How to study the history of Eastern Europe today? Discussion

Published Date:

For citation: How to study the history of Eastern Europe today? Discussion, in Studia Slavica et Balcanica Petropolitana. 2020. № 1. Pp. 39-65. DOI https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu19.2020.103

Title of the article How to study the history of Eastern Europe today? Discussion
Authors

Alimov, Denis Evgenyevich — PhD in History, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., OrcID 0000-0002-4733-4150;
Churzin, Vyacheslav Vasilyevich — Head of the Cabinet of Humanities, North-Western State Medical University named after I. I. Mechnikova, St. Petersburg, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;
Daniš, Miroslav — Dr. Sc., Professor of General History, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., OrcID 0000-0003-4090-5579;
Dmitriev, Mikhail Vladimirovich — Dr. Sc. in History, Professor, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., OrcID 0000-0002-4101-8755, Researcher ID C-5302-2017, SPIN-code 7730-6875;
Filyushkin, Aleksandr Ilyich — Dr. Sc. in History, Professor, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., OrcID 0000-0003-2456-7514, Researcher ID F-9139-2013, Scopus ID 55336577600, Spin-code 1117-2468;
Hackmann, Jörg — Dr. phil. habil., Professor, Szczecin University, Szczecin, Poland, e-mail:This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., OrcID: 0000-0002-1765-505X;
Ivonina, Lyudmila Ivanovna — Dr. Sc. in History, Professor, Smolensk State University, Smolensk, Russia, e-mail:This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., OrcID 0000-0002-7230-0518, SPIN-code 8019-3667;
Kuz’min, Andrey Valentinovich — PhD in history, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Moscow, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., OrcI D0000-0002-6699-3573, SPIN-code 7904-7376;
Martyniouk, Aleksey Viktorovich — PhD in History, Head of the Department, Historical and Cultural Heritage of Belarus, National Institute for Higher Education, Minsk, Belarus, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., OrcID 0000-0002-0549-720X, SPIN-code: 2923-247;
Popović, Mihailo — PhD, Research Fellow, Institute for Medieval Studies, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., OrcID 0000-0002-3128-2210;
Selart, Anti — PhD in History, Professor, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Reseacher ID H-2825-2012, Scopus ID 38261677500, OrcID 0000-0001-8608-9154.

In the section Disputatio / Discussion
Year 2020 Issue  1 Pages  39-65
Type of article RAR Index UDK; BBK  947.02; 63.3(2)4+63.3(0) Index DOI https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu19.2020.103
Abstract The discussion, devoted to the consideration of the papers of Alexander Filyushkin and Alexey Martyniuk, took part at the special section of the Petersburg Historical Forum. The participants are from Russia, Austria, Slovakia, Estonia, Germany etc. Participants in the discussion highlighted the problematic points in the study of the history of the Eastern European region: the difficulty of defining the geographical and chronological framework, the problems of an established terminology, the break in the historiographic tradition, the need to search for new methodological tools and, at the same time, to verify the correctness of its application. Arguments were expressed both “for” and “against” the proposed thesis of Alexey Martyniuk about the “Byzantinization” of the history of Ancient Russia. Most of the speakers spoke in favor of overcoming the situation of “national fragmentation” of the medieval history of Eastern Europe. The development of that research perspective that would allow us to see the history of this region as the history of a single space, which has its own dynamics, its own “rhythms” and its own characteristics, which are not reducible only to the common history of modern states and nations. The importance of comparative studies was emphasized - the need, when considering the history of Ancient Rus and the Eastern Slavs in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times, to refer to the experience of studying the history of the southern and western Slavs, Byzantium and the medieval Balkans, the regions of the Baltic and Black Seas and, in the end, not to be afraid the search for typological parallels in “distant lands and eras” ― in the history of Antiquity, the medieval Latin world, classical Western European Modernity. The discussion showed the importance of historians’ reflection on the subject and method of their research, as well as the need for constant professional dialogue between representatives of different national schools and historiographic traditions.
Keywords Old Russia, Eastern European Middle Ages, Byzantium, medieval studies, global history, civilizational approach, regional studies, historiography, methodology, historical memory 
Full text version of the article. Article language  Russian
Bibliography
  • Aul, Juhan; Ling, Harry; Paaver, Kaliu. Eesti NSV imetajad [Mammals of the Estonian SSR]. Tallinn: Eesti Riiklik Kirjastus Publ., 1957. 350 p. (in Estonian).

    Bessudnova, Marina Borisovna. Rossiya i Livoniya v kontse XV veka. Istoki konflikta [Russia and Livonia in the end of the 15th century. Origins of a conflict]. Moscow: Kvadriga Publ., 2015. 448 p. (in Russian).

    Black, Jeremy. Eighteenth Century Europe, 1700–1789. 2nd ed. London: Palgrave Macmillan Publ., 1999. 624 p.

    Braudel, Fernand. Istoriya i obshchestvennye nauki. Istoricheskaya dlitel’nost’ [History and the Social Sciences: The Long Duration], in Kon, Igor Semenovich (ed.). Filosofiya i metodologiya istorii [Philosophy and Methodology of History]. Moscow: Progress Publ., 1977. Pp. 115–142. (in Russian).

    Dmitriev, Mikhail. Ukraine and Russia. About the book: «Ukraine and Russia in Their Historical Encounter», in Canadian Slavonic Papers / Revue canadienne des slavistes. 1993. T. XXXV. No. 1–2 (March–June 1993). Pp. 131–147.

    Dukes, Paul. World Order in History. Russia and the West. London; New York: Routhledge Publ., 1996. 198 p.

    Emmons, Terence. On the problem of Russia’s «Separate Path» in Late Imperial Historiography, in Sanders, Thomas (ed.). Historiography of Imperial Russia. The Profession and Writing of History in a Multinational State. New York: M. Sharpe Publ., 1999. Pp. 163–187.

    Frost, Robert I. The Northern Wars 1558–1721. London; New York: Longman Publ., 2000. 401 p.

    Fukuyama, Francis. Konets istorii i posledniy chelovek [The End of History and the Last Man]. Moscow: AST Publ., 2015. 576 p. (in Russian).

    Geary, Patrick J. The Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins of Europe. Princeton; Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2003. 199 p.

    Gorskiy, Anton Anatolyevich. Srednevekovaya Rus’: O chem govoryat istochniki [Medieval Russia: What are the sources talking about?]. Moscow: Lomonosov Publ., 2016. 216 p. (in Russian).

    Halperin, Charles. Russian and Mongols. Slavs and the Steppe in Medieval and Early Modern Russia. Ed. by Victor Spinei and George Bilavschi. Bucureşti: Editura Academiei Romane, 2007. 327 p.

    Hartog, Leo de. Russia and the Mongol Yoke. The history of the Russian Principalities and the Golden Horde, 1221–1502. London; New York: British Academic Press, 1996. 211 p.

    Ivonina, Lyudmila Ivanovna. Voyna za Ispanskoe nasledstvo [The War of the Spanish Succession]. Moscow: RosKonsult Publ., 2009. 288 p. (2nd ed. — Smolensk: Smolensk State University Press, 2010. 318 p.). (in Russian).

    Khodarkovsky, Michael. «Third Rome» or a Tributary State? A View of Moscow from the Steppe, in Die Geschichte Russlands im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert aus der Perspektive seiner Regionen. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Publ., 2004. Pp. 363–374.

    Kotlyarov, Dmitriy Alekseevich. Rus’ i Povolzhe: etnopoliticheskoe vzaimodeystvie (XIV–XVI vv.) [Rus’ and the Volga region: ethnopolitical interaction (14th–16th centuries)], in Dolgov, Vadim Viktorovich; Kotlyarov, Dmitriy Alekseevich; Krivosheev, Yuriy Vladimirovich; Puzanov, Viktor Vladimirovich. Formirovanie rossiyskoy gosudarstvennosti: Raznoobrazie vzaimodeystviy «tsentr-periferiya» (etnokul’turniy i sotsial’no-politicheskiy aspekty) [The formation of Russian statehood: F variety of interactions, «center-periphery» (ethno-cultural and sociopolitical aspects)]. Ekaterinburg: Ural University Press, 2003. Pp. 291–404. (in Russian).

    Kuchkin, Vladimir Andreevich. Rus’ pod igom: Kak eto bylo? [Russia under the yoke: How was it?]. Moscow: Panorama Publ., 1991. 28 p. (in Russian).

    Lukin, Pavel Vladimirovich. Novgorodskoe veche [Novgorod veche]. Moscow: Indrik Publ., 2014. 607 p. (in Russian).

    Moshin, Vladimir Alekseјevich. Pod teretom [Under load]. Transl. and comments by Nesiba Palibrk-Sukiћ. Belgrade: Narodna biblioteka Srbiјe Publ., 2008. 283 p. (in Serbian).

    Naan, Gustav Iogannovich (ed.). Istoriya Estonskoy SSR (S drevneyshikh vremen do nashikh dney) [History of the Estonian SSR (From ancient times to the present day)]. Tallin, 1958. 752 p. (in Russian).

    Ostrovski, Donald. A Methahistorical Analysis: Hayden White and Four Narratives of «Russian History», in CLIO: A Journal of Literature, History and the Philosophy of History. Spring 1990. Vol. 19. No. 3. Pp. 215–236.

    Ostrowski, Donald. Muscovy and the Mongols. Cross-cultural Influences on the Steppe Frontier, 1304–1589. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. 329 p.

    Pain, Emil Abramovich (ed.). Ideologiya «osobogo puti» v Rossii i Germanii: istoki, soderzhanie, posledstviya [The Ideology of «a Special Way» in Russia and Germany: Sources, Contents, Consequences]. Moscow: Tri kvadrata Publ., 2010. 320 p. (in Russian).

    Parker, Geoffrey. Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013. 871 p.

    Plokhy, Serhii M. Ukraine and Russia in Their Historical Encounter (Remarks on Mikhail Dmitriev’s Review), in Canadian Slavonic Papers / Revue canadienne des slavistes. 1993. Т. XXXV. No. 3–4 (September–December 1993). Pp. 335–344.

    Potichnyj, Peter J.; Raeff, Marc; Pelenski, Jaroslaw; Zekulin, Gleb N. (eds). Ukraine and Russia in Their Historical Encounter. Edmonton: Canadian Insitute of Ukrainian Studies Press, University of Alberta, 1992. 346 p.

    Raffensperger, Christian. Reimagining Europe: An Outsider Looks at the Medieval East-West Divide, in Balázs Nagy et al. (eds). The medieval networks in East Central Europe: Commerce, contacts, communication. London: Routledge Publ., 2019. Pp. 11–24.

    Raffensperger, Christian. Reimagining Europe: Kievan Rus’ in the Medieval World, 988–1146. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2012. 329 p.

    Riasanovsky, Nicholas V. Russian Identities. A Historical Survey. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. 278 p.

    Roberts, Michael. The Swedish Imperial Experience. 1560–1718. Cambridge: Cambrige University Press, 1979. 156 p.

    Sarkisyanz, Emanuel. Russland und der Messianismus des Orients. Sendungsbewustseins und politischer Chiliasmus des Ostens [Russia and Oriental Messianism: Sense of Mission and Political Chiliasm in the East]. Tübingen: J. B. C. Mohr Publ., 1955. 420 p. (in German).

    Tamm, Marek. Truth, Objectivity and Evidence in History Writing, in Journal of the Philosophy of History. 2014. Vol. 8. Pp. 265−290.

    Travin, Dmitriy Yakovlevich. «Osobiy put’» Rossii. Ot Dostoevskogo do Konchalovskogo [The «special way» of Russia. From Dostoevsky to Konchalovsky]. St. Petersburg: European University Press, 2018. 224 p. (in Russian).

    Troebst, Stefan. Introduction: What’s in a Historical Region? A Teutonic Perspective, in European Review of History. 2003. Vol. 10. No. 2. Pp. 173–188.

    Yakovenko, Igor’ Grigoryevich. Rossiya i repressiya: Repressivnaya komponenta otechestvennoy kul’tury [Russia and the repression: The repressive component of the national culture]. Moscow: New chronograph Publ., 2011. 336 p. (in Russian).

 

Tags: Medieval historiography, Middle Ages, Old Rus, historical memory, memory studies, medieval studies, Byzantium, DISPUTATIO / DISCUSSION, Eastern Europe, Contemporary historian in search of a methodology, global history, Area studies, methodology of history, post-soviet space, regional studies

  • Hits: 719