Павел Первый в российской исторической литературе по А. В. Скоробогатов (review)

Ab Imperio, 4/2001 459 с родственниками и потомками Хьюза. Исследование Фредгута явно выделяется на фоне подобных ра- бот, традиционно рассматриваю- щих рабочее движение в Москве и Петербурге (А. Рабинович, У. Розенберг, Д. Конкер и др.) или в контексте истории всех социаль- ных слоев одного города России (исследование Д. Рэйли о Сарато- ве). Что касается советской исто- риографии, то автор наиболее значительной работы на эту тему, В. Я. Борщевский, в отличие Фредгута, рассматривает регио- нальную специфику только с по- литической точки зрения, игно- рируя историко-географические и этнические факторы.2 В юбилей- ной историографии Октябрьской революции на Украине (1987) особо подчеркивалась слабая изу- ченность “идейного и духовного облика пролетариата” донецкого бассейна, связанная с отсутствием достоверных источников.3 Мно- гие из источников по этой про- блематике как раз и привлек Фредгут, но это произошло через несколько лет после выхода упо2 В. Я. Борщевский. Рабочий класс и Советы Донецко-Криворожского бас- сейна в Октябрьской революции. Дне- пропетровск, 1962. Ч.1-2. 3 Историография Великой Октябрьской социалистической революции на Укра- ине. Киев, 1987. С. 92. мянутого историографического издания. Roderick E. McGREW А. В. Скоробогатов. Павел Первый в российской историче- ской литературе. Казань: “Форт- Диалог”, 1999. 147 с. Among Russia's modern tsars, Paul I (1754-1801) remains significantly controversial. His murder on March 11/12,1801, has been variously laid to his violent and despotic temperament, his anti-dvorianstvo policies, the hatred he engendered among his mother's committed supporters , his military reforms (which struck at the prestigious guards regiments ), and his foreign policies which ended by making enemies of both Austria and Britain, and, through the latter, threatened the interests of both foreign and domestic trading communities. Indeed, it appeared that there was scarcely a single important constituency which Paul did not offend. On the other hand, beginning with Dmitri Miliutin 's study of the Second Coalition, another and much more favourable Рецензии 460 view of Paul emerged which reflected both new sources and new thinking . And these two competing themes carried into the Soviet period . In the monograph under review, Dr. A. V. Skorobogatov analyses the literature on Paul from the memoirists and anecdotalists of the later eighteenth century through the systematic historical studies which began to appear at the mid-point of the nineteenth century, and the burst of publications which followed the revolution of 1905. Intensive censorship and its gradual release through the nineteenth and the early twentieth century distorted Paul's historical image. His character, reign, and death were forbidden subjects until the middle of the nineteenth century, and even after they had to be handled gingerly until the revolution of 1905, and the comprehensive censorship reform of 1906. Despite the censorship, writing about Paul reflected both the developing characteristics of Russian historiography , and the ideological and political shifts occurring in a modernising then a revolutionary culture . It is this which gives Skorobogatov 's work its theme and its special interest. But there is more, for by concentrating on the issues of Paul's personality as well as the substance of his reign, Skorobogatov is able to raise both the question of how important individual personalities may be in influencing a society 's history, and how they become enmeshed with the imperatives which govern a culture's evolution. Skorobogatov also makes it clear that the actual materials available for studying a subject are themselves critical determinants in forming interpretations. In Paul's case, the relative paucity of data, and the self-interested nature of the memoirs and anecdotes available, shaped Paul's historical persona. The accounts of his murder, for example, reflected the prevailingly negative attitudes of the men responsible for his overthrow: the court aristocracy, governing bureaucrats, and army officers, and their testimony, not surprisingly, justified the conspiracies and coup. There was the conviction , for example, that Paul was literally insane (a view for which no serious medical evidence exists, though circumstantial arguments abound), and thus had to be removed to prevent him from doing further damage to the state. And other so-called raisons d'etat were adduced. His actual death, however, appears from these same accounts to have been less a planned murder than a consequence of the conspirators' profound personal hatred for this tsar intensified by alcohol and the horrible excitement of the moment. This may or may not be true. Paul alive would have been a serious embarrassment to Alexander 's government. But however this might be, the idea that Russia lost something of value when Paul died Ab Imperio, 4/2001 461 was, according to these materials, simply laughable. By contrast, there were balanced assessments of Paul's reign which, by the second decade of the twentieth century had already mined a rich vein of official documents and publications . Moreover, the mounting interest in liberal-constitutional antecedents for the revolutionary changes emerging in 1905, and a heightened sensibility to the importance of social groups and their special interests throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, framed new questions to be asked of the documentary record. Dmitri Miliutin's major work on Russia's role in the Second Coalition against France, which appeared on the eve of the Crimean War, used a wealth of primary documentation to portray Paul sympathetically as a statesman of principle who was...