A Textbook and Its Author: The Pre-Revolutionary Russian Tradition and Soviet Innovations in Nikolay M. Nikolsky’s Work

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15826/qr.2019.4.439

Keywords:

Soviet historiography; Marxism; N. M. Nikolsky; Soviet school; Soviet teaching, history of the ancient world

Abstract

In this paper, the author analyses Professor N. M. Nikolsky’s 1933 school textbook on ancient history. Nikolsky introduced a number of interesting innovations in his work uncharacteristic of scholarship of the time. He was able to combine the pre-revolutionary school tradition and elements of Marxism. Equally, the textbook matched the level of historical scholarship of the first third of the twentieth century. Nikolsky’s innovations were almost completely rejected in the 1930s because of the replacement of the pre-revolutionary Marxist tradition with Soviet Marxism. As a result, his contribution to the renewal of the national system of teaching ancient history has been underestimated. Many of his ideas were not unpromising, but simply unfinished. This essay discusses the rivalry between N. M. Nikolsky and V. V. Struve, which the former lost.

Author Biography

Sergey Krikh

Dr. Hab. (History), Professor, Omsk State University.

55a, Mira Ave., 644077, Omsk, Russia.

ORCID 0000-0001-8220-9956

krikh@rambler.ru

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Published

2019-12-21

How to Cite

Krikh, S. (2019). A Textbook and Its Author: The Pre-Revolutionary Russian Tradition and Soviet Innovations in Nikolay M. Nikolsky’s Work. Quaestio Rossica, 7(4), 1299–1308. https://doi.org/10.15826/qr.2019.4.439

Issue

Section

Hereditas: nomina et scholae