Pavel Vladimirovich Ilyin,
Candidate of Historical Sciences, St. Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Publication of the Memoir Heritage of Participants of the Decembrists Movement: Periodization, Some Results and Perspectives
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2023-2-21
The publication of memoir texts belonging to the participants of the Decembrists movement, and then the introduction into circulation of scientific academic publications of the Decembrists memoirs, stretched out for more than 150 years and has not yet been completed. The proposed article attempts to consider in general terms the main features and the most important stages of the archaeographic development and publication of the complex of Decembrists memoirs, as well as to summarize some of the results and perspectives of their publication. It is noted that in the pre-revolutionary period, initially, until the beginning of the 20th century, significant memoir texts were published, reflecting the views and ideas of prominent participants in the movement, as well as (in parallel with this) the publication by former members of secret societies and their relatives of individual memoir texts both in the free and censored Russian press. In the last decades of the pre-revolutionary period, systematic collection and publication of Decembrists memoirs began. The Soviet period is divided into three consecutive stages: the continuation of collecting and publishing the Decembrists memoirs in the 1920s–1930s, the beginning of the academic publication of the memoirs of the Decembrists in the 1950s–1960s (in the series “Literary Monuments”, “Literary Heritage”) and, finally, the beginning of a systematic scientific publication of the Decembrists memoirs in the 1970s–1980s, embodied in the documentary series “Polar Star”. The post-Soviet time is marked by the continuation of the systematic scientific publication of the Decembrists memoirs (although less active than in the Soviet period) and the return to the written heritage of the participants in the movement, which was not in demand in previous eras. Summing up the process of including the memoir heritage of the Decembrists into scientific circulation, the author characterizes the work done by the researchers, evaluates the great contribution of the historians of Decembrism to the scientifically published corpus of memoir sources on the history of Russia in the 19th century, focuses on that part of the memoir heritage of the Decembrists, which has not yet been published as scientific editions, considers the reasons for when the part of the Decembrists memoirs still remains without a full-fledged publication, characterizes the possibility of new editions of the memoirs of the Decembrists.
Publishing: 28/02/2023
The article has been received by the editor on 16.01.2023
How to cite: Ilyin P.V. Publication of the Memoir Heritage of Participants of the Decembrists Movement: Periodization, Some Results and Perspectives // Historical Courier, 2023, No. 2 (28), pp. 257–273. [Available online: http://istkurier.ru/data/2023/ISTKURIER-2023-2-21.pdf]
Links: Issue 2 2023
Keywords: history of Russia in the 19th century; Decembrists movement; memoirs; publication; periodization; archaeography; source studies; results of the study