Introduction

Outstanding Russian historians used to clearly imagine that historical science has general theoretical methodological problems in itself.

In the 1884/85 academic year, V.O. Klyuchevsky for the first time in Russia gave a special course “Methodology of Russian History”, heading the really original section of the first lecture as follows: “The absence of a method in our history”.

Commenting on this wording, Klyuchevsky said: “Our Russian historical literature cannot be accused of a lack of diligence - it has worked out a lot; but I will not charge her too much if I say that she herself does not know what to do with the material she has processed; she doesn’t even know if she handled it well.”

How can there be methodological concepts gleaned by historical science and corresponding criteria and approaches? Especially in conditions of zero level of development of own approaches? It is clear that only the personality, including its sociological profile, can serve as such an initial source.

What has been said about the relationship between the social concept of personality and history, with well-known far-fetched corrections (in each case, purely amazingly specific, taking into account the specifics of this science), perhaps this exists extrapolated specifically to any branch of humanitarian, social science knowledge.

The purpose of the abstract is to analyze on the basis of existing literature life and work of Russian historians during their lifetime and what they left behind.

Based on the goal, when writing the abstract, the following tasks were formulated:

1. Consider the biography of V.O. Klyuchevsky and his activities as a professor of history.

2. Consider the biography of N.M. Karamzin and his literature.

3. Consider the life, career and literary works of V.N. Tatishchev in his biography.

4. Consider the life and main works of L.N. Gumilyov.

5. Consider S.M. Solovyov as a teacher, a person with character and his contribution to the "History of Russia".

Klyuchevsky Vasily Osipovich

Biography of V.O. Klyuchevsky

Klyuchevsky Vasily Osipovich- (1841-1911), Russian historian. He was born on January 16 (28), 1841 in the village of Voskresensk (near Penza) in the family of a poor parish priest. His first teacher was his father, who died tragically in August 1850. The family was forced to move to Penza. Out of compassion for the poor widow, one of her husband's friends gave her a small house to live in. “Was anyone poorer than you and me at the time when we were left orphans in the arms of our mother,” Klyuchevsky later wrote to his sister, recalling the hungry years of childhood and adolescence. In Penza, Klyuchevsky studied at the parish theological school, then at the district theological school and at the theological seminary.

Already at school, Klyuchevsky knew the works of many historians well. In order to be able to devote himself to science (the authorities predicted for him a career as a clergyman and admission to a theological academy), he last year deliberately dropped out of the seminary and spent a year independently preparing for the entrance exams to the university. With admission to Moscow University in 1861, a new period began in the life of Klyuchevsky. F.I. Buslaev, N.S. Tikhonravov, P.M. Leontiev, and especially S.M. Soloviev became his teachers: and it is known what a pleasure it is for a young mind beginning scientific study to feel in possession of a whole view of a scientific subject.

The training time for Klyuchevsky coincided with biggest event in the life of the country - the bourgeois reforms of the early 1860s. He was an opponent extreme measures government, but did not approve of the political speeches of the students. Subject graduation essay at the university Legends of foreigners about the Muscovite state (1866), Klyuchevsky chose to study about 40 legends and notes of foreigners about Russia in the 15-17th centuries. For the essay, the graduate was awarded a gold medal and left at the department "to prepare for a professorship." Klyuchevsky's master's (candidate's) dissertation, Ancient Russian Lives of the Saints as a Historical Source (1871), is devoted to another type of medieval Russian sources. The topic was pointed out by Solovyov, who probably expected to use the secular and spiritual knowledge of the novice scientist to study the question of the participation of monasteries in the colonization of Russian lands. Klyuchevsky did a titanic work on the study of at least five thousand hagiographic lists. During the preparation of his dissertation, he wrote six independent studies, including such a major work as Economic activity Solovetsky monastery in the White Sea region (1866-1867). But the efforts expended and the result obtained did not justify the expected - the literary monotony of the lives, when the authors described the life of the heroes according to a stencil, did not allow us to establish the details of "the situation, place and time, without which there is no historical fact for the historian."

After defending his master's thesis, Klyuchevsky received the right to teach at higher educational institutions. Read a course world history at the Alexander Military School, a course of Russian history at the Moscow Theological Academy, at the Higher Women's Courses, at the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. From 1879 he taught at Moscow University, where he replaced the late Solovyov in the department of Russian history. Teaching activity brought Klyuchevsky well-deserved fame. Gifted with the ability to imaginative penetration into the past, the master artistic word, a well-known wit and author of numerous epigrams and aphorisms, in his speeches the scientist skillfully built entire galleries of portraits of historical figures that were remembered by listeners for a long time. The doctoral dissertation The Boyar Duma of Ancient Russia (first published on the pages of the Russian Thought magazine in 1880-1881) constituted a well-known stage in the work of Klyuchevsky. Subjects of subsequent scientific papers Klyuchevsky clearly indicated this new direction - the Russian ruble of the 16th-18th centuries. in its relation to the present (1884), The origin of serfdom in Russia (1885), Poll tax and the abolition of servility in Russia (1886), Eugene Onegin and his ancestors (1887), The composition of the representation at the zemstvo councils of ancient Russia (1890), etc. The most famous scientific work of Klyuchevsky, which received worldwide recognition, is the Course of Russian History in 5 parts. The scientist worked on it for more than three decades, but decided to publish it only in the early 1900s.

The main factor in Russian history, around which events unfold, Klyuchevsky called colonization: “The history of Russia is the history of a country that is being colonized. The area of ​​colonization in it expanded along with its state territory. Falling, then rising, this age-old movement continues to this day. Based on this, Klyuchevsky divided Russian history into four periods. The first period lasts approximately from the 8th to the 13th century, when the Russian population was concentrated on the middle and upper Dnieper with tributaries. Russia was then politically divided into separate cities, foreign trade dominated the economy. Within the framework of the second period (13th - mid-15th century), the bulk of the population moved to the interfluve of the upper Volga and Oka. The country was still fragmented, but no longer into cities with adjacent regions, but into princely destinies. The basis of the economy is free peasant agricultural labor. The third period continues from the middle of the 15th century. until the second decade of the 17th century, when the Russian population colonized the southeastern Don and Middle Volga chernozems; in politics, the state unification of Great Russia took place; in the economy began the process of enslavement of the peasantry. The last, fourth period until the middle of the 19th century. (more late time The course did not cover) - this is the time when "the Russian people spread throughout the plain from the Baltic and White to the Black seas, to the Caucasus Range, the Caspian and the Urals." The Russian Empire is formed, headed by autocracy, based on the military service class - the nobility. In the economy, the manufacturing industry joins the serf agricultural labor.

The scientific concept of Klyuchevsky, with all its schematism, reflected the influence of social and scientific thought of the second half of the 19th century. Isolation of the natural factor, values geographical conditions for the historical development of the people met the requirements of positivist philosophy. The recognition of the importance of questions of economic and social history was to some extent akin to Marxist approaches to the study of the past. But nevertheless, the historians of the so-called "state school" - K.D.Kavelin, S.M.Soloviev and B.N.Chicherin are closest to Klyuchevsky. “In the life of a scientist and writer, the main biographical facts are books, major events- thoughts, ”wrote Klyuchevsky. The biography of Klyuchevsky himself rarely goes beyond these events and facts. His political speeches are few and characterize him as a moderate conservative who avoided the extremes of the Black Hundred reaction, a supporter of enlightened autocracy and the imperial greatness of Russia (it is no coincidence that Klyuchevsky was chosen as a teacher of world history for Grand Duke George Alexandrovich, brother of Nicholas II). The political line of the scientist was answered by the “Eulogy” to Alexander III, pronounced in 1894 and causing indignation among the revolutionary students, and a wary attitude towards the First Russian Revolution, and an unsuccessful ballot in the spring of 1906 in the ranks of electors in the First State Duma on the cadet list. Klyuchevsky died in Moscow on May 12, 1911. He was buried in the cemetery of the Donskoy Monastery.

IN. Klyuchevsky as a historian

history literary teaching Klyuchevskiy

Klyuchevsky Vasily Osipovich- professor of Russian history at the Moscow Theological Academy and at Moscow University (in the latter - since 1879); currently ( 1895 ) is the chairman of the Moscow Society of History and Antiquities.

During the existence of the higher women's courses in Moscow, Professor Guerrier gave lectures on Russian history at them, and after the closing of these courses, he participated in public lectures organized by Moscow professors.

Not particularly numerous, but rich in content, the scholarly studies of Klyuchevsky, of which his doctoral dissertation ("Boyar Duma") stands out, are devoted primarily to clarifying the main issues of the history of management and social order Moscow state XV - XVII centuries.

The wide scope of the study, covering the most essential aspects of the life of the state and society, in their mutual connection, a rare gift of critical analysis, sometimes reaching petty, but leading to rich results, a brilliant talent for presentation - all these features of K.'s works, long recognized by special criticism, helped him to enrich the science of Russian history with a number of new and valuable generalizations and put him in one of the first places among its researchers.

The most important of the works of Klyuchevsky: "Tales of foreigners about the Moscow state" (M., 1886), "Old Russian lives of the saints, as a historical source" (M., 1871), "Boyar Duma of ancient Russia" (M., 1882), "Russian ruble of the 16th - 18th centuries in its relation to the present "(1884)," The Origin of Serfdom "(" Russian Thought ", 1885, $ 8 and 10)," Poll tax and the abolition of servility in Russia "(" Russian Thought ", 1886, $ 9 and 10), "The composition of the representation at the zemstvo councils of ancient Russia" ("Russian Thought", 1890, $ 1; 1891, $ 1; 1892, $ 1).

In addition to scientific works, Klyuchevsky published articles of a popular and journalistic nature, placing them mainly in Russkaya Mysl.

While retaining his characteristic talent for exposition, in these articles Klyuchevsky moved further and further from the scientific ground, although he tried to keep it behind him. Their distinctive feature is the nationalistic connotation of the author's views, standing in close connection with the idealization of Moscow antiquity of the 16th - 17th centuries. and an optimistic attitude towards modern Russian reality.

Such features were clearly reflected, for example, in the articles: "Eugene Onegin", "Good people of old Russia", "Two educations", "Recollection of N. I. Novikov and his time", as well as in Klyuchevsky's speech entitled: " In memory of the deceased Emperor Alexander III in Bose "(" Readings of Moscow. General. Ist. and Ancient. ", 1894 and separately, M., 1894).

Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky is a famous Russian historian, author of the Complete Course of Russian History. January 28, 2011 marks the 170th anniversary of his birth.

Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky was born on January 28, 1841 in the village of Voznesenskoye, Penza province, into the family of a poor parish priest.

In August 1850, his father died, and the family was forced to move to Penza. There Vasily Klyuchevsky studied at the parish theological school, which he graduated in 1856, then at the district theological school and at the theological seminary. From the second grade of the seminary, he gave private lessons in order to financially support his family. He was promised a career as a clergyman, but in his last year he left the seminary and spent a year preparing himself for university exams.

In 1861, Vasily Klyuchevsky entered the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University. There he listened to lectures by Boris Chicherin, Konstantin Pobedonostsev, Sergei Solovyov. The last two influenced the formation of his scientific interests.

In 1866 he defended final work"Tales of foreigners about the Muscovite state", for which he studied about 40 legends and notes of foreigners about Russia in the XV-XVII centuries. For this work, he was awarded a gold medal, received a Ph.D., and remained at the university.

In 1871, Vasily Klyuchevsky defended his master's thesis "Old Russian Lives of the Saints as a Historical Source". During the preparation of his dissertation, he wrote six independent studies. After defending his master's thesis, Klyuchevsky received the right to teach at higher educational institutions. In the same year, he was elected to the chair of Russian history at the Moscow Theological Academy, where he taught a course in Russian history.

In addition, he began teaching at the Alexander Military School, at the Higher Women's Courses, at the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. In 1879, Vasily Klyuchevsky began to lecture at Moscow University, where he replaced the deceased Sergei Solovyov in the department of Russian history.

Between 1887 and 1889 was the dean of the Faculty of History and Philology, in 1889-1890. - Rector's Assistant. Under the guidance of Klyuchevsky, six master's theses were defended. In particular, he supervised the thesis of Pyotr Milyukov (1892).

Since the 1880s Vasily Klyuchevsky was a member of the Moscow Archaeological Society, the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature, the Moscow Society of Russian History and Antiquities (chairman in 1893-1905).

In 1893-1895 on behalf of Emperor Alexander III, he taught a course of Russian history to Grand Duke Georgy Alexandrovich, who, due to tuberculosis, doctors prescribed cold mountain air, in Abas-Tuman (Georgia).

In 1894, Vasily Klyuchevsky, as chairman of the Society for Russian History and Antiquities, delivered a speech "In Memory of the late Emperor Alexander III in Bose", in which he gave a positive assessment of the emperor's activities, for which he was booed by students.

In 1900, Klyuchevsky was elected a full member of the Academy of Sciences.

From 1900 to 1911 he taught at the school of painting, sculpture and architecture in Abas-Tuman.

In 1901, Klyuchevsky was elected an ordinary academician, and in 1908 - an honorary academician of the belles-lettres category of the Academy of Sciences.

In 1905, he participated in the press commission chaired by Dmitry Kobeko and in a special meeting on the fundamental laws of the Russian Empire.

In 1904, Vasily Klyuchevsky began to publish the Complete Course of Russian History, his most famous and large-scale work, which received worldwide recognition. He has been working on this study for more than thirty years. Between 1867 and 1904 He wrote more than ten works on various issues Russian history.

In 1906, Vasily Klyuchevsky was elected a member of the State Council from the Academy of Sciences and Universities, but refused this title, because he considered that participation in the council would not allow enough freedom to discuss issues public life.

Klyuchevsky became famous as a brilliant lecturer who knew how to attract the attention of students. He maintained friendly relations with many cultural figures. Writers, composers, artists, actors turned to him for advice; in particular, Klyuchevsky helped Fyodor Chaliapin work on the role of Boris Godunov and other roles.

A wide public outcry was caused by Klyuchevsky's speech at the opening of the monument to Alexander Pushkin in 1880.

In 1991, a postage stamp dedicated to Klyuchevsky was issued in the USSR. On October 11, 2008, the first monument in Russia was erected to the outstanding historian in Penza.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources

Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky- Russian historian, professor at Moscow University, academician of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, chairman of the Imperial Society of Russian History and Antiquities, Privy Councilor.

January 28 (January 16 O.S.) 1841 Vasily Klyuchevsky was born in the Penza province, p. Voznesenskoye, in the family of a priest. When their family moved to Penza after the death of their father, Vasily entered the parish school, and in 1856 he entered the city theological seminary, which he left after 4 years, not considering a spiritual career attractive for himself. In 1861, despite financial difficulties, he moved to Moscow and became a student at Moscow University (Faculty of History and Philology), from which he graduated in 1865 from Talented young specialist left at the department of Russian history, where he is preparing to become a professor, and already in 1866 his Ph.D. thesis "The Legend of Foreigners about the Muscovite State" was published.

In 1861, Klyuchevsky began to teach himself. In 1861-1881. he read general history at the Alexander Military School. In 1871, at the Moscow Theological Academy, he was elected to the department of Russian history, which he was to occupy until 1906. From 1872 to 1888, his lectures were listened to at the Moscow Higher Women's Courses. In 1872 he defended his master's thesis "Old Russian Lives of the Saints as a Historical Source".

In 1879, Vasily Klyuchevsky was invited to Moscow University to teach a course in Russian history, in September of the same year he became an assistant professor at this educational institution. 1882 was a special year in his biography: he became an extraordinary professor at Moscow University, and his doctoral dissertation, The Boyar Duma of Ancient Russia, was published as a separate book, which later became very widely known and became the central work of the historian. In 1885, Vasily Osipovich became an ordinary professor, during 1887-1889. he is the dean of the Faculty of History and Philology and vice-rector.

In 1889, Klyuchevsky was included in the ranks of corresponding members of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in the category of historical and political sciences. In the same year, his “Short Guide to Russian History” was published (the full course was published later, in 1904, and included 4 volumes). During the years 1893-1895. student of the course of Russian history performed by V.O. Klyuchevsky was the Grand Duke Georgy Alexandrovich - such an instruction was given to the teacher by Emperor Alexander III. In 1900, Vasily Osipovich was an ordinary member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Russian history and antiquities (out of state). In 1905, the historian was officially instructed to take part in the work of the commission reviewing the laws on the press, as well as to participate in meetings on the establishment of the State Duma and the definition of its powers. In April 1906, he was elected a member of the State Council from the University Academy of Sciences, but Klyuchevsky refused the proposed title, believing that participation in this body would not provide proper freedom in discussing state problems. In 1908 he was elected an honorary academician of the Academy of Sciences in the category of fine literature.

IN. Klyuchevsky very quickly gained fame as an outstanding, original lecturer, one of the most popular among his contemporaries. His lectures on the history of Russia were distinguished by their breadth of coverage of various factors and aspects of the historical process, reliance on a large number of primary sources, and scientific analysis. All this was combined with the talent to attract and hold the attention of the audience with a masterful, vivid, memorable presentation of information. The magnificent style that distinguished Klyuchevsky's lectures, journalistic articles and scientific works (they were published mainly by the Russian Thought magazine) allowed their author to take a worthy place in the history of literature.

V.O. died. Klyuchevsky on May 25 (May 12 O.S.) 1911 in Moscow. They buried him at the Donskoy cemetery.

Biography from Wikipedia

Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky(January 16, 1841, Voskresenovka, Penza province - May 12, 1911, Moscow) - Russian historian, ordinary professor at Moscow University, Honored Professor of Moscow University; ordinary academician of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (over staff) in Russian history and antiquities (1900), chairman of the Imperial Society of Russian history and antiquities at Moscow University, Privy Councilor.

After the death of his father, the village priest Joseph Vasilyevich Klyuchevsky (1815-1850), the Klyuchevsky family moved to Penza, where Vasily studied first at the parish and then at the district theological school, after graduating from which in 1856 he entered the Penza Theological Seminary, but after a little more than four years of study expelled from it, not finishing. In 1861 he left for Moscow, where in August he entered the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University. After graduating from the university (1865), at the suggestion of S. M. Solovyov, he was left at the department of Russian history to prepare for a professorship.

Among university professors, Klyuchevsky had special influence S. V. Eshevsky (general history), S. M. Solovyov (Russian history), F. I. Buslaev (history of ancient Russian literature). PhD thesis: " »; Master's dissertation: " Ancient Russian Lives of the Saints as a Historical Source"(1871), doctoral dissertation:" Boyar Duma of Ancient Russia» (1882).

After the death of S. M. Solovyov (1879), he began to teach a course in Russian history at Moscow University. Since 1882 - professor at Moscow University. In parallel with the main place of work, he lectured at the Moscow Theological Academy and the Moscow Women's Courses organized by his friend V. I. Ger'e. In the period 1887-1889 he was the dean of the Faculty of History and Philology and vice-rector of the university.

In 1893-1895, on behalf of Emperor Alexander III, he taught a course on general history, together with Russian history, to Grand Duke Georgy Alexandrovich.

Honored Professor of Moscow University (1897). Honorary Member of Moscow University (1911).

In 1889 he was elected a corresponding member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in the category of historical and political sciences. In the same year, his “Short Guide to Russian History” was published, and already from 1904 a full course was published. A total of 4 volumes were published - until the reign of Catherine II.

In 1900 he was elected an ordinary academician of the Imperial Academy of Sciences (over staff) in Russian history and antiquities.

In 1905, Klyuchevsky received an official order to participate in the work of the Commission for the revision of laws on the press and in meetings on the project of establishing the State Duma and its powers.

On April 10, 1906, he was elected a member of the State Council from the Academy of Sciences and Universities, but soon abandoned the title because he did not find participation in the council "independent enough for free ... discussion of emerging issues of public life."
V. O. Klyuchevsky was an honorary member of the Vitebsk Scientific Archival Commission.

Grave of V. O. Klyuchevsky

V. O. Klyuchevsky is one of the leading representatives of Russian liberal historiography of the 19th-20th centuries, a supporter of the state theory, who, meanwhile, created his own original scheme of Russian history and is a recognized leader of the Moscow historical school. Among the students of V. O. Klyuchevsky are P. N. Milyukov, M. K. Lyubavsky, A. A. Kizevetter, Ya. L. Barskov, M. M. Bogoslovsky, M. N. Pokrovsky, N. A. Rozhkov, Yu. V. Gotye, A. I. Yakovlev, S. V. Bakhrushin, A. S. Khakhanov, V. N. Lyaskovskii.

Family

He was married to Anisya Mikhailovna Borodina (1837-1909). From this marriage there was a son - Boris, who graduated from the historical and law faculties of Moscow University. From July 2, 1903 to 1917, he was listed as an assistant to the barrister P. P. Korenev.

Bibliography

• « Tales of foreigners about the Muscovite state» (1866, Scan of the book)
• « Economic activity of the Solovetsky Monastery in the White Sea Territory» (1867)
• « New research on the history of ancient Russian monasteries» (review) (1869)
• « Church in relation to the mental development of ancient Russia"(review of Shchapov's book) (1870)
• « Old Russian Lives of the Saints» (1871, Scan of the book)
• « Pskov disputes» (1872)
• « The Legend of the Miracles of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God» (1878)
• « Boyar Duma of ancient Russia» (1880-1881)
• « Russian ruble XVI-XVIII centuries. in relation to the current» (1884)
• « The origin of serfdom in Russia» (1885)
• « Poll tax and the abolition of servility in Russia» (1886)
• « Eugene Onegin and his ancestors» (1887)
• "The composition of the representation at the Zemsky Sobors of Ancient Russia" (1890)
• The course of Russian history in 5 hours - (St. Petersburg, 1904−1922. - 1146 p.,,; Russian history. Full course of lectures - M., 1993.)
• historical portraits. Figures historical thought. / Comp., intro. Art. and note. V. A. Aleksandrova. - M.: Pravda Publishing House, 1991. - 624 p. -“The Significance of St. Sergius for the Russian People and State”, “Good People of Ancient Russia”, “Characteristics of Tsar Ivan the Terrible”, “Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich”, “The Life of Peter the Great Before the Beginning of the Northern War” ; I. N. Boltin, N. M. Karamzin, Sergei Mikhailovich Solovyov.
• “Aphorisms. Historical portraits and studies. Diaries." - M.: "Thought", 1993. - 416 p., 75,000 copies.
• "Old Russian Lives of the Saints as a Historical Source." - M. 1871. - 465 p.
• History of estates in Russia. Lectures. - 1886 (manuscript)

Memory

• In February 1966, Popovka Street in Penza, where the future historian spent his childhood and youth (1851-1861), was named after Klyuchevsky.
• In 1991, in Penza, in a house on Klyuchevsky Street, 66, the museum of V. O. Klyuchevsky was opened.
• In 1991, a USSR postage stamp dedicated to Klyuchevsky was issued.
• Since 1994, the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences has been awarding the Prize to them. V. O. Klyuchevsky for work in the field of national history.
• On October 11, 2008, the first monument in Russia to V. O. Klyuchevsky was erected in Penza.

January 28, 1841 (Voskresenovka village, Penza province, Russian Empire) - May 25, 1911 (Moscow, Russian Empire)



Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky - the most prominent Russian historian of the liberal trend, a "legend" of Russian historical science, ordinary professor at Moscow University, ordinary academician of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (over staff) in Russian history and antiquities (1900), chairman of the Imperial Society of Russian History and Antiquities at Moscow University, Privy Councillor.

IN. Klyuchevsky

So much has been written about V.O. Klyuchevsky that it seems completely impossible to insert even words into the grandiose memorial erected to the legendary historian in the memoirs of contemporaries, scientific monographs of fellow historians, popular articles in encyclopedias and reference books. For almost every anniversary of Klyuchevsky, entire collections of biographical, analytical, historical and journalistic materials were published dedicated to the analysis of one or another side of his work, scientific concepts, pedagogical and administrative activities within the walls of Moscow University. Indeed, largely thanks to his efforts, Russian historical science reached a completely new qualitative level already in the second half of the 19th century, which subsequently ensured the appearance of works that laid the foundations of modern philosophy and methodology of historical knowledge.

Meanwhile, in popular science literature about V.O. Klyuchevsky, and especially in modern publications on Internet resources, only general information about the biography of the famous historian is given. The characteristics of the personality of V.O. Klyuchevsky, who, of course, was one of the most outstanding, extraordinary and wonderful people of his era, the idol of more than one generation of students and teachers of Moscow University.

This neglect can be partly explained by the fact that biographical writings about Klyuchevsky (M.V. Nechkina, R.A. Kireeva, L.V. Cherepnin) were created in the 70s of the XX century, when in classical Soviet historiography the “path of the historian” was understood mainly as the process of preparing his scientific works and creative achievements . In addition, under the conditions of the dominance of the Marxist-Leninist ideology and propaganda of the advantages of the Soviet way of life, it was impossible to openly say that even under the “damned tsarism” a person from the bottom had the opportunity to become a great scientist, privy councilor, enjoy the personal favor and deep respect of the emperor and members of the tsarist families. This to some extent leveled the gains October revolution, among which, as is known, the conquest by the people of those very “equal” opportunities was declared. In addition, in all Soviet textbooks and reference literature, V.O. to class alien elements. To study the private life, to reconstruct the little-known facets of the biography of such a "hero" would never have occurred to any of the Marxist historians.

In the post-Soviet period, it was believed that the factual side of Klyuchevsky's biography had been sufficiently studied, and therefore it makes no sense to return to it. Still: in the life of a historian there are no scandalous love affairs, intrigues at work, sharp conflicts with colleagues, i.e. no "strawberries" that might interest the average reader of the Caravan of Stories magazine. This is partly true, but as a result, today the general public knows only historical anecdotes about the "secrecy" and "excessive modesty" of Professor Klyuchevsky, his maliciously ironic aphorisms, and contradictory statements, "pulled" by the authors of various near-scientific publications from personal letters and memoirs of contemporaries.

However, the modern view of the personality, private life and communications of the historian, the process of his scientific and extra-scientific creativity implies the inherent value of these objects of research as part of the “historiographic life” and the world of Russian culture as a whole. Ultimately, the life of every person is made up of relationships in the family, friendships and love relationships, home, habits, household trifles. And the fact that one of us, as a result, gets or does not get into history as a historian, writer or politician is an accident against the background of all the same “everyday little things” ...

In this article, we would like to outline the main milestones not only in the creative, but also in the personal biography of V.O. Klyuchevsky, to tell about him as about a man who made a very difficult and thorny path from the son of a provincial clergyman, a poor orphan to the heights of glory of the first historian of Russia.

V.O.Klyuchevsky: the triumph and tragedy of the "raznochinets"

Childhood and youth

IN. Klyuchevsky

IN. Klyuchevsky was born on January 16 (28), 1841 in the village of Voskresensky (Voskresenovka) near Penza, in a poor family of a parish priest. The life of the future historian began with a great misfortune - in August 1850, when Vasily was not yet ten years old, his father died tragically. He went to the market for shopping, and on the way back he got into a severe thunderstorm. The horses got scared and ran. Father Osip, having lost control, obviously fell from the wagon, lost consciousness from hitting the ground and choked on streams of water. Without waiting for his return, the family organized a search. Nine-year-old Vasily was the first to see his dead father lying in the mud on the road. From a strong shock, the boy began to stutter.

After the death of the breadwinner, the Klyuchevsky family moved to Penza, where they entered the Penza diocese. Out of compassion for the poor widow, who was left with three children, one of her husband's friends gave her a small house to live in. “Was there anyone poorer than you and me at the time when we were left orphans in the arms of our mother,” Klyuchevsky later wrote to his sister, recalling the hungry years of his childhood and adolescence.

In the theological school, where he was sent to study, Klyuchevsky stuttered so much that he burdened the teachers with this, and did not have time in many basic subjects. As an orphan, he was kept in an educational institution only out of pity. From day to day, the question could arise about the expulsion of a student due to incompetence: the school trained clergy, and a stutterer was not fit for either a priest or a sexton. Under these conditions, Klyuchevsky might not have received any education at all - his mother did not have the means to study at the gymnasium or invite tutors. Then the widow of the priest tearfully begged one of the students of the senior department to take care of the boy. History has not preserved the name of this gifted young man, who managed to make a brilliant speaker out of a timid stutterer, who subsequently gathered many thousands of student audiences for his lectures. According to the assumptions of the most famous biographer of V.O. Klyuchevsky M.V. Nechkina, he could be a seminarian Vasily Pokrovsky - the older brother of Klyuchevsky's classmate Stepan Pokrovsky. Not being a professional speech therapist, he intuitively found ways to deal with stuttering, so that it almost disappeared. Among the methods of overcoming the deficiency was the following: slowly and clearly pronounce the ends of words, even if the stress did not fall on them. Klyuchevsky did not overcome stuttering to the end, but performed a miracle - he managed to give the appearance of semantic artistic pauses to the small pauses that involuntarily appeared in his speech, which gave his words a peculiar and charming coloring. Subsequently, the disadvantage turned into a characteristic individual feature, which gave a special appeal to the historian's speech. Modern psychologists and image makers deliberately use such techniques to attract the attention of listeners, to give "charisma" to the image of a particular speaker, politician, public figure.

IN. Klyuchevsky

A long and stubborn struggle with a natural defect also contributed to the excellent diction of the lecturer Klyuchevsky. He “minted out” every sentence and “especially the endings of the words he uttered so that for an attentive listener not a single sound could be lost, not a single intonation of a soft, but unusually clear-sounding voice,” wrote his student Professor A. I. Yakovlev about the historian .

After graduating from the district religious school in 1856, V.O. Klyuchevsky entered the seminary. He had to become a priest - such was the condition of the diocese, which took on the maintenance of his family. But in 1860, having abandoned his studies at the seminary in his last year, the young man was preparing to enter Moscow University. The desperately bold decision of a nineteen-year-old youth determined his entire fate in the future. In our opinion, it testifies not so much to the perseverance of Klyuchevsky or the integrity of his nature, but to the intuition inherent in him already at a young age, which many of his contemporaries later spoke about. Even then, Klyuchevsky intuitively understands (or guesses) about his personal destiny, goes against fate in order to take exactly the place in life that will allow him to fully realize his aspirations and abilities.

One must think that the fateful decision to leave the Penza Seminary was not easy for the future historian. From the moment of submitting the application, the seminarian was deprived of the scholarship. For Klyuchevsky, who was extremely constrained in his means, the loss of even this small amount of money was very tangible, but circumstances forced him to be guided by the principle of "all or nothing." Immediately after graduating from the seminary, he could not enter the university, because he would have to accept a spiritual title and stay in it for at least four years. Therefore, it was necessary to leave the seminary as soon as possible.

The daring act of Klyuchevsky blew up the measured seminary life. The spiritual authorities objected to the expulsion of a successful student, who had actually already received an education at the expense of the diocese. Klyuchevsky motivated his application for dismissal by cramped domestic circumstances and poor health, but it was obvious to everyone in the seminary, from the director to the stoker, that this was only a formal excuse. The seminary board wrote a report to the Penza bishop, His Grace Varlaam, but he unexpectedly imposed a positive resolution: “Klyuchevsky has not yet completed the course of study and, therefore, if he does not want to be in a spiritual rank, then he can be dismissed without hindrance.” The loyalty of the official document did not quite correspond to the true opinion of the bishop. Klyuchevsky later recalled that at the December exam at the seminary, Varlaam called him a fool.

Uncle I.V. Evropeytsev (the mother's sister's husband) gave money for the journey to Moscow, encouraging his nephew to want to study at the university. Knowing that the young man feels great gratitude, but at the same time spiritual discomfort from his uncle's charity, Evropeitsev decided to cheat a little. He gave his nephew a prayer book "as a memento" with parting words to turn to this book in difficult moments of life. A large banknote was enclosed between the pages, which Klyuchevsky found already in Moscow. In one of his first letters home, he wrote: “I left for Moscow, firmly hoping in God, and then in you and myself, not counting too much on someone else’s pocket, no matter what happened to me.”

According to some biographers, the complex of personal guilt towards the mother and younger sisters left in Penza pursued the famous historian for years. As evidenced by the materials of Klyuchevsky's personal correspondence, Vasily Osipovich retained the most warm relations: always sought to help them, patronize, participate in their fate. So, thanks to the help of her brother, the elder sister Elizaveta Osipovna (in marriage - Virganskaya) was able to raise and educate her seven children, and after the death of her younger sister, Klyuchevsky accepted her two children (E.P. and P.P. Kornev) into his family and raised them.

The beginning of the way

In 1861, V.O. Klyuchevsky entered the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University. He had a difficult time: almost revolutionary passions were seething in the capitals, caused by the manifesto of February 19, 1861 on the emancipation of the peasants. The liberalization of literally all aspects of public life, Chernyshevsky's fashionable ideas about the "people's revolution", which literally hovered in the air, confused young minds.

During the years of study, Klyuchevsky tried to stay away from political disputes among the students. Most likely, he simply had neither the time nor the desire to engage in politics: he came to Moscow to study and, in addition, he had to earn money by lessons in order to support himself and help his family.

According to Soviet biographers, Klyuchevsky at one time attended the historical and philosophical circle of N.A. Ishutin, but this version is not confirmed by the currently studied materials of the historian's personal archive. They contain an indication of the fact that Klyuchevsky was a tutor of a certain high school student Ishutin. However, this "tutoring" could have taken place even before Klyuchevsky entered Moscow University. ON THE. Ishutin and D.V. Karakozov were natives of Serdobsk (Penza province); in the 1850s they studied at the 1st Penza Men's Gymnasium, and the seminarian Klyuchevsky in the same period actively worked part-time with private lessons. It is possible that Klyuchevsky renewed his acquaintance with fellow countrymen in Moscow, but the researchers did not find any reliable information about his participation in the Ishutinsk circle.

Moscow life, obviously, aroused interest, but at the same time gave rise to wariness and distrust in the soul of the young provincial. Before leaving Penza, he had never been anywhere else, revolving mainly in a spiritual environment, which, of course, made it difficult for Klyuchevsky to "adapt" to the reality of the capital. "Provinciality" and a subconscious rejection of everyday excesses, which are considered the norm in a big city, remained with V.O. Klyuchevsky for the rest of his life.

The former seminarian, no doubt, also had to go through a serious internal struggle when he moved from the religious traditions learned in the seminary and family to the scientific-positivist ones. Klyuchevsky went this way, studying the works of the founders of positivism (Comte, Mil, Spencer), the materialist Ludwig Feuerbach, in whose concept he was most attracted by the philosopher's predominant interest in ethics and the religious problem.

As evidenced by the diaries and some personal notes of Klyuchevsky, the result of the internal "rebirth" of the future historian was his constant desire to distance himself from the outside world, keeping his personal space in it, inaccessible to prying eyes. Hence the ostentatious sarcasm noted by contemporaries, Klyuchevsky's sarcastic skepticism, his desire to act in public, convincing others of his own "complexity" and "closedness".

In 1864-1865, Klyuchevsky completed a course of study at the university with the defense of his candidate's essay "Tales of Foreigners about the Muscovite State". The problem was posed under the influence of Professor F.I. Buslaev. The candidate essay received a very appreciated, and Klyuchevsky was left at the department as a scholarship holder to prepare for a professorship.

Work on the master's thesis "Lives of the Saints as a Historical Source" dragged on for six years. Since Vasily Osipovich could not remain a scholarship holder, at the request of his teacher and mentor S.M. Solovyov, he got a job as a tutor at the Alexander Military School. Here he worked from 1867 for sixteen years. Since 1871, he replaced S.M. Solovyov in teaching the course of a new general history at this school.

Family and personal life

In 1869, V.O. Klyuchevsky married Anisya Mikhailovna Borodina. This decision was a real surprise, both for relatives and for the bride herself. Klyuchevsky initially courted the younger Borodin sisters, Anna and Nadezhda, but proposed to Anisya, who was three years older than him (she was already thirty-two at the time of the wedding). At this age, the girl was considered "centuries" and practically could not count on marriage.

Boris and Anisya Mikhailovna Klyuchevsky, probably with their dogs, named V.O. Klyuchevsky Grosh and Kopek. Not earlier than 1909

It's no secret that among the creative intelligentsia, long-term marriage unions, as a rule, are based on the relationship of like-minded people. The wife of a scientist, writer, famous publicist usually acts as a permanent secretary, critic, and even invisible to the public generator of ideas of her creative "half". Little is known about the relationship of the Klyuchevsky spouses, but, most likely, they were very far from a creative union.

In the correspondence of 1864, Klyuchevsky affectionately called his bride "Niksochka", "confidant of my soul." But, what is noteworthy, in the future, no correspondence between the spouses was recorded. Even during the departures of Vasily Osipovich from home, he, as a rule, asked his other addressees to transfer information about himself to Anisya Mikhailovna. At the same time, for many years Klyuchevsky carried on a lively friendly correspondence with his wife's sister, Nadezhda Mikhailovna Borodina. And the drafts of old letters to his other sister-in-law, Anna Mikhailovna, according to his son, Vasily Osipovich carefully kept and hid among the “Penza papers”.

Most likely, the relationship of the Klyuchevsky spouses was built exclusively in the personal, family and household plane, remaining such throughout their lives.

The home secretary of V.O. Klyuchevsky, his interlocutor and assistant in work was the only son Boris. For Anisya Mikhailovna, although she often attended her husband's public lectures, the sphere of scientific interests of the famous historian remained alien and largely incomprehensible. As P. N. Milyukov recalled, during his visits to the Klyuchevskys' house, Anisya Mikhailovna only acted as a hospitable hostess: she poured tea, treated the guests, without participating in any way in the general conversation. Vasily Osipovich himself, who often attended various unofficial receptions and journalism, never took his wife with him. Perhaps Anisia Mikhailovna did not have a penchant for secular pastime, but, most likely, Vasily Osipovich and his wife did not want to cause themselves unnecessary worries and put each other in an uncomfortable situation. Mrs. Klyuchevskaya could not be imagined at an official banquet or in the company of her husband's scientific colleagues, arguing in a smoky home office.

There are cases when unfamiliar visitors mistook Anisya Mikhailovna for a servant in a professor's house: even outwardly she resembled an ordinary bourgeois housewife or priest. The historian's wife was reputed to be a homebody, she managed the house and household, solving all the practical issues of family life. Klyuchevsky himself, like any person passionate about his ideas, was more helpless than a child in everyday trifles.

All her life, A.M. Klyuchevskaya remained a deeply religious person. In conversations with friends, Vasily Osipovich often ironically spoke about his wife's addiction to "sports" trips to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, which was far from their home, although there was another small church nearby. In one of these "campaigns" Anisia Mikhailovna became ill, and when she was brought home, she died.

Nevertheless, on the whole, it seems that for many years of their life together, the Klyuchevsky spouses maintained a deep personal attachment and almost dependence on each other. Vasily Osipovich took the death of his “half” very hard. Student of Klyuchevsky S.B. Veselovsky these days in a letter to a comrade wrote that after the death of his wife, old Vasily Osipovich (he was already 69 years old) and his son Boris "remained orphaned, helpless, like small children."

And when in December 1909 the long-awaited fourth volume of the “Course of Russian History” appeared, before the text on separate page there was an inscription: "In memory of Anisia Mikhailovna Klyuchevskaya († March 21, 1909)".

In addition to his son Boris (1879-1944), Vasily Osipovich's niece, Elizaveta Korneva (? -01/09/1906), lived in the Klyuchevsky family as a pupil. When Lisa got a fiancé, V.O. Klyuchevsky did not like him, and the guardian began to interfere with their relationship. Despite the disapproval of the whole family, Lisa left home, got married in a hurry, and soon after the wedding she died "of consumption." The death of his niece was especially hard for Vasily Osipovich, who loved her like his own daughter.

Professor Klyuchevsky

In 1872 V.O. Klyuchevsky successfully defended his master's thesis. In the same year, he took the chair of history at the Moscow Theological Academy and held it for 36 years (until 1906). In the same years, Klyuchevsky began teaching at the Higher Women's Courses. Since 1879 - lectured at Moscow University. At the same time, he was finishing his doctoral dissertation "The Boyar Duma of Ancient Russia" and in 1882 he defended it at the university department. Since that time, Klyuchevsky became a professor at four educational institutions.

His lectures were very popular among the student youth. Not only students of historians and philologists, for whom, in fact, the course of Russian history was read, were his listeners. Mathematicians, physicists, chemists, physicians - all sought to break into Klyuchevsky's lectures. According to contemporaries, they literally devastated audiences at other faculties; many students came to the university early in the morning to take a seat and wait for the “desired hour”. The listeners were attracted not so much by the content of the lectures as by the aphoristic, lively presentation of even already known material by Klyuchevsky. The democratic image of the professor himself, so atypical for the university environment, also could not but arouse the sympathy of the student youth: everyone wanted to listen to "their" historian.

Soviet biographers tried to explain the extraordinary success lecture course V.O.Klyuchevsky in the 1880s with his desire to "please" the revolutionary-minded student audience. According to M.V. Nechkina, in his very first lecture, delivered on December 5, 1879, Klyuchevsky put forward the slogan of freedom:

“The text of this particular lecture, unfortunately, did not reach us, but the memories of the listeners have been preserved. Klyuchevsky, writes one of them, “believed that Peter's reforms did not produce the desired results; in order for Russia to become rich and powerful, freedom was needed. Didn't see her Russia XVIII century. Hence, Vasily Osipovich concluded, and her state weakness.

Nechkina M.V. “The lecture skill of V.O. Klyuchevsky"

In other lectures, Klyuchevsky spoke ironically about the empresses Elizabeth Petrovna, Catherine II, colorfully characterized the era of palace coups:

“For reasons known to us ... - a university student of Klyuchevsky recorded a lecture in 1882, - after Peter the Great, the Russian throne became a toy for adventurers, for random people, often unexpectedly for themselves, who entered it ... Many miracles happened on the Russian throne from the death of Peter the Great, - there were on it ... both childless widows and unmarried mothers of families, but there was still no buffoon; probably, the game of chance was aimed at filling this gap in our history. The buffoon has come."

It was about Petre III. So from the university department no one has yet spoken about the house of the Romanovs.

From all this, Soviet historians drew a conclusion about the anti-monarchist and anti-noble position of the historian, which almost made him related to the revolutionary regicides S. Perovskaya, Zhelyabov and other radicals who wanted to change the existing order at all costs. However, the historian V.O. Klyuchevsky did not even think about anything like that. His "liberalism" clearly fit into the framework of what was permitted in the era government reforms 1860-70s. The “historical portraits” of kings, emperors and other prominent rulers of antiquity, created by V.O. Klyuchevsky, are only a tribute to historical authenticity, an attempt to objectively present monarchs as ordinary people who are not alien to any human weaknesses.

The venerable scientist V.O. Klyuchevsky was elected dean of the historical and philological faculty of Moscow University, vice-rector, chairman of the Society of Russian History and Antiquities. He was appointed teacher of the son of Alexander III, Grand Duke George, was repeatedly invited to walk with the royal family, and had conversations with the sovereign and empress Maria Feodorovna. However, in 1893-1894, Klyuchevsky, despite the emperor’s personal disposition towards him, categorically refused to write a book about Alexander III. Most likely, this was neither a whim of the historian, nor a manifestation of his opposition to power. Klyuchevsky did not see the talent of a flattering publicist, and for a historian to write about the still living or just deceased “next” emperor is simply not interesting.

In 1894, he, as chairman of the Society of Russian History and Antiquities, had to deliver a speech "In Memory of the late Emperor Alexander III in Bose." In this speech, a liberal-minded historian, in a human way, sincerely regretted the death of the sovereign, with whom he often communicated during his lifetime. For this speech, Klyuchevsky was booed by students who saw in the behavior of their beloved professor not grief for the deceased, but unforgivable conformism.

In the mid-1890s, Klyuchevsky continued his research work, publishing A Brief Guide to New History, the third edition of the Boyar Duma of Ancient Russia. Six of his students defend dissertations.

In 1900, Klyuchevsky was elected to the Imperial Academy of Sciences. Since 1901, according to the rules, he resigns, but remains to teach at the university and the Theological Academy.

In 1900-1910, he began to give lectures at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, where many outstanding artists were his students. F.I. Chaliapin wrote in his memoirs that Klyuchevsky helped him understand the image of Boris Godunov before a benefit performance at the Bolshoi Theater in 1903. The memoirs of the famous singer about the famous historian also repeatedly talk about Klyuchevsky's artistry, his extraordinary talent to attract the attention of the viewer and listener, the ability to "get used to the role" and fully reveal the character of the chosen character.

Since 1902, Vasily Osipovich has been preparing for publication the main brainchild of his life - The Course of Russian History. This work was interrupted only in 1905 by trips to St. Petersburg to participate in commissions on the law on the press and the status of the State Duma. The liberal position of Klyuchevsky complicated his relationship with the leadership of the Theological Academy. In 1906, Klyuchevsky resigned and was fired, despite student protests.

According to the assurances of the Cadets historians P.N. In 1905, at a meeting in Peterhof, he did not support the idea of ​​a "noble" constitution for the future "Octobrists", and agreed to run for the State Duma as a deputy from Sergiev Posad. In fact, despite all the curtsies from the leaders of the barely born political parties, V.O. Klyuchevsky was not interested in politics at all.

Quite fierce disputes arose among Soviet historians about Klyuchevsky's "party affiliation". M.V. Nechkina unequivocally (following Milyukov) considered Klyuchevsky an ideological and actual member of the People's Freedom Party (KD). However, Academician Yu.V. Gautier, who personally knew the historian in those years, argued that the “old man” was almost forcibly forced to run for the Duma from this party by his son Boris, and “it is impossible to make a Cadet figure out of Klyuchevsky.”

In the same polemic with Nechkina, the following phrase was also heard by Yu.V. Gauthier: “Klyuchevsky was in regard to character and social activities real wet chicken. I told him so. He had will only in his works, but in life he had no will ... Klyuchevsky was always under someone's shoe.

The question of the actual participation or non-participation of the historian in the affairs of the Cadet Party has lost its relevance today. His deputyship in the State Duma did not take place, but, unlike P.N. Milyukov and Co., it did not matter for Klyuchevsky: the scientist always had something to do and where to realize his oratorical talent.

"The course of Russian history" and the historical concept of V.O. Klyuchevsky

Along with the special course "History of Estates in Russia" (1887), studies on social topics ("The Origin of Serfdom in Russia", "The Poll Tax and the Abolition of Serfdom in Russia", "The Composition of the Representation at Zemsky Sobors of Ancient Russia"), the history culture of the 18th and 19th centuries. and others, Klyuchevsky created the main work of his life - "The Course of Russian History" (1987-1989. T.I - 5). It is in it that the concept of the historical development of Russia according to V.O. Klyuchevsky is presented.

Most contemporary historians believed that V.O. Klyuchevsky, as a student of S.M. Solovyov, only continues to develop the concept of the state (legal) school in Russian historiography in the new conditions. In addition to the influence of the state school, the influence on the views of Klyuchevsky of his other university teachers - F.I. Buslaeva, S.V. Eshevsky and figures of the 1860s. - A.P. Shchapova, N.A. Ishutin, etc.

At one time, Soviet historiography made a completely unreasonable attempt to “divorce” the views of S.M. Solovyov as an “apologist for autocracy” and V.O. Klyuchevsky, who stood on liberal-democratic positions (M.V. Nechkin). A number of historians (V.I. Picheta, P.P. Smirnov) saw the main value of Klyuchevsky's works in an attempt to give a history of society and people in its dependence on economic and political conditions.

In modern research, the view of V.O. Klyuchevsky not only as a successor of the historical and methodological traditions of the state (legal) school prevails (K.D. Kavelin, B.N. Chicherin, T.N. Granovsky, S.M. Soloviev) , but also the creator of a new, most promising direction based on the "sociological" method.

Unlike the first generation of "statists", Klyuchevsky considered it necessary to introduce social and economic factors as independent forces of historical development. The historical process in his view is the result of the continuous interaction of all factors (geographical, demographic, economic, political, social). The task of the historian in this process is not to build global historical schemes, but to constantly identify the specific relationship of all the above factors at each specific moment of development.

In practice, the "sociological method" meant for V.O. Klyuchevsky, a thorough study of the degree and nature of the country's economic development, closely related to the natural and geographical environment, as well as a detailed analysis of the social stratification of society at each stage of development and the relationships that arise within individual social groups (he often called them classes). As a result, the historical process took over from V.O. Klyuchevsky has more voluminous and dynamic forms than those of his predecessors or contemporaries like V.I. Sergeevich.

Your understanding general course Russian history V.O. Klyuchevsky most concisely presented in periodization, in which he singled out four qualitatively different stages:

8th-13th centuries - Russia Dnieper, urban, commercial;

XIII - the middle of the XV century. - Russia of the Upper Volga, specific princely, free-farming;

mid-15th - second decade of the 17th century - Russia Great, Moscow, tsarist-boyar, military-landowning;

early 17th - mid 19th centuries - the period of the all-Russian, imperial-noble, the period of serfdom, agricultural and factory economy.

Already in his doctoral dissertation “The Boyar Duma of Ancient Russia”, which, in fact, was a detailed social portrait of the boyar class, the novelty that V.O. Klyuchevsky contributed to the traditions of the public school.

In the context of the divergence of interests of the autocratic state and society that sharply emerged at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, Klyuchevsky revised the views of his teacher Solovyov on the entire two-century period of the new history of the country, thereby crossing out the results of the last seventeen volumes of his History of Russia and the political program of the domestic pre-reform period built on them. liberalism. On these grounds, a number of researchers (in particular, A. Shakhanov) conclude that it is impossible to attribute Klyuchevsky to the state school in Russian historiography.

But it's not. Klyuchevsky only announces " new history”, actualizes the sociological orientation historical research. In fact, he did what most appealed to the needs of the younger generation of historians of the 1880s: he announced the rejection of schemes or goals proposed from outside, both Western and Slavophile. The students wanted to study Russian history as scientific problem, and Klyuchevsky's "sociological method" gave them such an opportunity. Pupils and followers of Klyuchevsky (P. Milyukov, Yu. Gauthier, A. Kizevetter, M. Bogoslovsky, N. A. Rozhkov, S. Bakhrushin, A. I. Yakovlev, Ya. L. Barskov) are often called "neo-statesmen", t .to. in their constructions they used the same multifactorial approach of the state school, expanding and supplementing it with cultural, sociological, psychological and other factors.

In The Course of Russian History, Klyuchevsky already gave a holistic presentation of Russian history on the basis of his sociological method. Like none of the historical works of the public school, V.O. Klyuchevsky went far beyond the framework of a purely educational publication, turning into a fact not only of scientific, but also of the social life of the country. An expanded understanding of the multifactorial nature of the historical process, combined with the traditional postulates of the state school, made it possible to bring to its logical limit the concept of the Russian historical process, which was laid down by S.M. Solovyov. In this sense, the work of V.O. Klyuchevsky became a milestone for the development of all historical science in Russia: he completed the tradition of the 19th century and at the same time anticipated the innovative searches that the 20th century brought with it.

Assessment of the personality of V.O. Klyuchevsky in the memoirs of contemporaries

Figure V.O. Klyuchevsky’s work was already surrounded by a halo of “myths”, all sorts of anecdotes and a priori judgments during his lifetime. Even today, the problem of a clichéd perception of the personality of a historian remains, which, as a rule, is based on the subjective negative characteristics of P. N. Milyukov and the caustic aphorisms of Klyuchevsky himself, which are widely available to the reader.

P.N. Milyukov, as you know, quarreled with V.O. Klyuchevsky even in the process of preparing his master's thesis on the reforms of Peter I. The dissertation was enthusiastically received by the scientific community, but V.O. Klyuchevsky, using his unquestioned authority, bowed the academic council university not to award for it doctoral degree. He advised Milyukov to write another dissertation, noting that "science will only benefit from this." The future leader of the cadets was mortally offended and subsequently, without going into details and the true reasons for such an attitude of the teacher to his work, he reduced everything to the complexity of character, selfishness and "mysteriousness" of V.O. Klyuchevsky, or, more simply, to envy. Everything in life was not easy for Klyuchevsky himself, and he did not tolerate someone else's quick success.

In a letter dated July 29, 1890, Milyukov writes that Klyuchevsky “It’s hard and boring to live in the world. Glory greater than he has achieved, he can not get. He can hardly live with love for science with his skepticism ... Now he is recognized, secured; every word he is caught with greed; but he is tired, and most importantly, he does not believe in science: there is no fire, no life, no passion for scientific work - and for this reason alone, there is no school and students..

In the conflict with Milyukov, obviously, two remarkable vanities clashed in the scientific field. Only Klyuchevsky still loved science more than himself in science. His school and his students developed ideas and multiplied the merits of the scientist many times over - this is an indisputable fact. The older generation fellow historians, as you know, supported Klyuchevsky in this confrontation. And not only because at that time he already had a name and fame. Without Klyuchevsky, there would be no Milyukov as a historian, and what is especially sad to realize is that without a conflict with the almighty Klyuchevsky, perhaps Milyukov as a politician would not have happened. Of course, there would be other people who want to shake the building of Russian statehood, but if Milyukov had not joined them, not only historical science, but also the history of Russia as a whole would have benefited from this.

Often, memories of Klyuchevsky as a scientist or lecturer smoothly flow into a psychological analysis or characteristics of his personality. Apparently, his person was such a bright event in the life of his contemporaries that this topic could not be avoided. Excessive causticity, isolation of character, distance of the scientist was noticed by many contemporaries. But it must be understood that different people Klyuchevsky could have been allowed to approach him at different distances. Everyone who wrote about Klyuchevsky, one way or another, directly or in context, indicated his degree of proximity to the scientist's personal space. This was the reason for various, often directly opposite, interpretations of his behavior and character traits.

Klyuchevsky's contemporaries (including S. B. Veselovsky, V. A. Maklakov, A. E. Presnyakov) in their memoirs decisively refute the myth of his "complexity and mystery", "selfishness", "figuration", constant desire to "play to the public”, trying to protect the historian from quick and superficial characterizations.

Vasily Osipovich was a man of a subtle psychological make-up, endowing with a personal emotional coloring all the phenomena of life, his attitude towards people, and even his lectures. P. N. Milyukov compares his psyche with a very sensitive measuring apparatus, which is in constant fluctuation. According to Milyukov, it was rather difficult for such a person as his teacher to establish even ordinary everyday relationships.

If we turn to the diaries of a historian of different years, then, first of all, the researcher is struck by deep self-reflection, the desire to elevate his inner experiences above the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Quite often there are records testifying to a misunderstanding by contemporaries, as it seemed to Klyuchevsky himself, of his inner peace. He closes himself, seeks revelations in himself, in nature, away from the bustle of modern society, the values ​​and way of life of which, by and large, he does not fully understand and does not accept.

It must be admitted that the generations of the rural clergy, having absorbed the habits of a simple and unpretentious, low-income life, left a special imprint on the appearance of Klyuchevsky and his way of life. As M.V. Nechkin:

“... For a long time he could have proudly carried his fame, felt famous, loved, irreplaceable, but there is not even a shadow of high self-esteem in his behavior, on the contrary - an underlined disregard for fame. From the applause, he "gloomy and annoyed waved."

In the Moscow house of the Klyuchevskys, the atmosphere traditional for the old capital reigned: the visitor was struck by old-fashioned “homespun rugs” and similar “petty-bourgeois elements”. Vasily Osipovich agreed extremely reluctantly to the numerous requests of his wife and son to improve their life, for example, such as buying new furniture.

Klyuchevsky, as a rule, received visitors who came to him in the dining room. Only when he was in a good mood, invited to the table. Sometimes his colleagues, professors, came to visit Vasily Osipovich. In such cases, “he ordered a small decanter of pure vodka, herring, cucumbers, then a beluga appeared,” although in general Klyuchevsky was very thrifty. (Bogoslovsky, M. M. “From the memories of V. O. Klyuchevsky”).

Klyuchevsky went to lectures at the university only in cheap cabs (“vankas”), fundamentally avoiding the dandy cabs of Moscow “reckless drivers”. On the way, the professor often had lively conversations with the "vankas" - yesterday's village boys and men. On his own business, Klyuchevsky moved on a "wretched Moscow horse", and "climbed onto the imperial." Konka, as one of his students A.I. Yakovlev recalls, was different then endless downtime almost at every turn. Klyuchevsky went to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra to teach at the Theological Academy twice a week railway, but always in the third class, in a crowd of pilgrims.

I. A. Artobolevsky said: “The well-known rich woman Morozova, with whose son Klyuchevsky once worked, offered him a carriage and“ two drawbar horses “as a present”. “Still, I refused... Excuse me, does it really suit me?... Wouldn’t I be ridiculous in such a carriage?! In borrowed plumes..."

Another famous anecdote about a professor's fur coat, cited in the monograph by M.V. Nechkina:

“The famous professor, no longer constrained by a lack of money, walked around in an old, worn fur coat. “Why don’t you get yourself a new fur coat, Vasily Osipovich? All rubbed out, ”friends noticed. - “In the face and a fur coat,” Klyuchevsky answered laconically.

The notorious "frugality" of the professor, of course, testified not at all to his natural stinginess, low self-esteem, or desire to shock others. On the contrary, it speaks only of his inner, spiritual freedom. Klyuchevsky was used to doing what was convenient for him, and he was not going to change his habits for the sake of external conventions.

Having crossed the line of his fiftieth birthday, Klyuchevsky fully retained his incredible ability to work. She impressed his younger students. One of them recalls how, after working long hours with the youth late in the evening and at night, Klyuchevsky appeared at the department fresh and fresh in the morning. full of energy while the students were barely on their feet.

Of course, he sometimes fell ill, complained now of a sore throat, then of a cold, he began to be annoyed by the drafts blowing through lecture hall in Guerrier's courses, it happened that his teeth ached. But he called his health iron and was right. Not really observing the rules of hygiene (he worked at night, not sparing his eyes), he created an original aphorism about her: “Hygiene teaches how to be a chain dog of your own health.” There was another saying about work: "Whoever is not able to work 16 hours a day, he had no right to be born and must be eliminated from life, as a usurper of being." (Both aphorisms are from the 1890s.)

The memory of Klyuchevsky, like that of any failed clergyman, was amazing. Once, while climbing the pulpit for a report at some public scientific celebration, he stumbled on a step and dropped the sheets of his notes. They fanned out on the floor, their order was fundamentally disrupted. The sheets were once again mixed during the collection by the students who rushed to the aid of the professor. Everyone was excited about the fate of the report. Only Klyuchevsky's wife Anisya Mikhailovna, who was sitting in the forefront, remained completely calm: “He will read, read, he remembers everything by heart,” she calmly reassured her neighbors. And so it happened.

A very distinct "beady", perhaps even smaller than beads, handwriting, notes with a sharply sharpened pencil for a long time testified to the historian's good eyesight. Reading his archival manuscripts is not hindered by handwriting - it is impeccable, but by a pencil that has worn out from time to time. Only in last years During his life, Klyuchevsky's handwriting became larger, with the predominant use of pen and ink. “To be able to write legibly is the first rule of politeness,” says one of the aphorisms of the historian. On his desk he did not have any massive inkwell on a marble board, but a five-kopeck vial of ink, where he dipped his pen, as once in his seminary years.

In the memoirs dedicated to the historian, the question of whether he was happily married is not discussed at all. This spicy side privacy, or was deliberately kept silent by his acquaintances, or was hidden from prying eyes. As a result, Klyuchevsky's relationship with his wife, reflected only in correspondence with relatives or in extremely rare memoirs of family friends, remains not entirely certain.

It is not without reason that a memoir theme stands out against this background, characterizing Klyuchevsky's attitude towards the fair sex. The respected professor, while maintaining the image of a trustworthy family man, managed to acquire the fame of a gallant gentleman and ladies' man.

Maria Golubtsova, the daughter of a friend of Klyuchevsky, a teacher at the Theological Academy, A.P. Golubtsov, recalls such a “funny scene”. Vasily Osipovich, having come to Easter, was not averse to "Christening" with her. But the little girl unceremoniously refused him. "The first woman who refused to kiss me!"- said, laughing, Vasily Osipovich to her father. Even on a walk in the mountains with Prince George and all his "brilliant company", Klyuchevsky did not fail to attract female attention to his person. Disappointed that he was given an old, old lady-in-waiting as a companion, he decided to take revenge: Klyuchevsky shocked the company by picking an edelweiss growing over the very cliff, and presented it to his lady. “On the way back, everyone surrounded me, and even the youngest young ladies walked with me,” the professor reported, pleased with his trick.

Klyuchevsky taught at the Higher Women's Courses, and here the elderly professor was pursued by a mass of enthusiastic admirers who literally idolized him. At the university, even during the time of the ban on girls attending university lectures, its female audience was constantly growing. The hostesses of the most famous Moscow salons often competed with each other, wanting to see Klyuchevsky at all their evenings.

There was something chivalrous and at the same time detached in the attitude of the historian towards women - he was ready to serve them and admire them, but, most likely, disinterestedly: only as a gallant gentleman.

One of the few women with whom Klyuchevsky maintained a trusting, even friendly relationship for many years was the sister of his wife, already mentioned by us, Nadezhda Mikhailovna. Vasily Osipovich willingly invited his sister-in-law to visit, corresponded with her, and became the godfather of her pupil. The different characters of these people, most likely, were united by a predilection for witty humor and intellectual irony. V. O. Klyuchevsky gave Nadezhda Mikhailovna an invaluable gift - he gave his “black book” with a collection of aphorisms. Almost all the aphorisms now attributed to the historian are known and remembered only thanks to this book. It contains many dedications to a woman and, perhaps, therefore, after the death of Klyuchevsky, the memoirists involuntarily focused on the topic of his “out-of-family” relations with the fair sex.

Speaking about the appearance of Klyuchevsky, many contemporaries noted that he "in his appearance was unenviable ... not respectable." From the famous photograph of 1890, a typical “common citizen” is looking at us: an elderly, tired, slightly ironic person who does not care too much about his appearance with the appearance of a parish priest or deacon. Modest requests and habits, Klyuchevsky's ascetic appearance, on the one hand, distinguished him from the environment of university professors, on the other hand, they were typical of raznochinny Moscow inhabitants or visiting provincials. But as soon as Vasily Osipovich started a conversation with someone, and “some kind of incomprehensible magnetic force, forcing, somehow involuntarily, to love him. He did not imitate anyone and did not resemble anyone, "it was created in all original". (Memoirs of the priest A. Rozhdestvensky. Memories of V. O. Klyuchevsky // Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky. Biographical sketch ... P. 423.)

The person of Klyuchevsky was also interesting due to his extraordinary sense of humor: "He sparkled like fireworks with sparkles of wit". As you know, the bright images of Klyuchevsky's lectures were prepared by him in advance and even repeated from year to year, which was noted by his students and colleagues. But, at the same time, they were always refreshed by "fast and accurate as a shot" improvisation. At the same time, "the charm of his witticisms was that in each of them, along with a completely unexpected comparison of concepts, a very subtle thought always lurked." (Bogoslovsky, M. M. “From the memories of V. O. Klyuchevsky”.)

Klyuchevsky's sharp tongue did not spare anyone, hence his reputation as "an incorrigible skeptic who does not recognize any shrines." At first glance, he could easily come across as selfish and evil. But this impression, of course, was wrong - P. N. Milyukov and A. N. Savin justified it: “The Mask of Mephistopheles” was designed to keep outsiders out of the holy of holies of his sensitive soul. Entering a new and diverse social environment, Klyuchevsky had to develop the habit of wearing this mask as a "protective shell", perhaps thereby misleading many of his colleagues and contemporaries. Perhaps with the help of this "shell" the historian tried to win back his right to inner freedom.

Klyuchevsky communicated with almost all the scientific, creative and political elite of his time. He attended both official receptions and informal zhurfixes, and simply liked to visit colleagues and acquaintances. He always left the impression of an interesting interlocutor, a pleasant guest, a gallant gentleman. But the most intimate friends, according to the recollections of relatives, for Klyuchevsky remained simple people, mostly clergy. For example, one could often find an assistant librarian of the Theological Academy, Hieromonk Raphael, with him. The hieromonk was a great original and a very kind person (nephews or seminarians always lived in his cell). Father Raphael knew scholarly works only by the titles and color of the spines of the books, and besides, he was extremely ugly, but he liked to show off his scholarship and former beauty. Klyuchevsky always joked with him and especially liked to ask why he did not marry. To which he was answered: “Yes, you know, brother, as soon as he graduated from the seminary, so we have brides, brides, passion. And I used to run away to the garden, lie down between the ridges, and I lie, but they are looking for me. I was handsome back then." “The traces of the former beauty are still noticeable,” Klyuchevsky agreed with good irony.

Arriving on holidays in Sergiev Posad, the professor liked, along with the townspeople boys and girls, to take part in folk festivals, ride a carousel.

Obviously, in such communication, the eminent historian was looking for the simplicity so familiar to him since childhood, which was so lacking in the prim academic environment and the metropolitan society. Here Klyuchevsky could feel free, not put on “masks”, not play “scientific professor”, be himself.

The value of the personality of V.O. Klyuchevsky

The value of the personality of V. O. Klyuchevsky for his contemporaries was enormous. He was highly regarded as a professional historian, valued as outstanding, talented person. Many students and followers saw in him a source of morality, instructiveness, kindness, sparkling humor.

But those who communicated with V.O. Klyuchevsky in an informal setting were often repelled in him by his excessive (sometimes unjustified) frugality, scrupulousness in trifles, unassuming, “petty-bourgeois” home environment, sharp language and at the same time - wastefulness in emotions, restraint, isolation of character.

The outstanding talent of a researcher and analyst, courage in judgments and conclusions inherent in V.O. Klyuchevsky would hardly have allowed him to make a successful career as a clergyman. Having applied all these qualities in the scientific field, the provincial priest actually caught the “bird of luck” by the tail, for which he came from Penza to Moscow. He became the most famous historian of Russia, a venerable scientist, academician, "general" of science, a person of all-Russian and even world scale. Nevertheless, V.O. Klyuchevsky did not feel like a triumph. Having lived almost his entire conscious life in isolation from the environment that raised him, he still tried to remain true to his real self, at least in the family way of life, habits. For some contemporaries, this caused bewilderment and ridicule at the "eccentricities" of Professor Klyuchevsky, others made them talk about his "contradiction", "complexity", "egoism".

This global contradiction of mind and heart, in our opinion, was the triumph and tragedy of many famous people Russia, who emerged from the environment of the “raznochintsy” and entered a society where, by and large, the traditions of noble culture still prevailed. Klyuchevsky turned out to be an iconic figure in this regard.

IN. Klyuchevsky

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, a plain-looking man, resembling a deacon of a provincial church, in an old fur coat and with spots on his official uniform, was the "face" of Moscow University, an ordinary academician of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, a teacher of the royal children.

This fact largely testifies to a change in external priorities and the democratization of not only Russian society, but also domestic science generally.

As a scientist V.O. Klyuchevsky did not make a global revolution in the theory or methodology of historical science. By and large, he only developed and brought to a new qualitative level the ideas of the “state” historical school of Moscow University. But the very image of Professor Klyuchevsky broke all the hitherto existing stereotypes of the appearance of a famous scientist, a successful lecturer and, in general, an “educated person”, as a bearer of noble culture. Intuitively not wanting to adapt, adjust to external conventions, at least in everyday life and behavior, the historian Klyuchevsky contributed to the introduction of a fashion for democracy, freedom of personal expression and, most importantly, spiritual freedom into the metropolitan academic environment, without which it is impossible to form a social "stratum" called the intelligentsia.

Students loved Professor Klyuchevsky not at all for his shabby fur coat or his ability to artistically tell historical anecdotes. They saw in front of them a man who turned time before their eyes, who by his example bridged the gap between the history of the Fatherland as a tool for educating loyal patriotism and history as a subject of knowledge accessible to every researcher.

During forty years of inflamed public passions, the historian was able to "pick up the key" to any - spiritual, university, military - audience, captivating and captivating everywhere, never arousing the suspicion of the authorities and various authorities in anything.

That is why, in our opinion, V.O. Klyuchevsky - a scientist, artist, artist, master - was erected not only by contemporaries, but also by descendants to the high pedestal of the coryphaeus of Russian historical science. Like N.M. Karamzin in early XIX century, at the beginning of the XX century, he gave his compatriots the history that they wanted to know at that very moment, thus drawing a line under all previous historiography and looking into the distant future.

V.O. Klyuchevsky died on May 12 (25), 1911 in Moscow, was buried in the cemetery of the Donskoy Monastery.

Memory and descendants

The memorization of the cultural space in Moscow associated with the name of Klyuchevsky was actively developed already in the first years after his death. A few days after the death of V. O. Klyuchevsky, in May 1911, the Moscow City Duma received a statement from the vowel N. A. Shamin about "the need to perpetuate the memory of the famous Russian historian V. O. Klyuchevsky." Based on the results of the meetings of the Duma, it was decided from 1912 to establish a scholarship at the Moscow Imperial University "in memory of V. O. Klyuchevsky." The personal scholarship of Klyuchevsky was also established by the Moscow Higher Women's Courses, where the historian taught.

At the same time, Moscow University announced a competition to provide memoirs of V.O. Klyuchevsky.

Boris Klyuchevsky in childhood

In the house on Zhitnaya Street, where Vasily Osipovich lived in recent years, his son, Boris Klyuchevsky, planned to open a museum. The library remained here, the personal archive of V.O. Klyuchevsky, his personal belongings, a portrait by the artist V.O. Sherwood. The son oversaw the holding of annual requiems in memory of his father, gathering his students and all those who cherished the memory of him. Thus, even after his death, the house of V. O. Klyuchevsky continued to play the role of a center uniting Moscow historians.

In 1918, the Moscow house of the historian was searched, the bulk of the archive was evacuated to Petrograd, to one of Klyuchevsky's students, literary historian Ya.L. Barsky. Subsequently, Boris Klyuchevsky managed to get a "protection certificate" for his father's library and, with great difficulty, returned the main part of the manuscripts from Barsky, but in the 1920s the historian's library and archive were confiscated and placed in state archives.

At the same time, among the students of Klyuchevsky who remained in Moscow, the problem of erecting a monument to the great historian acquired particular relevance. By that time, there was not even a monument on his grave in the Donskoy Monastery. The reason for the various conversations was partly the negative attitude of the students towards the only living descendant of Klyuchevsky.

Boris Vasilyevich Klyuchevsky, according to him, graduated from two faculties of Moscow University, but scientific activity did not attract him. For many years he acted as the house secretary of his famous father, was fond of sports and the improvement of the bicycle.

From the stories of B. Klyuchevsky M.V. Nechkina knows such an episode: in his youth, Boris invented some special “nut” for a bicycle and was very proud of it. Rolling it in the palm of your hand, V.O. Klyuchevsky, with his usual sarcasm, told the guests: “What time has come! To invent such a nut, you need to graduate from two faculties - historical and legal ... ”(Nechkina M.V. Decree. soch., p. 318).

Obviously, Vasily Osipovich devoted much more time to communicating with his students than with his own son. The hobbies of the offspring did not cause either understanding or approval from the historian. According to the recollections of eyewitnesses (in particular, Yu. V. Gauthier points to this), in the last years of his life, Klyuchevsky's relationship with Boris left much to be desired. Vasily Osipovich did not like his son's passion for politics, as well as his open cohabitation with either a housekeeper or a maid who lived in their house. Friends and acquaintances of V.O. Klyuchevsky - V.A. Maklakov and A.N. Savin - it was also believed that the young man exerts strong pressure on the elderly, weakened by the illnesses of Vasily Osipovich.

Nevertheless, during the life of V.O. Klyuchevsky, Boris helped him a lot in his work, and after the scientist’s death he collected and preserved his archive, actively participated in the publication of his father’s scientific heritage, and was engaged in the publication and reprinting of his books.

In the 1920s, colleagues and students of Klyuchevsky accused the “heir” of the fact that the grave of his parents was in desolation: there was neither a monument nor a fence. Most likely, Boris Vasilyevich simply did not have the funds to erect a worthy monument, and the events of the revolution and the Civil War did little to contribute to the concerns of living people about their deceased ancestors.

Through the efforts of the university community, a “Committee on the issue of perpetuating the memory of V. O. Klyuchevsky” was created, which set as its goal the installation of a monument to the historian on one of the central streets of Moscow. However, the Committee limited itself only to the creation in 1928 of a common monument-tombstone on the grave of the Klyuchevskoy spouses (the cemetery of the Donskoy Monastery). After the "academic case" (1929-30), the persecution and expulsion of historians of the "old school" began. V.O. Klyuchevsky was classified as a “liberal-bourgeois” direction of historiography, and it was considered inappropriate to erect a separate monument to him in the center of Moscow.

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The historian's son Boris Klyuchevsky already in the first half of the 1920s severed all ties with the scientific community. According to M.V., who visited him in 1924, Nechkina, he served as an assistant legal adviser "in some kind of automotive department" and, finally, did his favorite thing - car repair. Then the son of Klyuchevsky was an auto technician, translator, small co-employee of the VATO. In 1933 he was repressed and sentenced to exile in Alma-Ata. The exact date of his death is unknown (circa 1944). However, B.V. Klyuchevsky managed to save the main and very important part of his father's archive. These materials were acquired in 1945 by the Commission on the History of Historical Sciences at the department of the Institute of History and Philosophy of the USSR Academy of Sciences from the "widow of the historian's son." The Museum of V.O. Klyuchevsky in Moscow was never created by him, memories of his father were also not written ...

Only in 1991, on the 150th anniversary of the birth of Klyuchevsky, a museum was opened in Penza, which received the name of the great historian. And today the monuments to V.O. Klyuchevsky exist only in his homeland, in the village of Voskresenovka (Penza region) and in Penza, where the Klyuchevsky family moved after the death of his father. It is noteworthy that initiatives to perpetuate the memory of a historian, as a rule, did not come from the state or the scientific community, but from local authorities and local history enthusiasts.

Elena Shirokova

For the preparation of this work, materials from the following sites were used:

http://www.history.perm.ru/

Worldview portraits. Klyuchevsky V.O. Library Fund

Literature:

Bogomazova O.V.Private life famous historian(Based on materials from the memoirs of V.O. Klyuchevsky)// Bulletin of Chelyabinsk state university. 2009. No. 23 (161). Story. Issue. 33, pp. 151–159.

History and historians in the space of national and world culture of the XVIII-XXI centuries: collection of articles / ed. N. N. Alevras, N. V. Grishina, Yu. V. Krasnova. - Chelyabinsk: Encyclopedia, 2011;

The world of the historian: historiographic collection / edited by V.P. Korzun, S.P. Bychkov. - Issue. 7. - Omsk: Om Publishing House. state university, 2011;

Nechkina M.V. Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky (1841-1911). History of life and creativity, M .: "Science", 1974;

Shakhanov A.N. The struggle against "objectivism" and "cosmopolitanism" in Soviet historical science. "Russian historiography" by N.L. Rubinshtein // History and Historians, 2004. - No. 1 - P. 186-207.

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Introduction

1. Brief biography

2. A look at the history of the Russian state from the standpoint of V.O. Klyuchevsky

3. Creativity V.O. Klyuchevsky as a noticeable phenomenon of Russian culture

Conclusion

Literature

Introduction

An outstanding Russian scientist - historian Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky (1841 - 1911) - academician (and honorary academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences), was a versatile person and, in addition to good known cycle lectures: "Course of Russian History", left remarkable works on the history of serfdom, estates, finance, historiography.

The Russian writer, Prince Sergei Mikhailovich Volkonsky wrote about him: “In 1911, the venerable professor Klyuchevsky, the newest of the luminaries of Russian historiography, a man gifted with an exceptional gift of penetrating the secrets of the past life of the people, died in Petrograd. From the touch of his critical chisel, historical figures fall off conventional outlines superimposed on their appearance by traditional, superficially repeated superficial judgments. You will not find any embodiment of state virtues, nor bearers of unparalleled villainy on the pages of his book, there before you pass living people - a combination of selfishness and kindness, statesmanship and reckless personal desires.

But not only Andrei Bogolyubsky or Ivan the Terrible are resurrected under his creative touch; the nameless, almost silent builder of his history also comes to life - an ordinary Russian person: he fights for life in the grip of harsh nature, fights off strong enemies and absorbs the weakest; he plows, trades, cunning, humbly endures and violently rebels; he longs for power over himself and overthrows it, destroys himself in strife, goes into dense forests to prayerfully bury the rest of his years in a skete, or runs away to the unrestrained expanse of the Cossack steppes; he lives a daily gray life of petty personal interests - those importunate engines, from whose uninterrupted work the skeleton of the people's building is built; and in the years of severe trials, it rises to high impulses of active love for the perishing homeland.

This simple Russian man lives on the pages of Klyuchevsky as he was, without embellishment, in all the diversity of his aspirations and deeds. big personalities, bright events- these are Klyuchevsky's only milestones of historical presentation: thousands of threads stretch to them and from them depart to those obscure units that, with their daily life, without knowing it, weave a fabric folk history. Klyuchevsky's thought, conceived in the lofty realm of love for truth, has penetrated a powerful layer of historical raw material over decades of scientific work, transformed it and flows calmly, like a stream of exceptional specific gravity, dispassionate and free. Nowhere is there a phrase, nowhere does he stoop to a one-sided passion, everywhere he has, as in life itself, a combination of light and shadow, everywhere about faces, classes, nationalities, about epochs, an impartial, balanced judgment. In our age of slavish party thought and deceitful words, this book is mental delight and peace of mind. We can trust her."

1. Brief biography

Klyuchevsky Vasily Osipovich was born on January 16, 1841 in the family of a village priest of the Penza diocese. He studied at the Penza Theological School and the Penza Theological Seminary. In 1861, having overcome difficult financial circumstances, he entered the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University, where he studied with N.M. Leontiev, F.M. Buslaeva, G.A. Ivanova, K.N. Pobedonostsev, B.N. Chicherina, S.M. Solovyov.

Under the influence of especially the last two scientists, Klyuchevsky's own scientific interests were also determined. In Chicherin's lectures, he was captivated by the harmony and integrity of scientific constructions; in Solovyov's lectures, he learned, in his own words, "what a pleasure it is for a young mind, beginning scientific study, to feel in possession of an integral view of a scientific subject." His Ph.D. thesis was written on the topic: "Tales of foreigners about the Muscovite state." Left at the university, Klyuchevsky chose for special scientific research extensive manuscript material from the lives of ancient Russian saints, in which he hoped to find "the most abundant and fresh source for studying the participation of monasteries in the colonization of North-Eastern Russia." Hard work on the colossal handwritten material scattered over many book depositories did not justify Klyuchevsky's initial hopes. The result of this work was a master's thesis: "Old Russian Lives of the Saints as a Historical Source" (Moscow, 1871), devoted to the formal side of hagiographic literature, its sources, samples, techniques and forms. Masterful, truly scientific study of one of the largest sources of our ancient church history sustained in the spirit of that strict-critical direction, which in the church history of the middle of the last century was far from being dominant.

For the author himself, a close study of hagiographic literature also had the significance that from it he extracted many grains of a living historical image, shining like a diamond, which Klyuchevsky used with inimitable art in characterizing different parties ancient Russian life. Classes for a master's thesis involved Klyuchevsky in a circle of various topics on the history of the church and Russian religious thought, and a number of topics appeared on these topics. independent articles and reviews; the largest of them: "Economic activity of the Solovetsky Monastery", "Pskov disputes", "Contribution of the church to the successes of Russian civil order and law", "The significance of St. Sergius of Radonezh for the Russian people and state", "Western influence and church schism in Russia in the 17th century ". In 1871, Klyuchevsky was elected to the chair of Russian history at the Moscow Theological Academy, which he held until 1906; the following year, he began teaching at the Alexander Military School and at the higher courses for women. In September 1879 he was elected associate professor at Moscow University, in 1882 - extraordinary, in 1885 - ordinary professor. In 1893 - 1895, on behalf of Emperor Alexander III, he taught a course in Russian history to Grand Duke Georgy Alexandrovich; in Abas-Tuman from 1900 to 1911 he taught at the school of painting, sculpture and architecture; in 1893 - 1905 he was chairman of the Society of History and Antiquities at Moscow University. In 1901 he was elected an ordinary academician, in 1908 - an honorary academician of the category of fine literature of the Academy of Sciences; in 1905 he participated in the press commission chaired by D.F. Kobeko and in a special meeting (in Peterhof) on the fundamental laws; in 1906 elected a member state council from the Academy of Sciences and universities, but refused this title. From the very first courses he read, Klyuchevsky established himself as a brilliant and original lecturer, capturing the attention of the audience with the power of scientific analysis, the gift of a bright and convex image ancient life and historical details.

Deep erudition in the primary sources gave abundant material to the artistic talent of the historian, who loved to create accurate, concise pictures and characteristics from the original expressions and images of the source. In 1882, Klyuchevsky's doctoral dissertation, the famous Boyar Duma of Ancient Russia, published first in Russkaya Mysl, was published as a separate book. In this central work of his, Klyuchevsky connected the special topic of the boyar duma, the "flywheel" of the ancient Russian administration, with critical issues socio-economic and political history of Russia until the end of the 17th century, thus expressing that integral and deeply thought-out understanding of this history, which formed the basis of his general course of Russian history and his special studies. A number of fundamental issues of ancient Russian history - the formation of urban volosts around the shopping centers of the great waterway, the origin and essence of the specific order in northeastern Russia, the composition and political role of the Moscow boyars, the Moscow autocracy, the bureaucratic mechanism of the Moscow state of the 16th - 17th centuries - received in " Boyar Duma" such a decision, which partly became universally recognized, partly served as the necessary basis for the investigations of subsequent historians. The articles "The Origin of Serfdom in Russia" and "The Poll Tax and the Abolition of Serfdom in Russia" published later (in 1885 and 1886) in "Russian Thought" gave a strong and fruitful impetus to the controversy about the origin of peasant attachment in ancient Russia.

The main idea of ​​Klyuchevsky, that the reasons and grounds for this attachment should be sought not in the decrees of the Moscow government, but in the complex network of economic relations between the peasant clerk and the landowner, which gradually brought the position of the peasantry closer to servility, met with sympathy and recognition from the majority of subsequent researchers and a sharply negative attitude. by V.I. Sergeevich and some of his followers. Klyuchevsky himself did not interfere in the controversy generated by his articles. In connection with the study of the economic situation of the Moscow peasantry, his article appeared: "The Russian ruble of the 16th - 18th centuries, in its relation to the present" ("Readings of the Moscow Society of History and Antiquities", 1884). The articles "On the composition of the representation at the zemstvo councils of ancient Russia" ("Russian Thought" 1890, 1891, 1892), which gave a completely new formulation of the question of the origin of the zemstvo councils of the 16th century in connection with the reforms of Ivan the Terrible, ended the cycle major research Klyuchevsky on the political and social system of ancient Russia ("Experiments and Research". The first collection of articles. M., 1912).

The talent and temperament of the historian-artist directed Klyuchevsky to topics from the history of the spiritual life of Russian society and its prominent representatives. This area includes a number of brilliant articles and speeches about S.M. Solovyov, Pushkin, Lermontov, I.N. Boltine, N.I. Novikov, Fonvizine, Catherine II, Peter the Great (collected in the 2nd Collection of Klyuchevsky's articles, "Essays and Speeches", Moscow, 1912). In 1899, Klyuchevsky published "A Short Guide to Russian History" as "a private publication for the author's listeners," and in 1904 he began publishing a complete course, which had long been widely distributed in lithographed student publications. In total, 4 volumes were published, brought up to the time of Catherine II. Both in his monographic studies and in The Course, Klyuchevsky gives his strictly subjective understanding of the Russian historical process, completely eliminating the review and criticism of the literature on the subject, without entering into polemics with anyone.

Approaching the study of the general course of Russian history from the point of view of a sociological historian and finding the general scientific interest of this study of "local history" in the disclosure of "phenomena that reveal the versatile flexibility of human society, its ability to apply to given conditions", seeing the main condition that directed the change of main forms of our hostel, in the peculiar attitude of the population to the nature of the country, Klyuchevsky highlights the history of political socio-economic life. At the same time, he stipulates that he considers political and economic facts to be the basis of the course in their purely methodological significance in historical study, and not in terms of their real significance in the essence of the historical process. "Intellectual labor and moral achievement will always remain the best builders of society, the most powerful engines of human development"And on the pages of the "Course" Klyuchevsky's artistic talent was expressed in a number of brilliant characteristics of historical figures and in depicting the ideological side of many historical moments that appear before the reader in their entire life. "(M., 1913). His course "Terminology of Russian History" was distributed in a lithographed edition. For a comprehensive assessment of Klyuchevsky's scientific and teaching activities, see the collection "Klyuchevsky, Characteristics and Memoirs" (M., 1912). Society of History and Antiquities at Moscow University dedicated the 1st book of his "Readings" for 1914 to the memory of Klyuchevsky. Speeches of Klyuchevsky's closest students and collaborators, materials for a biography and a complete list of his works are printed here.

2. A look at the history of the Russian state from the standpointIN. Klyuchevsky

Consider the course of Russian history in accordance with the views of V. O. Klyuchevsky.

The vast East European plain, which formed Russian state, at the very beginning was not inhabited throughout its entire space by the people who, before today makes her history. The history of Russia opens with the phenomenon that the eastern branch of the Slavs, which later grew into the Russian people, enters the Russian plain from the southwest, from the slopes of the Carpathians. For many centuries, this Slavic population was far from enough to completely and evenly occupy the entire plain. According to the conditions of historical life and geographical situation, the population spread across the plain not gradually by birth, not settling, but moving, leaving their homes and settling in new ones. With each such movement, it was exposed to new conditions, in accordance with physical features new region and new external relations that arose in new places. These local features and relations, with each new distribution of the people, gave folk life a special direction, a special warehouse and character.

The history of Russia according to Klyuchevsky is the history of a country that is being colonized. The area of ​​colonization in it expanded along with its state territory. Falling, then rising, this secular movement continued until the 20th century.

Klyuchevsky divided the history of Russia into sections or periods in accordance with people's movements. “The periods of our history are the stages successively passed by our people in the occupation and development of the country they inherited until the very time when, finally, through the natural birth and absorption of oncoming foreigners, it spread throughout the plain and even went beyond it. A series of these periods is a series of halts or camps that interrupted the movement of this people across the plain, and at each of which our hostel is different than it was arranged at the previous camp. I will list these periods, indicating in each of them the dominant facts, of which one is political, the other is economic, and at the same time designating the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe plain on which the mass of the Russian population was concentrated in a given period - not the entire population, but the main mass of it who made history."

The first period of Russian history.

According to Klyuchevsky, no earlier than from the 8th century AD, one can trace the gradual growth of the Russian people, observe the external situation and the internal structure of their life within the plain. From the 8th to the 13th century, people concentrated on the middle and upper Dnieper with its tributaries and its historical water continuation - the Lovat - Volkhov line. All this time, Russia was politically divided into separate, more or less isolated regions, in each of which a large trading city was the political and economic center. This city was captured by an alien prince, but even under him it did not lose its importance. The dominant political fact of this period is the political fragmentation of the land under the leadership of the cities. Dominant fact economic life- international trade, driving force which is: forestry, hunting, beekeeping (forest beekeeping), etc. This is Dnieper Rus, urban, commercial.

The second period of Russian history.

From the 13th to the middle of the 15th century, the bulk of the Russian population appeared on the upper Volga with its tributaries. This mass is politically fragmented no longer into urban areas, but into princely destinies. Destiny is a completely different form of political life. The dominant political fact of this period is the specific fragmentation of the Upper Volga Russia under the rule of the princes. The dominant fact of economic life is agricultural peasant labor. This is Russia of the Upper Volga, specific princely, free-agricultural.

The third period of Russian history.

From the middle of the 15th century to the second decade of the 17th century, the bulk of the Russian population from the region of the upper Volga spread south and east along the Don and Middle Volga black earth, forming a special branch of the people - Great Russia, which, together with the population, expanded beyond the upper Volga region. Expanding geographically, the Great Russian tribe for the first time unites into one political tribe under the rule of the Moscow sovereign, who rules his state with the help of the boyar aristocracy, formed from the former appanage princes and appanage boyars. The dominant political fact of this period is the state unification of Great Russia. Changes are taking place in economic life: the will of the peasantry begins to be constrained as land ownership is concentrated in the hands of the service class, the military class, recruited by the state for external defense. This is Russia the Great, Moscow, tsarist-boyar, military-landowning.

The fourth period of Russian history.

From the beginning of the XVII to half of XIX century, the Russian people spread across the entire plain from the Baltic and White to the Black seas, to the Caucasus Range, the Caspian and the Urals, and even penetrated to the south and east far beyond the Caucasus, the Caspian and the Urals. Politically, almost all parts of the Russian nationality are united under one authority: Little Russia, Belorussia and Novorossia adjoin Great Russia one after another, forming the All-Russian Empire. But this gathering all-Russian power no longer acts with the help of the boyar aristocracy, but with the help of the military service class formed by the state in the previous period - the nobility. The dominant political fact of this period is the political gathering and unification of parts of the Russian land. The main fact of economic life remains agricultural labor, which has finally become serfdom, to which manufacturing industry joins: factory and factory. This period is all-Russian, imperial-noble, the period of serfdom, agricultural and factory.

“Such are the periods of our history we have lived through, which reflected the change in the warehouses of the hostel that were historically developed in our country. Let us recalculate these periods again, designating them according to the regions of the plain, in which the main mass of the Russian population was concentrated at different times: 1) Dnieper, 2) Upper Volga, 3) Great Russian, 4) All-Russian.

Klyuchevskiy historiography scientific creative

3. Creativity V.O. Klyuchevsky as a noticeable phenomenon of Russian culture

The work of Vasily Klyuchevsky - the largest Russian historian, publicist and teacher - is of interest not only as a bright page in the development of historical science, but also as a noticeable phenomenon of Russian culture.

Here are just two quotations: OE Mandelstam. "From every line of Blok's poems about Russia, Kostomarov, Solovyov and Klyuchevsky look at us, namely Klyuchevsky, a kind genius, a domestic spirit - the patron of Russian culture, with whom no disasters, no trials are terrible."

A.A. Blok. "Let the 41st lecture of Klyuchevsky be our reference book - for the Russian people of as wide a circle as possible."

The image of V.O. Klyuchevsky is one of the central, key personological images of images in the system of ideas that have developed in Russian culture of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, about the meaning of life and work of a historian as a witness of historical existence, his "works and days" , about the content of the unity of the scientific and artistic word in historical knowledge.

With all the inconsistency, the duality of the obvious and the hidden, it is the image of V.O. Klyuchevsky, constantly reproduced, broadcast; repeatedly subjected in the endless mirrors of Russian culture of the late 19th-20th centuries to various kinds of mythologization (and just as often de- and re-mythologization); developed already in the first decades of the twentieth century into the most complex cult-semiotic formation. "V.O. Klyuchevsky in the eyes of contemporaries and subsequent generations" (here, the concept of "transformed form" proposed by M.K. Mamardashvili is quite applicable here, along with similar formations that accompany the memory of N.M. Karamzin , S.M. Solovyov, P.I. Bartenev, F.I. Buslaev, A.S. Lappo-Danilevsky, S.F. normative and value ideas about the type of Russian historian who studies Russian history.

The image of V.O. Klyuchevsky - along with the image of N.M. Karamzin - became one of the necessary principles of unifying proportionality in that long dispute-dialogue (explicit and implicit) of scientific, artistic and philosophical historicism, which was conducted in Russia during the XIX-XX centuries

Conclusion

Creativity V.O. Klyuchevsky is of interest not only as a bright page in the history of Russian historical science, but also as a phenomenon of Russian and world culture.

Klyuchevsky was convinced that "the human personality, human society and the nature of the country ... are the main historical forces." The life of mankind "in its development and results" is the essence of the historical process. To know this process, Klyuchevsky believed, is possible through the historical personality of the people and the human personality. The meaning of history is in people's self-consciousness. deep knowledge historical sources and folklore, mastery historical portrait, aphoristic style made Klyuchevsky one of the most widely read and revered historians of the late XIX - early. 20th century

The famous "Course of Russian History" by Vasily Klyuchevsky, which is considered the pinnacle of his work, is remarkable not only as a scientific work. The book reads like a work of art thanks to the special, very figurative language of Klyuchevsky's historical prose. The author considered the task of the work not only to present and comprehend historical information, but also the creation of a portrait of the nation, the study of the historical personality of the Russian people.

In his “Course of Russian History”, Klyuchevsky, unlike many other historians, previous and contemporaries, gave a historical description of the country not according to the reigns of the great princes and tsars, but outlined a periodization based on the main points that, in his opinion, determine the development of the historical process: much in his work. interesting material, indicating the role of the economic and political factor in the development of the country, and all this is in close connection with the geographical, natural conditions of existence, settlement and development of the people.

The work of Klyuchevsky still retains great importance and not only as evidence of the achievements of Russian historical science in the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries, but also as a rich heritage that helps us better understand the history of Russia.

Literature

1. A.P. Shikman. Figures of national history. Biographical reference book. - M., 1997.

2. M.V. Nechkin. Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky.-M., 1974.

3. Essays on the history of historical science in the USSR, vol. 2 - 3, - M., 1960.

4. V. I. Astakhov. V. O. Klyuchevsky is an outstanding representative of the bourgeois historiography of the post-reform period, in the book: A course of lectures on Russian historiography, part 2, Har., 1962.

5. A. A. Zimin. The formation of the historical views of V. O. Klyuchevsky in the 60s. XIX century, in the collection: Historical Notes, vol. 69, M., 1961.

6. R. A. Kireeva. V. O. Klyuchevsky as a historian of Russian historical science. - M., 1966.

7. E. G. Chumachenko. V. O. Klyuchevsky - source, M., 1970.

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