Современники о «константиновцах»: варианты осмысления

Уральский исторический вестник. 2025. № 2(87). С. 140–148.

Yurski A.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the opinions of contemporaries about the party of “konstantinovcy”, led by Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich, an influential group in the government of Alexander II in the first decade of his reign. Using discourse analysis approach of “interpretative repertoires”, proposed by J. Potter and M. Wetherell, three variants of contemporaries’ interpretation of the “konstantinovcy” and their role in the implementation of the Great Reforms are proposed. The courtier interpretation is characterised by the placement of the “konstantinovcy” in a number of other salons and spheres of influence; the party option is aimed to localise them in a series of other parties or cliques in the government; and the reformist interpretation largely obscures the influence of individual parties, focusing on the struggle between two large ideological spheres of liberals and conservatives. The conducted research shows the non-monolithic nature of discourses about the “konstantinovcy” and the existence of some patterns in their comprehension. This approach allow us to revise the historiographical canons for this party. It is shown that the courtier option was not used at all in historiography as an analytical model. Pre-revolutionary and Soviet historiography followed the reformist way of interpretation, giving rise to the concept of “liberal bureaucracy”. Appealing to the opinions of contemporaries calls into question the predominance of party analytics, allows us to fixate the complexity of the very phenomenon of the “konstantinovcy” and to better understand the political culture of Russia in the mid-19th century.

Keywords: дискурс-анализ, великие реформы, великий князь Константин Николаевич, Great reforms, discourse-analysis, Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich, the views of contemporaries, константиновцы, взгляды современников

Publication based on the results of: Government and Society in Modern Russia: politics, interaction and cooperation (2024)