К проблеме «вековой русской отсталости»

Quaestio Rossica. 2018. Т. VI. № 1. С. 185–206.

Kamenskii A. B.

This article considers the applicability of the concept of backwardness which was
one of the basic concepts of both Russian and Western historiography of prerevolutionary
Russia until the late 20th century and resulted from the constant
comparison of Russia with the conventional ‘West’. On the one hand, modern
historiography is characterised by a ‘normalisation’ of Russian history, i.e.
attempts to prove that, considered generally, Russian historical development was
identical to that of Western Europe, and, on the other hand, complete refusal to
compare Russia and the West due to Russia having an altogether different and
unique model of historical development. However, both of these trends contradict
the worldview Russians had between the 18th and early 20th centuries. The author
characterises both trends as dead ends as the concept of Russia’s ‘normality’ makes
it impossible to explain the events of the imperial era, while the other approach
deprives a historian of one of the major research tools in studying the past. It results
in an intellectual trap, and the author suggests that to solve this problem, scholars
should create a new language of historical research and accumulate empirical data
that would create a more complex and multidimensional image of the past.

Keywords: модернизация, компаративистика, историография, modernization, история России, historiography, history of Russia, comparativistics

Publication based on the results of: ­­­Legislation Process, Social Mobility and Social Practices in Early Modern Societies of Russia and Western Europe (2017)