Andrey Ivanovich Savin,
Candidate of Historical Sciences, Institute of History of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The Question of the Heroic Personality Role in History and in the Bolshevik Narrative in the 1920s−1930s
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2024-5-2
The article focuses on the analysis of cardinal revision of the Marxist dogma, which assigned the dominant role in the historic process to the masses, while the (heroic) personality served subservient role, and held dominant position in soviet socio-political sciences during 1920-s. Using narrative of the most prominent Bolsheviks, such as A.V. Lunacharsky and I.V. Stalin, together with published works of A.M. Gorky, the article reconstructs amnesty collisions of historical personality in the USSR. Additionally, the author has verified hypothesis of D. Brandenberg, which states that de-facto rejection of one of the most fundamental historiosophical ideas of Marxism happened mainly due to Soviet political reality of the 1930s. Emergence of the heroes of labour, who personified the successes in socialism building process and became important role models for the forming soviet identity, was one of the most notable qualities of Stalin’s modernization. Return of the “hero” both to the pages of history books and socio-political stage of Soviet Union was not a smooth process, which took the better part of the second half of the 1930-s. However, starting from the 1940, personal heroism became an inseparable part of the new soviet identity and one of the most important instrument in the construction of socialist society.
Publishing: 28/10/2024
The article has been received by the editor on 22/08/2024
How to cite: Savin A.I. The Question of the Heroic Personality Role in History and in the Bolshevik Narrative in the 1920s−1930s // Historical Courier, 2024, No. 5 (37), pp. 30−46. [Available online: http://istkurier.ru/data/2024/ISTKURIER-2024-5-02.pdf]
The article was completed within the framework of the topic of the state assignment of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation “Society and Power in Russia in the 20th − Early 21st Centuries: Political Participation, Communication, Identity of Actors” (FWZM-2024-0008).
Links: Issue 5 2024
Keywords: Marxism; personality; masses; heroes of labour; historical science; I.V. Stalin; A.M. Gorky; A.V. Lunacharsky