The New Russian Historiography and the Old—Some Considerations

Russian historiography has known rapid changes in Russia and in Western countries during the last two decades. This evolution stemmed, first, from the historical events that occurred in the course of Soviet and Russian history since Gorbachev's policy of glasnost' (openness) and the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991; second, from the reappraisals that these events generated among practicing historians in Russia and the West; and third, to a lesser extent, from various research approaches in the humanities and the social sciences. This essay presents some reflections on the forms and content that these reappraisals brought about in historical writing, and on the new trends in the historians' views on past historiography. The constituent elements and prospects of one of these trends, the emergence of a process of internationalization of Russian historiography, are examined and evaluated.