“it Takes 200 years to the day I was born a great man. Everywhere heard the words: ought to celebrate the bicentennial anniversary of the great man; it is our duty, sacred, Patriotic duty, because this great man is our Russian people.” It’s not about Sergey Mikhaylovich Solovyov (although, of course, about it, too). He is in the “Public readings on Peter the Great”, dedicated to 200 anniversary from the birthday of the first Russian Emperor.
may 17 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of the historian S. M. Soloviev. But what do we know about him? The daughter of a priest, Professor of Russian history and rector of the Moscow University, his main work, he wrote nearly three decades – “History of Russia from ancient times”. Every year from 1851 appeared on one volume of “History”, and last, volume 29 (the reign of Catherine II until 1775) were published after the author’s death in 1879.
Your hard work, based on Chronicles and other archival sources, the nightingales began a quarter-century after the death of Karamzin, to whom Alexander I bestowed the title of Russian historiographer. Written in the suburban manor Ostafyevo “History of the Russian state” covered the history of Russia from ancient times to the time of Troubles. The history of our country is not less interesting and important than the history of the world, considered Karamzin, and his work enjoyed great success among his contemporaries. He was instrumental in the conversion of minds to the study of the Fatherland and Pushkin himself found in it the material for his drama “Boris Godunov”, dedicating it to the genius Karamzin. Critics blamed him redundant, as they thought, conservatism and reproached him that exploring the history of the Supreme authority of the autocracy, the “neglected history of the common people.”
People – or rather, the educated and enlightened part of it required not just to tell but also to explain past events. This took Soloviev.
He argued that Russia’s History is not just a history of autocracy, and the history of the people. The state government is the natural product of the national life, and to separate one from the other is absolutely impossible. Sergei Solovyov did not consider himself a Westerner, considered acceptable for the country only European patterns of development. He was not a Slavophile, saying that Russia designed their own special way. He became the mediator between the old and new approaches in history, saying that the formation and development of state and public life were equally necessary.
reconciling His role touched many sensitive issues in the history of Russia, which did not have a single opinion and approach. Take, for example, in the mid-nineteenth century by Peter I and his deeds. Some saw in his reforms, the revival of Russia, the other – imposednye power is alien to the form, brought down a country with the right historical path. Some considered him a great reformer, others as a great misfortune.
Solovyov called both of these non-historical approach – the historical activities of individuals cannot be divorced from the lives of the people. The era of the Petrine reforms, he devoted six volumes of his work, having concluded that these reforms were prepared by the whole preceding history, and along with Peter the great accomplished the feat of transformation, a feat made all the people: “never has a people made such a feat, which was committed by the Russian people in the first quarter of the XVIII century”.
it Turns out that Solovyov for the first time historians have uncovered the unique ability of our nation to feat. The most obvious for us today – the feat of the people committed in the years of the great Patriotic war.
Even in the modern world not all countries can create a picture of your past self. This right Solovyov denied his contemporaries. “Hardly in our time to write the history of Russia. History is the final fruit of any age… Our time is the time of the study, research, prep,” he criticized Soloviev’s Slavophile Aksakov. However, following Soloviev, Karamzin only strengthened the historical sovereignty of Russia. However, he noticed and recorded good in the country’s history, but don’t edit something to be proud of should not have. I learned and took lessons. “A scientist with a strong, well educated mind,” – called him Kliuchevskoi. The callous truth he really is not mitigated in favor of the pathological tendencies of the time.”
Life has the right to ask questions of the science, believed Soloviov, and science is obliged to answer the questions of life. This life is not supposed to teach science, but needs to learn from her. Well, we continue to learn from the Sergei Mikhailovich – bright scholar-historian who changed time itself.
