgments about the social structure of Kievan Rus. It has come to us in two editions: short and lengthy. The brief consists of 43 articles, of which the first 17 follow each other in a logical system. The Novgorod Chronicle, which contains this text of Pravda, passes it off as laws issued by Yaroslav. The short edition of Pravda differs in many ways from several lengthy editions of this monument. It is undoubtedly older than them and reflects Kiev society in the most ancient period of its life. The lengthy editions of Pravda, already consisting of more than 100 articles, contain in their text indications that they arose as a whole in the 12th century, not earlier; they contain the laws of the princes of the 12th century. (Vladimir Monomakh) and depict to us the society of Kievan Rus in its full development. The diversity of the text of different editions of Pravda makes it difficult to resolve the question of the origin of this monument. Old historians (Karamzin, Pogodin) recognized "Russian Truth" for official collection laws compiled by Yaroslav the Wise and supplemented by his successors. In later times, Pravda researcher Lange held the same opinion. But most scientists (Kalachev, Duvernois, Sergeevich, Bestuzhev-Ryumin, etc.) think that Pravda is a collection compiled by private individuals who, for their personal needs, wanted to have a set of legislative rules in force at that time. According to V. O. Klyuchevsky, “Russian Truth” arose in the church sphere, where there was a need to know the worldly law; This law was written down here. The private origin of "Russian Truth" is most likely because, firstly, in its text one can indicate articles not of legal, but of economic content, which were important only for private life, and, secondly, the external form of individual articles and entire editorial boards " Pravda" has the character of private records compiled as if by outside spectators of the prince's legal education activities.

Studying from the “Russian Truth” and from the chronicles the composition of the ancient Kyiv society, we can note its three oldest layers: 1) the highest, called the “city elders”, “human elders”; This is the zemstvo aristocracy, to which some researchers include the Ognishchans. We have already spoken about the elders; As for the fires, there are many opinions about them. Old scientists considered them to be homeowners or landowners, deriving the term from the word fire (in regional dialects it means a hearth or arable land on a burning site, i.e. on the site of a burnt forest); Vladimirsky-Budanov says in his “Review of the History of Russian Law” that senior warriors were first called “ognishchans,” but immediately adds that the Czech monument “Mater verborum” interprets the word ognishchanin as “freedman” (“libertus, cui post servitium accedit libertas"); The author thinks to hide the apparent contradiction by the consideration that the senior warriors could come from the younger, involuntary servants of the prince. The word fire in ancient times really meant a slave, a servant, in this sense it is found in the ancient, 11th century, translation of the Words of Gregory the Theologian; Therefore, some researchers (Klyuchevsky) see slave owners in the fires, in other words, rich people in that ancient period of society, when not land, but slaves were the main type of property. If you pay attention to the articles of the lengthy "Russian Pravda", which, instead of the "ognishchanin" of the short "Russian Pravda", talk about the "prince's husband" or "the fiery tiun", then one can consider the ognishchanin precisely for the prince's husband, and in particular for the tiun , head of the prince's slaves, i.e. for the person preceding the later courtiers or butlers. The position of the latter was very high at the princely courts, and at the same time they could themselves be slaves. In Novgorod, it seems, not only butlers, but the entire princely court (later nobles) were called firemen. So, therefore, it is possible to mistake the Ognishchans for noble princely men; but it is doubtful that the Ognishchans were the highest class of zemstvo society. 2) The middle class consisted of people (singular people), men, united in communities, faiths. 3) Serfs or servants - slaves and, moreover, unconditional, full, white (obly - round) were the third layer.

Over time, this social division becomes more complex. At the top of society there is already a princely squad, with which the former upper zemstvo class merges. The squad consists of an older one ("thinking boyars and brave men") and a younger one (youths, gridi), which also includes the prince's slaves. The princely administration and judges (mayor, tiun, virniki, etc.) are appointed from the ranks of the squad. The class of people is definitely divided into city dwellers (merchants, artisans) and villagers, of which free people are called smerds, and dependent people are called purchasers (role purchase, for example, is called a rural agricultural farm laborer). Purchases are not slaves, but they are the beginning of a class of conditionally dependent people in Rus', a class that over time replaced complete slaves. The squad and people are not closed social classes: it was possible to move from one to another. The main difference in their position was, on the one hand, in their attitude towards the prince (some served the prince, others paid him; as for the slaves, they had their master as their “master”, and not the prince, who had nothing to do with them), and on the other hand, in the economic and property relations of social classes among themselves.

We would be making a big mistake if we did not mention a completely special class of people in Kyiv society, a class that obeyed not the prince, but the church. This is a church society consisting of: 1) hierarchy, priesthood and monasticism; 2) persons who served the church, clergy; 3) persons looked after by the church - old, crippled, sick; 4) persons who came under the care of the church - outcasts, and 5) persons dependent on the church - “servants” (slaves), donated to the church from secular owners. The church charters of the princes describe the composition of the church society as follows:

"And these are the church people: the abbot, the abbess, the priest, the deacon and their children, and those who are in the wing: the priest, the monk, the monk, the marshmallow, the pilgrim, the sveshchegas, the watchman, the blind man, the lame man, the widow, the freedman (i.e., the one who received miraculous healing), a soulless person (i.e., freed according to a spiritual will), outcasts (i.e., persons who have lost their civil rights); ... monasteries, hospitals, hotels, hospices, then church people, almshouses." The church hierarchy is in charge of the administration and the court of all these people: “Either the metropolitan or the bishop knows whether there is a trial or an offense between them.” The church creates a firm social position for outcasts and slaves and all its people, gives them the rights of citizenship, but at the same time removes them completely from secular society.

The social division of Kyiv society became so developed and complex by the 12th century. Previously, as we have seen, society was simpler in composition and was dismembered before the eyes of history...

S. F. Platonov. Lectures on Russian history

IN. Klyuchevsky

“In the life of a scientist and writer, the main biographical facts- books, the most important events - thoughts.” (V.O. Klyuchevsky)

Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky was born in the village of Voskresensky near Penza into the family of a poor parish priest, who was the boy’s first teacher, but who died tragically when Vasily was only 9 years old. The family moved to Penza, where they settled in a small house given by one of the priest’s friends.

He graduated first from the Penza Theological School and then from the Theological Seminary.

In 1861 he entered the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University. His teachers were N.M. Leontyev, F.M. Buslaev, K.N. Pobedonostsev, B.N. Chicherin, S.M. Soloviev, whose lectures had a great influence on the young historian. “Soloviev gave the listener an amazingly complete, harmonious thread drawn through a chain of generalized facts, a look at the course of Russian history, and we know what a pleasure it was for young mind who begins scientific study, to feel himself in possession of a complete view of a scientific subject,” Klyuchevsky later wrote.

Klyuchevsky Museum in Penza

Career

After graduating from the university, Klyuchevsky remained to teach here and began work on ancient Russian saints, which became his master's thesis. Along the way, he writes several works on the history of the church and Russian religious thought: “Economic activities of the Solovetsky Monastery”, “Pskov disputes”, “Promotion of the church to the successes of Russian civil order and law”, “Significance St. Sergius Radonezh for the Russian people and state", " Western influence and the church schism in Russia in the 17th century,” etc.

Klyuchevsky devotes a lot of energy to teaching: in 1871 he was elected to the department of Russian history at the Moscow Theological Academy, where he worked until 1906; then he began teaching at the Alexander Military School, as well as at higher women's courses. His scientific and teaching career is rapidly growing: in September 1879 he was elected associate professor at Moscow University, in 1882 - extraordinary, in 1885 - ordinary professor.

IN. Klyuchevsky

In 1893 - 1895 he taught a course in Russian history to Grand Duke Georgy Alexandrovich (son of Alexander III); taught at the school of painting, sculpture and architecture; in 1893 - 1905 he was chairman of the Society of History and Antiquities at Moscow University.

He was an academician and honorary academician of a number of scientific societies.

Klyuchevsky gained the reputation of a brilliant lecturer who knew how to capture the attention of the audience with the power of analysis, gift of image, and deep erudition. He shone with wit, aphorisms, and epigrams that are still in demand today. His works always caused controversy, in which he tried not to interfere. The topics of his works are extremely diverse: the situation of the peasantry, zemstvo councils of Ancient Rus', the reforms of Ivan the Terrible...

He was concerned about the history of the spiritual life of Russian society and its outstanding representatives. A number of articles and speeches by Klyuchevsky about S.M. relate to this topic. Solovyov, Pushkin, Lermontov, N.I. Novikov, Fonvizin, Catherine II, Peter the Great. He published a “Brief Guide to Russian History,” and in 1904 began publishing the full course. A total of 4 volumes were published, up to the time of Catherine II.

V. Klyuchevsky sets out a strictly subjective understanding of Russian history, eliminating review and criticism and without entering into polemics with anyone. He bases the course on facts not according to their actual significance in history, but according to their methodological significance.

"Russian history course"

Klyuchevsky’s most famous scientific work is “Course of Russian History” in 5 parts. He worked on it for more than 30 years, but only decided to publish it in the early 1900s. Klyuchevsky considers the colonization of Russia to be the main factor in Russian history, and the main events unfold around colonization: “The history of Russia is the history of a country that is being colonized. The area of ​​colonization in it expanded along with its state territory. Sometimes falling, sometimes rising, this age-old movement continues to this day.”

Klyuchevsky divided Russian history into four periods:

I period - approximately from the 8th to the 13th centuries, when the Russian population was concentrated mainly on the middle and upper Dnieper with its tributaries. Rus' was then politically divided into separate cities, and the economy was dominated by foreign trade.

II period - XIII - mid-XV century, when the main mass of the people moved to the area between the upper Volga and Oka rivers. It is still a fragmented country, but into princely appanages. The basis of the economy was free peasant agricultural labor.

Monument to Klyuchevsky in Penza

III period - from the half of the 15th century. until the second decade of the 17th century, when the Russian population colonized the Don and Middle Volga black soils; the state unification of Great Russia took place; The process of enslavement of the peasantry began in the economy.

IV period - until the middle of the 19th century. (the Course did not cover later times) - the time when “the Russian people spread across the entire plain from the seas

Baltic and White to Black, to Caucasian ridge, Caspian and Urals". The Russian Empire is formed, the autocracy is based on the military service class - the nobility. The manufacturing factory industry joins serf agricultural labor.

“In the life of a scientist and writer, the main biographical facts are books, the most important events are thoughts,” wrote Klyuchevsky. The life of Klyuchevsky himself rarely goes beyond these events and facts. By conviction he was moderate conservative, his political speeches are extremely few. But if they were, they were always distinguished by their originality of thinking and were never to please anyone. He only had his own position. For example, in 1894 he delivered a “Laudatory speech” to Alexander III, which caused indignation among the revolutionary students, and he was wary of the 1905 revolution.

"Historical portraits" by V. Klyuchevsky

His "Historical Portraits" include a number of biographies of famous people:

The first Kiev princes, Andrei Bogolyubsky, Ivan III, Ivan Nikitich Bersen-Beklemishev and Maxim the Greek, Ivan the Terrible, Tsar Fedor, Boris Godunov, False Dmitry I, Vasily Shuisky, False Dmitry II, Tsar Mikhail Romanov, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, Peter the Great, Catherine I , Peter II, Anna Ioannovna, Elizabeth I, Peter III, Catherine II, Paul I, Alexander I, Nicholas I, Alexander II.
Creators of the Russian land
Good people of Ancient Rus', Nestor and Sylvester, Sergius of Radonezh, Ivan Nikitich Bersen-Beklemishev and Maxim the Greek, Nil Sorsky and Joseph Volotsky, K. Minin and D.M. Pozharsky, Patriarch Nikon, Simeon of Polotsk, A.L. Ordin-Nashchokin, Prince V.V. Golitsyn, Prince D.M. Golitsyn, N.I. Novikov,
MM. Speransky, A.S. Pushkin, Decembrists, H.M. Karamzin, K.N. Bestuzhev-Ryumin, S.M. Soloviev,
T.N. Granovsky.

Klyuchevsky's grave in the Donskoy Monastery

Aphorisms by V. Klyuchevsky

• To be happy means not wanting what you cannot get.
• A great idea in a bad environment is distorted into a series of absurdities.
• In science, you need to repeat lessons in order to remember them well; In morality, one must remember mistakes well so as not to repeat them.
• It is much easier to become a father than to remain one.
• An evil fool is angry at others for his own stupidity.
• Life teaches only those who study it.
• He who loves himself very much is not loved by others, because out of delicacy they do not want to be his rivals.
• He who laughs is not angry, because to laugh means to forgive.
• People live in idolatry of ideals, and when ideals are lacking, they idealize idols.
• People look for themselves everywhere, but not in themselves.
• There are people who know how to speak, but do not know how to say anything. These are windmills that always flap their wings, but never fly.
• Thought without morality is thoughtlessness, morality without thought is fanaticism.
• We must not complain about the fact that there is little smart people, but to thank God for the fact that they exist.
• A man usually loves women whom he respects; a woman usually respects only men whom she loves. Therefore, a man often loves women who are not worth loving, and a woman often respects men who are not worth respecting.
• Science is often confused with knowledge. This is a gross misunderstanding. Science is not only knowledge, but also consciousness, that is, the ability to use knowledge properly.
• Young people are like butterflies: they fly into the light and end up in the fire.
• You need to know the past not because it has passed, but because, when leaving, you did not know how to remove your consequences.
• A reflective person should fear only himself, because he must be the only and merciless judge of himself.
• The smartest thing in life is still death, for only it corrects all the mistakes and stupidities of life.
• A proud person is one who values ​​the opinions of others about himself more than his own. So, to be self-loving means to love yourself more than others, and to respect others more than yourself.
• The surest and perhaps the only way to become happy is to imagine yourself like that.
• By freedom of conscience we usually mean freedom from conscience.
• Beneath strong passions there is often only a weak will hidden.
• Proud people love power, ambitious people love influence, arrogant people seek both, reflective people despise both.
• A good person is not one who knows how to do good, but one who does not know how to do evil.
• Friendship can do without love; love without friendship is not.
• The mind perishes from contradictions, but the heart feeds on them.
• Character is power over oneself, talent is power over others.
• Christs rarely appear like comets, but Judases are not translated like mosquitoes.
• Man is the greatest beast in the world.
• In Russia there are no average talents, simple masters, but there are lonely geniuses and millions of worthless people. Geniuses can do nothing because they have no apprentices, and nothing can be done with millions because they have no masters. The first are useless because there are too few of them; the latter are helpless because there are too many of them.

KLUCHEVSKY VASILY OSIPOVICH - great Russian historian.

Graduated from Moscow University (1865). Master's thesis: “Old Russian Lives of Saints as a Historical Source” (1872). Doctoral thesis: “The Boyar Duma of Ancient Rus'” (1882). Teacher at the Moscow Alexander Military School (1867-82). Privat-docent (1871), professor (1882) of the Moscow Theological Academy (1871-1911). Professor of the Higher Women's Courses (1872-1897). Associate professor (1879), professor (1882), dean (1887-89) of the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University. Member of a number of scientific societies: Moscow Archaeological, Lovers of Russian Literature, History and Russian Antiquities (Chairman - 1893-1905).

He became famous as an outstanding lecturer. He developed an original concept of Russian history, which found its most complete embodiment in the “Course of Lectures on Russian History.” Adhered to positivist methodology. He believed that historians should shift their emphasis from the study of politics and the role of individuals to socio-political history and the study of social phenomena. Recognized the importance of class (by class was meant social group) interests in the development of society. He considered the Boyar Duma as an expression of the class interests of the boyars, and not the state as a whole. This approach was called historical sociology.

He emphasized the role of the geographical factor in Russian history, pointing to its great influence on the formation of the Russian mentality. He paid special attention to colonization, considering it the main content of the development of Russian statehood. Based on this, he proposed a periodization associated with the development of the territory of the Russian state: 1) Dnieper Rus' (the basis of the economy and social life was trade and associated urban centers); 2) Upper Volga Rus' (the population migrates to the northeast, where princely power dominates, and agriculture becomes the basis of the economy); 3) Great Russian period (settlement along the Russian Plain); 4) All-Russian period (colonization and development of the territory of the Moscow State in the 17th century and Russian Empire, the unification of all branches of the Russian people).

He developed an unspecified theory of enslavement of peasants, believing that serfdom arose due to the debt of the peasants to the landowners, and the decree only consolidated the existing situation. Special historian courses were devoted to the history of classes and special historical disciplines. Klyuchevsky's historical research was distinguished by a highly artistic style. Considered the founder of the school of historians.

Essays:

Works in 8 volumes. M., 1956-59;

Letters. Diaries. Aphorisms and thoughts about history. M., 1968;

Works in 9 volumes. M., 1987-90;

IN. Klyuchevsky. Favorites. M., 2010.