A well-known historian, a student of Klyuchevsky. Vasily O. Klyuchevsky - Brief Biography

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 his graduation work "Tales of foreigners about the Muscovite state", for which he studied about 40 legends and notes of foreigners about Russia in the 15th-17th 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 was prescribed cold mountain air because of tuberculosis, 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 of 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 for a sufficiently free discussion of issues of state 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

KLYUCHEVSKY Vasily Osipovich, Russian historian, academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences in the category of Russian history and antiquities (1900) and honorary member in the category of fine literature (1908); Privy Councilor (1903). From the family of a village priest. He graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University (1865), where he attended lectures by F. I. Buslaev (history of Russian literature), S. V. Eshevsky (general history), P. M. Leontiev (Latin philology and literature), S. M. Solovyov (Russian history), B. N. Chicherina (history of law), etc. He taught courses in general history at the 3rd Alexander Military School (1867-83), Russian history at the Moscow Theological Academy (1871-1906; since 1882 professor , from 1897 an honored professor, from 1907 an honorary member of the academy), at Guerrier courses (1872-88), at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1898-1910), a course of Russian history and special courses at Moscow University (1879-1911; Privatdozent since 1879, Professor since 1882, Dean of the Faculty of History and Philology in 1887-89, Assistant Rector of the University in 1889-90, and Honorary Member of the University in 1911). In 1893-95, he read in Abastuman (a mountain-climatic resort in the Akhaltsikhe district of the Tiflis province) the course "Recent history of Western Europe in connection with the history of Russia" to the seriously ill Grand Duke Georgy Alexandrovich. Member of the Society of Russian History and Antiquities (since 1872; chairman in 1893-1905), the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature (since 1874; since 1909 an honorary member), the Moscow Archaeological Society (since 1882).

Klyuchevsky's political outlook was characterized by a desire to find a middle line between extremes: he denied both revolution and reaction, and avoided active political activity. Already after the assassination attempt by D. V. Karakozov on Emperor Alexander II (1866), Klyuchevsky spoke with disapproval of "extreme liberalism and socialism." During the Revolution of 1905-1907, he shared the program of the Cadets, ran (unsuccessfully) for electors in the 1st State Duma. Member of the Special Meeting to draw up a new Charter on the press (1905-06), advocated the elimination of censorship. He was invited by Emperor Nicholas II to discuss the draft law on the "Bulygin Duma" (1905), insisted on granting the Duma legislative rights, on the introduction of universal suffrage, objected to the idea of ​​estate representation, referring to the obsolescence of the estate organization of society. In 1906, he was elected a member of the State Council from the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences and Universities, but refused this position, not finding his stay in it "sufficiently independent for a free discussion of emerging issues of state life in the interests of the cause."

Klyuchevsky considered the essence of national history to be a unique combination of factors of its development. He singled out among them geographical, ethnic, economic, social and political factors, none of which, according to Klyuchevsky, was certainly predominant. The engine of history, according to Klyuchevsky, is the “mental labor and moral feat” of a person. Klyuchevsky also wrote about the three forces that "build human hostel" - "the human personality, human society, the nature of the country." He paid great attention to the inherent, in his opinion, the sense of national unity of the Russian people at all times, which was realized in the unity of power and people, that is, in the state. The creative manner and historical concept of Klyuchevsky were distinguished by: the combination in a single text of source study and historical narrative; choice as a subject of study of the realities of economic and social life; knowledge of the life of various social strata and penetration into their everyday psychology; honed, bordering on literary and artistic techniques, the style and language of narration. From S. M. Solovyov and the “state school” of Russian historiography, Klyuchevsky inherited the idea of ​​Russia as a country whose territory was constantly being developed by its population. However, he translated the thesis about the “country being colonized” from a general philosophical and historical premise into a system of observing the movement of the population with the aim of plowing new lands (“Economic activity of the Solovetsky Monastery in the White Sea Territory”, 1867, “Pskov disputes”, 1872, etc.) .

He systematized and compared information about 40 embassy reports, travel notes, letters from foreigners about the Russian state, published in various European languages ​​(“Tales of foreigners about the Moscow state”, 1866). In search of new historical sources, Klyuchevsky, on the advice of S. M. Solovyov, turned to the lives of Russian medieval saints - the founders of monasteries and organizers of a large monastic economy in North-Eastern Russia. He was the first to study the development of Russian medieval hagiography and developed methods for scientific criticism of hagiographic texts (“Old Russian Lives of the Saints as a Historical Source”, 1871). He analyzed the lives of 166 saints (about 5 thousand lists compiled by Klyuchevsky in about 250 editions), established the time and place of origin of the lists, as well as their sources. He came to the conclusion that they were created according to literary models, reflected abstract Christian moral ideals and therefore do not contain information about economic and social history and are not reliable historical evidence. At the same time, later Klyuchevsky used the lives as a source for characterizing the way of life, culture, folk consciousness, and the economic development of North-Eastern Russia.

According to his contemporaries, Klyuchevsky laid the foundation for the socio-economic trend in historiography. In the book "The Boyar Duma of Ancient Russia" (1881), having studied a wide range of phenomena and processes ("from markets to offices") using a huge array of legislative, clerical and act sources, Klyuchevsky considered the emergence and evolution of social classes in the 10th - early 18th centuries , allocated to them on the basis of the difference in their occupations, rights and obligations: “industrial”, by which Klyuchevsky understood the “military-commercial aristocracy”, “serviceman” - the princely squad, which was replaced by the nobility, “urban” - artisans and merchants. According to Klyuchevsky, classes were formed both under the influence of economic processes and under the influence of the state. The norm of their existence was mutual cooperation, in maintaining which Klyuchevsky assigned a large role to the state. The Boyar Duma, according to Klyuchevsky, was "a flywheel that set in motion the entire government mechanism", an essentially constitutional institution "with extensive political influence, but without a constitutional charter." The latter, as well as the lack of feedback from society, led, according to Klyuchevsky, to the fall of its role and its replacement by the Senate.

Based on the analysis of bread prices, Klyuchevsky developed methods for assessing the purchasing power of the ruble in the 16-18 centuries, opening the way to the study and interpretation of evidence from historical sources of a financial and economic nature (“The Russian ruble of the 16th-18th centuries in its relation to the present”, 1884). He transferred the problem of the emergence of serfdom from the political to the socio-economic sphere. In contrast to the theory of enslavement of all classes by the state developed by the “state school” of Russian historiography, Klyuchevsky formulated (on the basis of order and loan records, which he first studied) the concept of the origin of serfdom as the result of peasant debt to landowners. According to Klyuchevsky, the state, which considered the peasants, first of all, as the main payers of taxes and executors of state duties, only regulated the existing serfdom [“The Origin of Serfdom in Russia”, 1885; Poll tax and the abolition of servility in Russia, 1886; "History of estates in Russia", 1887; "The Abolition of Serfdom" (created in 1910-11, published in 1958)].

Klyuchevsky is the author of an extensive university “Course of Russian History” (brought by the author to the reforms of the 1860s and 70s inclusive), which became the first generalizing historical work in Russian science, where instead of the traditional sequential presentation of political (“eventual”) history, an analysis of the main, according to Klyuchevsky, the problems of the Russian historical process, attempts to substantiate the patterns of development of the people, society, state. In Russian history, depending on the direction of the flows of colonization by the Russian people of the vast expanses of Russia, Klyuchevsky distinguished four periods: the Dnieper (8-13 centuries; the bulk of the population was located on the middle and upper Dnieper, along the line of the Lovat River - the Volkhov River; the basis of economic life - foreign trade and the "forestry" caused by it, and political - "crushing the land under the leadership of cities"); Upper Volga (13th - mid-15th century; the concentration of the main mass of the Russian population in the upper reaches of the Volga with its tributaries; the most important occupation is agriculture; the political system is the fragmentation of the land into princely destinies); Great Russian, or Tsar-Boyar (mid-15th century - 1620s; resettlement of the Russian people "along the Don and Middle Volga black soil" and beyond the Upper Volga region; the most important political factor is the unification of the Great Russian people and the formation of a single statehood; social structure - military landowner ); all-Russian, or imperial-noble (since the 17th century; the spread of the Russian people from the Baltic and White Seas to the Black and Caspian Seas, the Urals and "even ... far beyond the Caucasus, the Caspian and the Urals"; the main political factor is the unification of the Great Russian, Little Russian and Belarusian branches of the Russian people under a single authority, the formation of an empire; the main content of social life is the enslavement of peasants; the economy is agricultural and factory). Klyuchevsky did not always adhere to the position of a plurality of equivalent forces in the historical process: as he approached the present, political and personal factors became increasingly important in his constructions. Klyuchevsky's course was distinguished by high artistic merit, often all the students of Moscow University gathered at his lectures; originally distributed in student handwritten and hectographed abstracts, first published in 1904-10 (parts 1-4; reprinted several times).

Klyuchevsky proposed new solutions to a number of major problems in Russian history. He believed that the Eastern Slavs came to the Russian Plain from the Danube River, that in the Carpathians in the 6th century they had a military alliance; noted the diversity of political forms in the Old Russian state (princely-Varangian power, city "regions", the power of the Kyiv prince). He put forward a version of the consistent involvement in the Troubles of the 17th century of all layers of Russian society "from top to bottom". Klyuchevsky's schemes and estimates have been and continue to be the subject of discussion and research by scientists. Klyuchevsky also studied the problems of world history, primarily from the point of view of their influence on the history of Russia.

Klyuchevsky, an outstanding master of historical portraiture, created a gallery of images of the rulers of Russia (Tsars Ivan IV Vasilievich the Terrible, Alexei Mikhailovich, Emperor Peter I, Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, Emperor Peter III, Empress Catherine II), statesmen (F. M. Rtishchev, A. L. Ordin-Nashchokin, Prince V. V. Golitsyn, His Serene Highness Prince A. D. Menshikov), church leaders (St. Sergius of Radonezh), cultural figures (N. I. Novikov, A. S. Pushkin, M. Yu. Lermontov ), historians (I. N. Boltin, N. M. Karamzin, T. N. Granovsky, S. M. Solovyov, K. N. Bestuzhev-Ryumin, F. I. Buslaev). Possessing the gift of artistic and historical imagination, Klyuchevsky advised figures of literature and art (for example, F. I. Chaliapin, with the help of Klyuchevsky, developed stage images of the tsars Ivan IV the Terrible, Boris Fedorovich Godunov, the elder Dosifei and was shocked at how skillfully Klyuchevsky himself during consultations played Tsar Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky). The artistic gift of Klyuchevsky was embodied in his aphorisms, remarks, assessments, some of which were widely known in the intellectual circles of Russia.

The name of Klyuchevsky is associated with the school of Klyuchevsky that developed at Moscow University in the late 19th and early 20th centuries - historians (not only students) who gathered around Klyuchevsky or shared his scientific principles. At various times, it included M. M. Bogoslovsky, A. A. Kizevetter, M. K. Lyubavsky, P. N. Milyukov, M. N. Pokrovsky, N. A. Rozhkov, and others; Klyuchevsky influenced the formation of the scientific views of M. A. Dyakonov, S. F. Platonov, V. I. Semevsky and others. Outstanding artists who were teachers and students of the Moscow School of Painting and Sculpture testified to the influence of Klyuchevsky on the development of historical themes in the visual arts and architecture (V. A. Serov and others).

Since 1991, the V. O. Klyuchevsky Museum has been operating in the house where Klyuchevsky lived in Penza.

Works: Works: In 8 vols. M., 1956-1959; Letters. Diaries. Aphorisms and thoughts about history. M., 1968; Unpublished works. M., 1983;

Works: In 9 vols. M., 1987-1990; historical portraits. Figures of historical thought. M., 1990; Letters from V. O. Klyuchevsky to Penza. Penza, 2002; Aphorisms and thoughts about history. M., 2007.

Lit .: V. O. Klyuchevsky. Characteristics and memories. M., 1912; V. O. Klyuchevsky. Biographical sketch. M., 1914; Zimin A. A. Archive of V. O. Klyuchevsky // Notes of the Department of Manuscripts of the State Library named after V. I. Lenin. 1951. Issue. 12; Chumachenko E. G. Klyuchevsky - source expert. M., 1970; Nechkina M. V. V. O. Klyuchevsky. History of life and creativity. M., 1974; Fedotov G.P. Russia of Klyuchevsky // Fedotov G.P. Fate and sins of Russia. SPb., 1991. T. 1; Klyuchevsky. Sat. materials. Penza, 1995. Issue. one; Kireeva R. A. Klyuchevsky V. O. // Historians of Russia. Biographies. M., 2001; Popov A. S. V. O. Klyuchevsky and his “school”: a synthesis of history and sociology. M., 2001; V. O. Klyuchevsky and problems of Russian provincial culture and historiography: In 2 books. M., 2005; History of historical science in the USSR. pre-October period. Bibliography. M., 1965.

Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky(1841-1911) - Russian historian, academician (1900), honorary academician (1908) of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. Proceedings: "The Course of Russian History" (parts 1-5, 1904-22), "Boyar Duma of Ancient Russia" (1882), on the history of serfdom, estates, finance, historiography.

Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky was born on January 28 (January 16 according to the old style), 1841, in the village of Voznesenskoye, Penza province. His father was a rural 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 listened to N. M. Leontiev; F. M. Buslaeva; G.A. Ivanova; K.N. Pobedonostsev; lawyer, historian and philosopher Boris Nikolaevich Chicherin and historian Sergei Mikhailovich Solovyov. Under the influence of especially the last two scientists, Vasily Osipovich's own scientific interests were determined.

The complaint that we are not understood, most often comes from the fact that we do not understand people.

Klyuchevsky Vasily Osipovich

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 a whole view of a scientific subject."

Candidate's thesis of V.O. Klyuchevsky was written on the topic: "Tales of foreigners about the Muscovite state." Left at the university, Vasily chose for special scientific research extensive handwritten 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" (M., 1871), dedicated to the formal side of hagiographic literature, its sources, samples, techniques and forms.

A great success is made up of many foreseen and considered details.

Klyuchevsky Vasily Osipovich

A masterful, truly scientific study of one of the largest sources of our ancient church history is sustained in the spirit of that strictly critical trend, which in the church history of the middle of the last century was far from 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 skill in characterizing various aspects of 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 independent articles and reviews appeared on these topics; the largest of them are: “The Economic Activities 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 the Church Schism in Russia in the 17th Century ".

Since the time of Ordin-Nashchokin, no other such strong mind has come to the Russian throne; after Speransky, I don't know if there will be a third one.

Klyuchevsky Vasily Osipovich

In 1871, Vasily 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 Dmitry Fomich Kobeko and in a special meeting (in Peterhof) on fundamental laws; in 1906 he was elected a member of the State Council from the Academy of Sciences and Universities, but refused this title.

The smartest thing in life is still death, because only it corrects all the mistakes and stupidities of life.

Klyuchevsky Vasily Osipovich

From the very first courses he gave, Vasily Osipovich 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 depiction of 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, a special topic about the boyar duma, the “flywheel” of the ancient Russian administration, V.O. Klyuchevsky connected with the most important issues of the socio-economic and political history of Russia until the end of the 17th century, thus expressing the 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 Russkaya Mysl gave a strong and fruitful impetus to the controversy about the origin of peasant attachment in ancient Russia.

It is much easier to become a father than to remain one.

Klyuchevsky Vasily Osipovich

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-orderer 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 from the lawyer Vasily Ivanovich 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 Representation at the Zemstvo Sobors of Ancient Russia” (“Russian Thought” 1890, 1891, 1892), which gave a completely new formulation of the question of the origin of the Zemstvo Sobors of the 16th century in connection with the reforms of Ivan the Terrible, ended the cycle of Klyuchevsky’s largest studies on political issues. and the social system of ancient Russia ("Experiments and Research". The first collection of articles. M., 1912).

Sport is becoming a favorite subject of reflection and will soon become the only method of thinking.

Klyuchevsky Vasily Osipovich

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 Sergei Mikhailovich Solovyov, Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov, Ivan Nikitich Boltin, Nikolai Ivanovich Novikov, Denis Ivanovich Fonvizin, Catherine II, Peter the Great (collected in the 2nd Collection of Klyuchevsky's Articles, " Essays and speeches”, M., 1912).

In 1899, Vasily Klyuchevsky published A Brief 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.

Frankness is not gullibility at all, but only a bad habit of thinking aloud.

Klyuchevsky Vasily Osipovich

Both in his monographic studies and in The Course, Klyuchevsky gave 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 guided the change of main forms of our hostel, in the peculiar attitude of the population to the nature of the country, Klyuchevsky brought to the fore the history of political socio-economic life. At the same time, he made the reservation that he based the course on political and economic facts in terms of their purely methodological significance in historical study, and not in terms of their actual significance in the essence of the historical process.

Biography. The great Russian historian V.O. Klyuchevsky was born on January 16, 1841 in the village of Voskresenskoye, Penza district. The surname Klyuchevsky is symbolic and is associated with the origin, source, ideas about the homeland. It comes from the name of the village Keys of the Penza province. The words "key" and "key" for scientists have another meaning - the method. Possessing the ability to accumulate all the best in historical thought, Klyuchevsky kept many scientific keys in his mind.

He came from the clergy. Klyuchevsky's childhood years were spent in the rural wilderness of the Penza province at the place of service of his father, a poor rural priest and teacher of the law. Since childhood, he perceived sympathy and understanding of peasant life, interest in the historical fate of the people, folk art.

His first teacher was his father, who taught his son to read correctly and quickly, "write decently" and sing from notes. Among the books read, in addition to the obligatory horology and the psalter, were Chet'i-Minei and books of secular content.

The sudden tragic death of his father in 1850 cut short the childhood of Vasily Osipovich. His mother with two surviving children (the other four died in infancy) moved to Penza. Out of compassion for the poor widow, priest SV Filaretov (husband's friend) gave her a small house to live in. The family huddled in the back, worst part of the house; the anteroom was rented out to guests for three rubles a month. The most difficult financially 10 years of V.O. Klyuchevsky's life passed in this house. In 1991, the House-Museum of V.O. Klyuchevsky was opened here.

In Penza, Klyuchevsky successively studied at the parish theological school, at the district theological school and at the theological seminary. Very early, almost from the 2nd grade of the seminary, he was forced to give private lessons, and in the future he continued to engage in tutoring, earning a living and gaining pedagogical experience. The early love for history in general, and for Russian history in particular, grew stronger during his student years. At school, Klyuchevsky already knew the works of Tatishchev, Karamzin, Granovsky, Kavelin, Solovyov, Kostomarov; followed the magazines "Russian Bulletin", "Domestic Notes", "Contemporary". In order to be able to enter the university (and the authorities intended him to go to the Kazan Theological Academy), he deliberately left the seminary in his last year. For a year, the young man independently prepared for entering the university and prepared two sons of a Penza manufacturer for exams.

In 1861, Klyuchevsky entered Moscow University. In his last years, Klyuchevsky began to study Russian history under the guidance of S.M. Solovyov. From his student years, Vasily Osipovich studied sources in depth: together with Buslaev, he sorted out old manuscripts in the Synodal Library, spent hours immersed in the “boundless sea of ​​archival material” in the archive of the Ministry of Justice, where he was given a table next to S.M. Solovyov. In one of his letters to a friend we read: “It is difficult to summarize my studies. God knows what I don't do. And I read political economy, and I pound the Sanskrit language, and I teach something in English, and I turn the Czech and Bulgarian languages ​​- and the devil knows what else.

Klyuchevsky looked closely at the surrounding everyday life. During the holidays, he met with peace mediators and "listened about peasant affairs"; during rest hours he would go to the Kremlin and take with him law students who were interested in the schism (among them was A.F. Koni), “to hustle among the people in front of the cathedrals” and listen to the debate of the schismatics with the Orthodox. After intense university and independent work, Klyuchevsky gave private lessons in various parts of the city, the distance between which he usually covered on foot.

For his graduation essay "Tales of Foreigners about the Moscow State" Klyuchevsky was awarded a gold medal and left at the department "to prepare for a professorship." Five years later, in order to obtain the right to lecture at the Moscow Theological Academy, he defended this work as a dissertation. Thus, Klyuchevsky left the university as a well-established scientist.

The master's thesis "Old Russian Lives of the Saints as a Historical Source" was published in 1871, and her master's defense took place in 1872. It attracted the attention of not only scientists, but also a large public. The applicant brilliantly defended himself, demonstrating the talent of a polemicist.

The master's degree gave the official right to teach in higher educational institutions, and Klyuchevsky began teaching, which brought him well-deserved fame. He taught at five higher educational institutions: at the Alexander Military School, where he taught a course in world history for 17 years; in other places he read Russian history: at the Moscow Theological Academy, at the Higher Courses for Women, at the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture; Since 1879, Moscow University has become its main department.

The defense of his doctoral dissertation "The Boyar Duma of Ancient Russia" by Klyuchevsky took place in 1882. It lasted almost four hours and passed with brilliance.

"The Course of Russian History" by V.O. Klyuchevsky received worldwide fame. It has been translated into all major languages ​​of the world. According to foreign historians, this work served as the basis and main source for Russian history courses throughout the world.

In the 1893/94 and 1894/95 academic years, Klyuchevsky again returned to teaching general history, as he was seconded to give lectures to Grand Duke Georgy Alexandrovich. The course, which he called "The Recent History of Western Europe in Connection with the History of Russia," covers the time from the French Revolution of 1789 to the abolition of serfdom and the reforms of Alexander II. The history of Western Europe and Russia is considered in it in their relationship and mutual influence. This course, complex in its composition, saturated with large factual material, is an important source for analyzing the evolution of Klyuchevsky's historical views and for studying the problem of studying general history in Russia in general, and the history of the French Revolution in particular.

Vasily Osipovich was an active member of the Moscow Archaeological Society, the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature, the Society of Russian History and Antiquities, where he was its chairman for four terms (from 1893 to 1905). Contemporaries regarded the chairmanship of Klyuchevsky for 12 years as the time of the greatest flowering of the scientific activity of the OIDR. In 1889, he was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences, and in 1900, an academician of Russian history and antiquities outside the state, as he did not want to leave Moscow and move to St. Petersburg, as was required by the situation. In 1908, the scientist was elected an honorary academician in the category of fine literature.

Klyuchevsky happened to participate in a number of state events. In 1905, he was a member of the so-called D.F. Kobeko commission, which worked out a project to weaken censorship. Klyuchevsky spoke several times in the commission. In particular, arguing with the defenders of censorship, he gave a witty story about it.

In the same year, Klyuchevsky was invited to the "Peterhof Meetings" regarding the development of a draft State Duma. There he resolutely opposed the choice "on the basis of estates", arguing that the estate organization is outdated, that not only the nobility, but also all other estates benefit. The historian has consistently spoken out in favor of mixed elections.

In the spring of 1906, Klyuchevsky unsuccessfully ran for election to the First State Duma from Sergiev Posad. A month later, he was elected to the State Council from the Academy of Sciences and Russian universities. However, he resigned this title, stating publicly through the Russkiye Vedomosti newspaper that he did not find the position of a member of the Council "sufficiently independent for a free discussion of emerging issues of state life in the interests of the cause."

Despite the enormous research work and teaching load, Klyuchevsky gave free speeches and public lectures, for example, in favor of the hungry, in favor of those affected by crop failure in the Volga region, in favor of the Moscow Literacy Committee, as well as on anniversaries and public events. In them, the historian often touched upon the problems of morality, mercy, upbringing, education, and Russian culture. Each of his performances acquired a huge public resonance. By the strength of the impact on the audience, people who heard Klyuchevsky compared him not with other professors or scientists in general, but with the highest examples of art - with the performances of Chaliapin, Yermolova, Rachmaninoff, with the performances of the Art Theater.

With excessive employment, Klyuchevsky still found the opportunity to communicate with the artistic, literary and theatrical circles of Moscow. Vasily Osipovich was often consulted by artists, composers, writers (for example, N.S. Leskov), artists (among them F.I. Chaliapin). It is widely known that Klyuchevsky helped the great artist in creating the images of Boris Godunov and others. Klyuchevsky treated everyone with favorable attention, considering it his sacred duty to help figures in the artistic world.

For more than 10 years, Klyuchevsky lectured at the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, where he was listened to not only by students of all workshops and classes, but also by teachers, venerable artists (V.A. Serov, A.M. Vasnetsov, KA. Korovin, L. O. Pasternak and others). The last lecture was given by him within the walls of the School on October 29, 1910.

While in the hospital, Klyuchevsky continued to work - he wrote two articles for the newspapers Russkiye Vedomosti and Rech on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the abolition of serfdom. They say that he worked on the day of his death, which followed on May 12, 1911. V.O. Klyuchevsky was buried in Moscow at the cemetery of the Donskoy Monastery.

As a sign of the deepest recognition of the merits of the scientist in the year of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Vasily Osipovich, the International Center for Minor Planets (Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, USA) assigned his name to one of the planets. From now on, the minor planet No. 4560 Klyuchevsky is an integral part of the solar system.

Main compositions:

Tales of foreigners about the Muscovite state

Ancient Russian Lives of the Saints as a Historical Source

Boyar Duma of ancient Russia

Lectures on Russian history.

"Tales of foreigners about the Moscow state". For his graduation essay, Klyuchevsky chose a topic related to the history of Muscovite Russia in the 15th-17th centuries, based on a large circle of then poorly studied sources on the legends of foreigners, many of which had not yet been translated into Russian. In his work, he used about 40 legends. And before Klyuchevsky, historians drew some factual data and characteristics from the notes of foreigners; there were articles about individual foreigners who left testimonies about Russia. But before Klyuchevsky, no one had studied these monuments in their entirety. The very approach of the young historian was fundamentally different. He brought together and thematically systematized the specific information contained in the legends, critically processed and generalized them, created an integral picture of the life of the Russian state for three centuries.

In the introduction, Klyuchevsky gave a list of his sources, analyzed them in a generalized way, and characterized the authors of the legends, paying attention to the features of the notes depending on the time of their writing, as well as on the goals and objectives of the writers. In general, Klyuchevsky emphasized the importance of the notes of foreigners for studying the daily life of the Muscovite state, although many curiosities and inaccuracies can be found there. Hence the demand for a critical approach to the testimonies of foreign authors. His analysis of the sources was so thorough that in subsequent literature, Tales of Foreigners about the Muscovite State is often referred to as a source work. But this is a historical work on the history of Muscovite Russia, written on abundant "fresh" sources.

Klyuchevsky argued that the news of foreigners about the domestic life of Muscovites, about the moral state of society and other issues of domestic life could not be sufficiently reliable and complete in the mouths of foreigners, since this side of life "is less open to prying eyes." External phenomena, the external order of social life, its material side, an outside observer could describe with the greatest completeness and fidelity. Therefore, Klyuchevsky decided to confine himself to only the most reliable information about the state and economic life of the country and data on the geographical environment, namely, this side of Russian life was of most interest to the author. But he collected and processed material on a much larger number of issues, as the scientist's manuscripts speak eloquently.

The book is written with "strict legibility in the material" and at the same time brightly, figuratively, with a touch of cheerful irony. The reader, as it were, along with the "observant European" travels along unsafe roads through vast dense forests, steppe desert spaces, gets into various ups and downs. Klyuchevsky masterfully conveys the charm of living concrete evidence of the original, preserving the freshness of the impressions of a foreigner and sprinkling his own presentation with colorful details and expressive strokes of the appearance of the tsar and his entourage, ceremonies for receiving ambassadors, feasts, table speeches, customs of the royal court. The author follows the strengthening of the centralized state and autocracy as forms of government, the gradual complication of the apparatus of state administration, the legal proceedings and the state of the army, compares Moscow administration with the orders of other countries.

The details of the diplomatic negotiations, the struggle of the court parties and the related foreign policy events were not of interest to Klyuchevsky. He focused on the internal life of the country. From the notes of foreigners, he selected information about the “view” of the country and its climate, the fertility of certain regions of the Moscow State, the main crops, cattle breeding, hunting, fishing, salt production, gardening and horticulture, the growth of cities and population. The work ends with a consideration of the history of trade in the Muscovite state of the XV-XVII centuries, and the monetary circulation associated with trade. Klyuchevsky spoke about the centers of domestic and foreign trade, trade routes and means of communication, about imported and exported goods, and their prices.

Research interest in economic issues and social history (which was a new phenomenon in the historical science of that time), attention to geographical conditions as a constant factor in Russian history, to the movement of population in order to develop new lands, to the issue of relations between Russia and the West - this is already visible foundations of the concept of the Russian historical process.

"Old Russian Lives of the Saints as a Historical Source". Vasily Osipovich decided to devote his master's thesis to the history of monastic land ownership, in the center of which the problem of colonization, first posed in science by S.M. Solovyov, was supposed to be. But unlike the state school, which explains colonization by the activity of the state, Klyuchevsky understood it as a process determined by the country's natural conditions and population growth.

For his master's essay, Klyuchevsky again chose the same type of source complex - the lives of the saints. Both the problem of colonization itself and the lives of the saints attracted the attention of many historians at that time: in the lives they thought to find something that was not found in the annals. It was assumed that they contain extensive material on the history of colonization, land tenure, the history of Russian customs, living conditions, the history of everyday life, private life, the way of thinking of society and its views on nature. Interest in the lives was intensified by their lack of study.

To understand Klyuchevsky's intention, unpublished materials from his archive are very important: four sketches in the form of lectures and conversations, draft essays on the history of Russian hagiography, the original work plan, and other drafts. These materials testify that he intended to show through the life of a simple Russian person the history of the cultural development of that territory of North-Eastern Russia, which formed the basis of the future Russian state.

Klyuchevsky did a titanic work on the study of the texts of at least five thousand hagiographic lists. During the preparation of his dissertation, he wrote six papers. Among them are such major studies as "Economic activity of the Solovetsky Monastery in the White Sea Territory" (it is called the first economic work of Klyuchevsky), and "Pskov Disputes", which examines some issues of ideological life in Russia in the 15th-16th centuries. (the work was written at a time of growing controversy between the Orthodox Church and the Old Believers). However, despite all the efforts expended, Klyuchevsky came to an unexpected conclusion about the literary monotony of lives, in which the authors described the life of everyone from the same sides, forgetting “about the details of the situation, place and time, without which there is no historical fact for the historian. It often seems that in the story of a life there is an apt observation, a living feature of reality; but in the analysis one common place remains.

It became obvious to Klyuchevsky that the materials identified from the sources would not be enough to fulfill his plan. Many colleagues advised him to abandon the topic, but he managed to turn it in a different direction: he began to approach the lives of the saints not in order to identify the factual data contained in them, but turned the lives themselves into an object of study. Now Klyuchevsky set himself purely source study tasks: dating the lists, determining the oldest list, the place of its origin, possible sources of lives, the number and nature of subsequent editions; determination of the accuracy of the reflection by the source of historical reality and the degree of truthfulness of the historical fact stated in it. The book received the final title "Old Russian Lives of the Saints as a Historical Source".

Klyuchevsky's conclusions were extremely bold and radically diverged from the then prevailing views on ancient Russian hagiographies. It is clear that the attitude to his work was ambiguous.

“Work on ancient Russian hagiographies made the artist-creator, who Vasily Osipovich was by nature,” wrote his student M.K. wide creative scope of the writer. Science has recognized Klyuchevsky's research as a source study masterpiece, an unsurpassed example of source analysis of narrative monuments.

"Boyar Duma of Ancient Russia". Social history in the works of Klyuchevsky. The doctoral dissertation "The Boyar Duma of Ancient Russia" was a kind of result of previous research and it gave a holistic concept of the Russian historical process. The choice of the topic of the dissertation fully reflected the scientific interests of the historian, his sociological approach to the study of the administration of justice in Russia. Klyuchevsky figuratively called the Boyar Duma the flywheel of the Moscow state and interpreted it as a constitutional institution "with extensive political influence, but without a constitutional charter, a government place with a wide range of affairs, but without an office, without an archive." This happened due to the fact that the Boyar Duma - this “government spring”, which set everything in motion, itself remained invisible to the society that it ruled, since its activities were closed from two sides: the sovereign from above and the clerk, “its speaker and recorder ”, below. Hence the difficulties in studying the history of the Duma, since "the researcher is deprived of the opportunity to restore, on the basis of original documents, both the political significance of the Duma and the order of its office work."

Klyuchevsky began to collect the necessary data bit by bit from a variety of sources - in archives, in private collections (including his own), in published documents; he also studied the works of historians. Klyuchevsky's students got the impression that their teacher was not at all burdened by the preliminary, black, painstaking and thankless "Egyptian" work on viewing the mass of sources and the "heap of archival raw materials", which took a lot of time and effort, and as a result there were only grains. True, they noted, Klyuchevsky "mined grains of pure gold" collected in homeopathic doses and analyzed under a microscope. And he reduced all these scrupulous investigations to certain, distinct conclusions, which constitute the conquest of science.

The study covers the entire centuries-old period of the existence of the Boyar Duma from Kievan Rus in the 10th century. until the beginning of the 18th century, when it ceased its activities in connection with the creation by Peter I in 1711 of the Government Senate. But not so much the history of the Boyar Duma, as a state institution, its competence and work attracted Klyuchevsky. Much greater was his interest in the composition of the Duma, in those ruling classes of society who ruled Russia through the Duma, in the history of society, in class relations. This was the novelty of the scientist's idea. In the journal version, the work had an important clarifying subtitle: "The experience of the history of a government institution in connection with the history of society." “In the proposed experience,” the author emphasized in the first version of the introduction, “the Boyar Duma is considered in connection with the classes and interests that dominated ancient Russian society.” Klyuchevsky believed that "there are two main points in the history of the social class, of which one can be called economic, the other political." He wrote about the dual origin of classes, which can be formed both on a political and on an economic basis: from above - by the will of power and from below - by the economic process. Klyuchevsky developed this position in many works, in particular, in special courses on the terminology of Russian history and on the history of estates in Russia.

Historians-lawyers of the old school (M.F. Vladimirsky-Budanov, V.I. Sergeevich and others) spoke out in the press against Klyuchevsky's concept. But not all historians of Russian law (for example, S.A. Kotlyarevsky) shared their position. In most cases, Klyuchevsky's work "The Boyar Duma" was perceived as the artistic embodiment of a completely new scheme of Russian history. “Many chapters of his book are positively brilliant, and the book itself is a whole theory that completely goes beyond the limits of the topic, close to the philosophical understanding of our entire history,” noted the then student of St. Petersburg University (later academician) S.F. Platonov.

In addition to the "Boyar Duma of Ancient Russia", Klyuchevsky's research interest in the social history of Russia, especially in the history of the ruling classes (boyars and nobility) and the history of the peasantry, is reflected in his works "The Origin of Serfdom in Russia", "The Poll Tax and the Abolition of Serfdom in Russia ”, “History of Estates in Russia”, “Composition of Representation at Zemsky Sobors of Ancient Russia”, “Abolition of Serfdom” and in a number of articles. The social history of Russia is also in the foreground in his "Course of Russian History".

From the concept of representatives of the state school with their purely legal approach to the essence of government, Klyuchevsky's position differed primarily in the desire to present the historical process as a process of development of social classes, the relationship and role of which changed in connection with the economic and political development of the country. Vasily Osipovich considered the nature of social classes and their relationship to each other to be more or less friendly cooperation. The reconciling principle in the national economy and political life, he called the state, which acted as the spokesman for national interests.

"Course of Russian history" (from ancient times to Alexander II). During the tense years of work on his doctoral dissertation and the creation of the first lecture courses on general and Russian history, Klyuchevsky replaced the deceased S.M. Solovyov (1879) at the university department of Russian history. The first lecture was devoted to the memory of the teacher, then Klyuchevsky continued the course begun by Solovyov. According to his program, he first began lecturing at Moscow University a year later, in the autumn of 1880. In parallel with the main course, Klyuchevsky conducted seminars with students on the study of individual monuments of ancient Russia, and later on historiography. Vasily Osipovich “captured us right away,” the students admitted, and not only because he spoke beautifully and effectively, but because “we looked for and found in him, first of all, a thinker and researcher”; "behind the artist was a thinker."

Throughout his life, Klyuchevsky continuously improved his general course of Russian history, but was not limited to it. For university students, scientists created an integral system of courses - in the center of the general course of Russian history and five special courses around it. Each of them has its own specifics and independent significance, however, the main value lies in their combination. All of them are directly related to the course of Russian history, adding and deepening its individual aspects, and all are aimed at developing the professionalism of future historians.

Special courses are arranged by Klyuchevsky in a logical order. Opened the theoretical course "Methodology of Russian history" , which was the "cap" for all the others. That was the first experience in Russia of creating a training course of a methodological nature - before that there were only separate introductory lectures. In Soviet literature, the course on methodology was subjected to particularly sharp criticism. Klyuchevsky was reproached for the fact that his philosophical and sociological views were not sufficiently definite and clear, they were distinguished by eclecticism; that Klyuchevsky viewed the historical process on an idealistic plane; that the concept of the class structure of society is alien to him; that he perceived society as a phenomenon devoid of antagonistic contradictions and said nothing about the class struggle; that he misinterpreted such concepts as "class", "capital", "labor", "formation", etc. Klyuchevsky was also reproached for the fact that he failed to cross the "threshold to Marxism." The requirements of the historical science of another era were presented to this course. But even then, with a generally negative assessment of Klyuchevsky's "methodology", the named course was valued as a scientific search for a scientist, the innovative nature of the problem statement was emphasized for its time.

Three subsequent courses were largely devoted to source studies: this is the study and interpretation of the terms of ancient Russian monuments in the course "Terminology of Russian History" (neither before nor after Klyuchevsky there is no other holistic presentation of Old Russian terminology; this course is unique); lecture course "History of Estates in Russia" , where Klyuchevsky showed the injustice of the existing relations of class inequality. The theme of the history of estates was acutely modern for Vasily Osipovich in connection with the peasant reform of 1861. Explaining the "concept of the estate", Klyuchevsky, as well as in the terminological course, in the "Boyar Duma" and other works, spoke of their dual origin: political and economic. He associated the first with the forcible enslavement of society by armed force, the second - with "voluntary political subordination of its class, which has achieved economic dominance in the country." The historian thought about the temporary nature of the class division of society, emphasized its transitory significance, drew attention to the fact that "there were times when there were no estates, and the time is coming when they no longer exist." He argued that class inequality is a historical phenomenon (that is, not an eternal, but a temporary state of society), “disappearing almost everywhere in Europe; class distinctions are more and more smoothed out in law”, “the equation of estates is the simultaneous triumph of both the general state interest and personal freedom. This means that the history of estates reveals to us two of the most hidden and closely related historical processes: the movement of consciousness of common interests and the liberation of the individual from the oppression of estates in the name of the common interest.

The situation of the peasants in Russia, the origin of serfdom and the stages of development of serfdom, the economic development of the country and management issues were constant topics of Klyuchevsky. In science, there was a theory about the "enslavement and emancipation of estates" by an all-powerful state, depending on its needs. Klyuchevsky, on the other hand, came to the conclusion that “serfdom in Russia was not created by the state, but only with the participation of the state; the latter belonged not to the foundations of law, but to its limits. According to the scientist, the main reason for the emergence of serfdom was economic, it stemmed from the debt of peasants to landowners. Thus, the issue moved from the public sphere to the area of ​​private law relations. Thus, in this matter, too, Klyuchevsky went beyond the framework of the historical-state school.

The history of monetary circulation and finance in Russia was developed by Klyuchevsky in many works, starting with the student essay "Tales of Foreigners" (chapters "Treasury Revenue", "Trade", "Coin"), in the special course "Terminology of Russian History" (lecture XI, dedicated to the monetary system ), in the research article “Russian ruble of the XVI-XVIII centuries. in its relation to the present” (1884), where, comparing grain prices in the past and present, the author determined the purchasing power of the ruble in different periods of Russian history, in an article on the poll tax (1886), in the “Course of Russian History”. Based on a fine analysis of sources, these works have made a significant contribution to the study of this range of problems.

Fourth year in college - lectures on the sources of Russian history . Fifth course - lectures on Russian historiography . R.A. Kireeva drew attention to the fact that V.O. Klyuchevsky did not develop any stable understanding and, accordingly, the definition of the subject of historiography. In practice, it was close to the modern interpretation, namely in the sense of the history of historical science, but its formulations changed and the understanding of the subject underwent a change: it was close to the concept of source study, then history, then self-consciousness, but more often Klyuchevsky meant by the term historiography is the writing of history, historical work, and not the history of the development of historical knowledge, historical science.

In his consideration of historiography, a cultural perspective is clearly traced. He considered the history of Russian science within the framework of the problem of Western influence and in close connection with the problem of education. Until the 17th century Russian society, according to Klyuchevsky, lived under the influence of native origin, the conditions of its own life and the indications of the nature of its country. Since the 17th century a foreign culture, rich in experience and knowledge, began to act on this society. This foreign influence met with homegrown orders and entered into a struggle with them, agitating the Russian people, confusing their concepts and habits, complicating their life, giving it an intensified and uneven movement. A view began to be established on Europe as a school in which one can learn not only skill, but also the ability to live and think. Further development of the European scientific tradition of V.O. Klyuchevsky connected with Poland. Russia did not change its usual caution: it did not dare to borrow Western education directly from its deposits, from its masters and workers, but looked for intermediaries. Western European civilization in the 17th century. came to Moscow in Polish processing and gentry clothes. It is clear that this influence was more traditional and strong in Little Russia and, as a result of this, wrote V.O. Klyuchevsky, - the figure-guide of Western science was, as a rule, a Western Russian Orthodox monk, learned in the Latin school.

However, this process was full of drama and contradictions. The need for a new science, in his opinion, met with irresistible antipathy and suspicion of everything that came from the Catholic and Protestant West. At the same time, as soon as Moscow society has tasted the fruits of this science, they are already beginning to take possession of heavy reflection whether it is safe, whether it will harm the purity of faith and morals. Protest against the new science V.O. Klyuchevsky considered it as the result of a collision of the national scientific tradition with the European one. The historian characterized the Russian scientific tradition from the point of view of the value orientations of a society in which science and art were valued for their connection with the church, as a means of knowing the word of God and spiritual salvation. Knowledge and artistic adornments of life, which did not have such a connection and such significance, were considered as an idle curiosity of a shallow mind or as superfluous frivolous fun, fun, neither such knowledge nor such art was given educational power, they were attributed to the low order of life, they were considered if not a direct vice, then the weaknesses of human nature, greedy for sin.

In Russian society, summed up V.O. Klyuchevsky, a suspicious attitude was established towards the participation of reason and scientific knowledge in matters of faith, and as a result of this, he singled out such a feature of the Russian mentality as the self-confidence of ignorance. This structure was strengthened by the fact that European science entered Russian life as a rival or, at best, a collaborator of the Church in the matter of arranging people's happiness. The protest against Western influence and European science was explained by V.O. Klyuchevskoy religious worldview, because the teachers after the Orthodox scientists were Protestants and Catholics. Convulsive movement forward and reflection with a timid look back - this is how the cultural gait of Russian society in the 17th century can be described, - wrote V.O. Klyuchevsky.

A sharp break with the traditions of medieval Russia is associated with the activities of Peter I. It was from the 18th century. a new image of science begins to take shape, a secular science focused on the search for truth and practical needs. Questions arise: did V.O. Klyuchevsky on the presence or absence of national features of Russian scientific thought in the post-Petrine period, or maybe Western influence completely removes this problem? Most likely, the historian did not ask these questions and, moreover, expressed the irony inherent in his nature about the search for national identity anywhere. He wrote that there are periods of crisis when the educated class closes European books and begins to think that we are not at all behind, but are going our own way, that Russia is on its own, and Europe is on its own, and we can do without its sciences and arts with our own. homegrown means. This surge of patriotism and longing for originality seizes our society so powerfully that we, usually rather indiscriminate admirers of Europe, begin to feel some kind of bitterness against everything European and are imbued with faith in the immense strength of our people ... But our uprisings against Western European influence are devoid of active character; they are more treatises on national identity than attempts at original activity. And, nevertheless, in his historiographic notes there are separate reflections on some features of the development of domestic historical science, which are considered in the context of the features of the development of Russian culture. IN. Klyuchevsky wrote about the meager stock of cultural forces that we have in such combinations and with such features that, perhaps, hitherto have not been repeated anywhere in Europe. This partly explains the state of Russian historical literature. It cannot be said that she suffered from the poverty of books and articles; but comparatively few of them were written with a clear awareness of scientific requirements and needs... Very often a writer, like a Crimean of old times, who has swooped down on Russian historical life, has already judged and judged it in three words; having barely begun to study the fact, he hurries to compose a theory, especially when it comes to the so-called history of the people. From here we like to stab a historical question more than solve it by examining carefully. From here in our historiography there are more views than scientifically substantiated facts, more doctrines than disciplines. This part of the literature provides more material for characterizing the development of Russian society contemporary to it than indications for the study of our past. So V.O. Klyuchevsky formulated in 1890 - 1891. the idea of ​​hypertrophied sociality of domestic science.

All introductory courses were read by Klyuchevsky according to a strictly developed plan: they always defined the subject and objectives of each course, explained its structure and periodization, indicated sources and, against the background of the general development of historical science, characterized the literature, which covered or touched on selected issues (or stated the fact of the absence such study). The presentation, as always with Klyuchevsky, had a relaxed form. He explained a lot, made unexpected comparisons that awakened the imagination, joked, and most importantly, the professor introduced students to the depths of science, shared his research experience with them, facilitated and directed their independent work.

For more than three decades, Klyuchevsky worked continuously on his lecture course on Russian history, but only in the early 1900s did he finally decide to prepare it for publication. The "Course of Russian History" (in 5 parts), which gives a holistic construction of the Russian historical process, is recognized as the pinnacle of the scientist's work. The “Course” was based on the deep research work of the scientist, whose works significantly expanded the problems of historical science, and on all the courses he created, both general (on Russian and general history) and five special ones.

In four introductory lectures to the "Course" Klyuchevsky outlined the foundations of his historical philosophy. The most important provisions, developed by him earlier in the special course "Methodology of Russian History" (20 lectures), are concentrated in one lecture. It:

Understanding local (in this case, Russian) history as part of the global, "general history of mankind";

Recognition of the content of history as a separate science. the historical process, that is, "the course, conditions and successes of human community or the life of mankind in its development and results";

Identification of three main historical forces that "build human community": the human personality, human society, the nature of the country.

Klyuchevsky, like Solovyov, considered colonization to be the main factor in Russian history. Solovyov's idea of ​​colonization as an important factor in the historical development of Klyuchevsky received an in-depth interpretation by considering such aspects of it as economic, ethnological and psychological. Starting the historical part of the published course of lectures with the section "Nature of the country and the history of the people", he proceeded to determine the significance of soil and botanical bands, as well as those influences that "the main elements of Russian nature" had on history: the river network, the plain, the forest and the steppe. Klyuchevsky showed the attitude of the Russian people towards each of them, explaining the reasons for the stability of the reputation (dislike for the steppe and forest, ambiguous attitude towards the river, etc.). The historian led the reader to the idea of ​​the need for a careful, as we would now say, ecological approach to nature: “The nature of our country, with apparent simplicity and uniformity, is characterized by a lack of stability: it is relatively easy to unbalance it.”

Given the vast territory characteristic of Russia, ethnic diversity and widespread migration in its history, according to Klyuchevsky, the factor of the so-called "staples" inevitably acted, which alone could keep the ever-growing conglomerate in unity. In politics, the role of a "clamp" was assigned to highly centralized power, absolutism; in the military sphere - a strong army capable of performing both external and internal functions (for example, suppression of dissent); in administrative terms - an early developed strong bureaucracy; in ideology - the dominance of the type of authoritarian thinking among the people, including among the intelligentsia, religion; and finally, in the economy, the persistence of serfdom and its consequences.”

Klyuchevsky shared Solovyov's idea about the possibility of comparing human societies with organic bodies of nature, which are also born, live and die. He characterized the scientific movement to which he and his teacher contributed as follows: "Historical thought began to carefully peer into what can be called the mechanism of human community." The irremovable need of the human mind, according to Klyuchevsky, was the scientific knowledge of the course, conditions and successes of "human community", or the life of mankind in its development and results. The task of “reproducing the consistent growth of the political and social life of Russia” and analyzing the continuity of forms and phenomena set by Solovyov, his student fulfilled in his own way. He approached the study of the history of Russia from the standpoint of the relationship and mutual influence of the three main factors - personality, nature and society. The organic approach of the historian to history required taking into account the context of the era and the forces of history, the study of the multidimensionality of the historical process and the diversity of existing and existing connections. Klyuchevsky combined historical and sociological approaches, specific analysis with the study of the phenomenon as a phenomenon of world history.

Klyuchevsky divides Russian history into periods, primarily depending on the movement of the bulk of the population and on geographical conditions that have a strong effect on the course of historical life. The fundamental novelty of his periodization was the introduction of two more criteria - political (the problem of power and society and the change in the social support of power) and especially economic factors. Economic consequences, according to Klyuchevsky, prepare political consequences, which become noticeable a little later: "Economic interests consistently turned into social ties, from which political unions grew."

The result is four periods:

1st period. Russia Dnieper, urban, commercial from the 8th - 13th centuries. Then the mass of the Russian population concentrated on the middle and upper Dnieper with tributaries. Russia was then politically divided into separate isolated regions; at the head of each was a large city as a political and economic center. The dominant fact of economic life is foreign trade with the forestry, hunting, and beekeeping that it caused.

In the XI-XII centuries. “Rus as a tribe merged with the native Slavs, both of these terms Rus and the Russian land, without losing their geographical meaning, are political in meaning: this is how the entire territory subject to the Russian princes began to be called, with its entire Christian Slavic-Russian population.” The invasion of the Mongols did not become a dividing line: “... the Mongols caught Russia on a campaign. During the movement, which was accelerated, but which was not called; a new way of life began before them. It was important for Klyuchevsky to explain how and by what conditions the warehouse of political and economic relations was created, as well as when the Slavic population appeared and what caused its appearance. Economic consequences, according to Klyuchevsky, were also prepared for political consequences, which become noticeable from the beginning of the 9th century.

“Our Varangian is mainly an armed merchant, going to Russia in order to get further into rich Byzantium ... The Varangian is a peddler, a petty trader, to warp - engage in petty bargaining." “Settling down in the large trading cities of Russia, the Varangians met here a class of the population that was socially related to them and needed them, a class of armed merchants, and were part of it, entering into a trading partnership with the natives or hiring for good food to protect Russian trade routes and trade people , i.e., to escort Russian trade caravans. In the XI century. the Vikings continued to come to Russia as mercenaries, but they no longer turned into conquerors here, and the violent seizure of power, having ceased to be repeated, seemed unlikely. The Russian society of that time saw in the princes the establishers of the state order, the bearers of legitimate power, under the shadow of which it lived, and erected its beginning to the calling of the princes. From the combination of the Varangian principalities and the city regions that retained their independence, a third political form emerged, which began in Russia: it was Grand Duchy of Kiev.

“So, the Drevlyans, Dregovichi, Radimichi, Vyatichi do not see large trading cities; there were no special areas of these tribes. This means that the force that pulled together all these areas was precisely the trading cities that arose along the main river routes of Russian trade and which were not among the tribes remote from them. Large armed cities, which became the rulers of the regions, arose precisely among the tribes that most actively participated in foreign trade.

The historian carried out the historical analysis of the political consciousness of power and its evolution in stages. The political consciousness of the prince in the 11th century, from the point of view of the scientist, was limited to two ideas: the conviction that “food was their political right”, and the actual source of this right was their political duty to defend the land. The idea of ​​a pure monarchy did not yet exist; joint ownership with an elder at the head seemed simpler and more accessible to understanding. In the XII century. the princes were not sovereign sovereigns of the earth, but only its military-police rulers. “They were recognized as the bearers of supreme power, as far as they defended the earth from the outside and maintained the existing order in it; only within these limits they could legislate. But it was not their job to create a new zemstvo order: there was no such authority of the supreme power either in the law in force, or in the legal consciousness of the earth. Losing political integrity, the Russian land began to feel like an integral national or zemstvo composition.

The reasons for feudal fragmentation, which Klyuchevsky considered as “political fragmentation”, he saw in a change in the idea of ​​“fatherland”, which was reflected in the words of Monomakh’s grandson Izyaslav Mstislavich: “It’s not the place that goes to the head, but the head to the place”, i.e. “It is not the place that looks for the right head, but the head of the right place.” The personal importance of the prince was placed above the rights of seniority. In addition, the dynastic sympathies of the cities, which caused the interference of the main cities, regions in the mutual accounts of the princes, confused their turn in possession. Klyuchevsky cited the statement of the Novgorodians that "they did not feed him for themselves." Thus, “... defending their local interests, the volost cities sometimes went against the princely accounts, inviting their favorite princes to their tables in addition to the next ones. This intervention of cities, confusing the princely order of precedence, began shortly after the death of Yaroslav.

And finally, the third circumstance was that “the princes did not establish their own order in Russia and could not establish it. They weren't called for that, and they didn't come for that. The earth called them for external defense, needed their saber, and not their founding mind. The earth lived by its local orders, however, rather monotonous. The princes slid over this zemstvo system, which was built without them, and their family accounts are not state relations, but the allocation of zemstvo remuneration for security service.

Colonization, according to Klyuchevsky's observation, upset the balance of social elements, on which social order was kept. And then the laws of political science came into play: simultaneously with neglect, local self-conceit, arrogance, brought up by political successes, develops. The claim, passing under the banner of law, becomes a precedent, gaining the power not only to replace, but also to cancel law.

In the analysis of the monarchical form of statehood, Klyuchevsky clearly showed his understanding of the ideal and the influence of ethnic ideas on the author's concept and historical assessment. "The political significance of the sovereign is determined by the extent to which he uses his supreme rights to achieve the goals of the common good." As soon as the concept of the common good disappears in society, the idea of ​​the sovereign as a universally obligatory power goes out in the minds. Thus, the idea of ​​the sovereign, the guardian of the common good as the goal of the state, was carried out, the nature of sovereign rights was determined. Klyuchevsky introduced the concept of "responsible autocracy", which he distinguished from unforgivable tyranny. The Russian people faced the latter already in antiquity. Klyuchevsky believed that Andrei Bogolyubsky "did a lot of bad deeds." The historian admitted that the prince was the conductor of new state aspirations. However, the "novelty", "hardly good" introduced by A. Bogolyubsky, was of no real use. Klyuchevsky considered the vices of A. Bogolyubsky to be disregard for antiquity and customs, self-will (“he acted in his own way in everything”). The weakness of this statesman was his inherent duality, a mixture of power with caprice, strength with weakness. “In the person of Prince Andrei, the Great Russian first appeared on the historical stage, and this entry cannot be considered successful,” Klyuchevsky gave such a general assessment. The popularity of the authorities, according to the deep conviction of the historian, was facilitated by personal prowess and talents.

Klyuchevsky connects the idea of ​​power, which arose as a result of reading books and political reflections, with the name of Ivan the Terrible, "the most well-read Muscovite of the 16th century." divine. It was a political revelation for him."

Almost two centuries of struggle between Russia and the Polovtsy had a serious impact on European history. While Western Europe undertook an offensive struggle against the Asian East with crusades (a similar movement against the Moors began on the Iberian Peninsula), Russia, with its steppe struggle, covered the left flank of the European offensive. This indisputable historical merit cost Russia dearly: the struggle moved her from her familiar Dnieper places and abruptly changed the direction of her future life. From the middle of the XII century. there was a desolation of Kievan Rus under the influence of the legal and economic humiliation of the lower classes; princely strife and Polovtsian invasions. There was a "gap" of the original nationality. The population went to the Rostov land, a region that lay outside the old native Russia and in the XII century. was more foreign than the Russian region. Here in the XI and XII centuries. three Finnish tribes lived - Muroma, Merya and the whole. As a result of the mixing of Russian settlers with them, the formation of a new Great Russian nationality begins. It finally takes shape in the middle of the 15th century, and this time is significant in that the family efforts of the Moscow princes finally meet with the people's needs and aspirations.

2nd period. Russia Upper Volga, specific-princely, free-farming from the XIII to the middle of the XV century. The main mass of the Russian population, among the general confusion, moved to the upper Volga with tributaries. It remains fragmented, but not into urban areas, but into princely destinies, this is another form of political life. The dominant political fact of the period is the specific fragmentation of the Upper Volga Russia under the rule of the princes. The dominant economic fact is free peasant agricultural labor on the Aleunian loam.

The important historical significance of transitional times was always emphasized by Klyuchevsky precisely because such times "often lie in wide and dark bands between two periods." These epochs "recycle the ruins of the perished order into elements of the order that arises after them." "Specific centuries", according to Klyuchevsky, were such "transferring historical stages." He saw their significance not in themselves, but in what came out of them.

Klyuchevsky spoke about the policy of the Moscow princes as “family”, “stingy” and “prudent”, and defined its essence as an effort to collect foreign lands. The weakness of power was a continuation of its power, applied to the detriment of law. Involuntarily modernizing the mechanisms of the historical process in accordance with his own socio-political convictions, Klyuchevsky drew the attention of students to cases of immoral actions of Moscow princes. Among the conditions that ultimately determined the triumph of the Moscow princes, Klyuchevsky singled out the inequality of the means of the fighting parties. If the princes of Tver at the beginning of the XIV century. still considered it possible to fight the Tatars, then the Moscow princes "zealously looked after the khan and made him an instrument of their plans." “As a reward for this, Kalita in 1328 received the grand-ducal table ...”, - Klyuchevsky attached exceptional importance to this event.

XIV century - the dawn of the political and moral revival of the Russian land. 1328-1368 were calm. The Russian population gradually emerged from a state of despondency and stupor. During this time, two generations managed to grow up, who did not know the horror of the elders before the Tatars, free "from the nervous trembling of their fathers at the thought of the Tatar region": they went to Kulikovo field. Thus the ground was prepared for national success. The Muscovite state, according to Klyuchevsky, "was born on the Kulikovo field, and not in the hoard chest of Ivan Kalita."

The cementing basis (an indispensable condition) of political revival is moral revival. Earthly existence is shorter than the spiritual influence of a morally strong personality (such as Sergius of Radonezh...). "The spiritual influence of St. Sergius survived his earthly existence and poured into his name, which from historical memory became an ever-active moral engine and became part of the spiritual wealth of the people." Spiritual influence outgrows the framework of a mere historical memory.

The Moscow period, according to Klyuchevsky, is the antithesis of the specific period. From the local conditions of the Upper Volga soil, new socio-historical forms of life, types, and relationships have grown. The sources of Muscovite strength and its mysterious first successes lay in the geographical position of Moscow and the genealogical position of its prince. Colonization, the accumulation of the population gave the Moscow prince significant economic benefits, increased the number of payers of direct taxes. The geographical position favored the early industrial successes of Moscow: "the development of commercial transport traffic along the Moscow River revived the industry of the region, drew it into this trade movement and enriched the treasury of the local prince with trade duties."

The economic consequences of the geographical position of Moscow gave the Grand Duke abundant material resources, and his genealogical position among the descendants of Vsevolod III “instructed” him how best to put them into circulation. This "new case" was not based, according to Klyuchevsky, on any historical tradition, and therefore could only very gradually and late acquire a general national-political significance.

3rd period. Russia Great, Moscow, tsarist-boyar, military-agricultural since the half of the 15th century. until the second decade of the seventeenth century. , when the bulk of the Russian population spreads from the region of the upper Volga to the south and east, along the Don and Middle Volga black earth, forming a special branch of the people - Great Russia, which, together with the local population, expands beyond the upper Volga region. The dominant political fact of the period is the state unification of Great Russia 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 fact of economic life is the same agricultural labor on the old loam and on the newly employed Middle Volga and Don chernozem” through free peasant labor; but his will is already beginning to be shy as agriculture is concentrated in the hands of the service class, the military class, recruited by the state for external defense.

Ends the 3rd period of the Troubles event. Klyuchevsky viewed the atrocities of Ivan the Terrible as a reaction to popular indignation caused by the ruin. At the slightest difficulty, the king leaned in the wrong direction. "To enmity and arbitrariness, the king sacrificed himself, and his dynasty, and the public good." Klyuchevsky denied Grozny "practical tact", "political eye", "a sense of reality." He wrote: "... having successfully undertaken the completion of the state order laid down by his ancestors, he imperceptibly ended up shaking the very foundations of this order." Therefore, what was patiently endured when the owner was, turned out to be unbearable when the owner was gone.

Klyuchevsky distinguished between the concepts of "crisis" and "distemper". The crisis is not yet a turmoil, but already a signal to society about the inevitability of the onset of new relationships, “the normal work of time”, the transition of society “from age to age”. The way out of the crisis is possible either through reforms or through revolution.

If, with the breakdown of old connections, the development of new ones comes to a standstill, the neglect of the disease leads to confusion. Strictly speaking, turmoil is a disease of the social organism, a "historical antinomy" (that is, an exception to the rules of historical life), which arises under the influence of factors that impede renewal. Its external manifestations are cataclysms and wars of “all against all”.

Klyuchevsky distinguished between the "root causes" of unrest - natural, national-historical and current, concrete-historical. He believed that the explanation for the frequent unrest in Russia should be sought in the peculiarities of its development - nature, which taught the Great Russian to go roundabout ways, "the inability to count in advance", the habit of being guided by the famous "maybe", as well as in the conditions of personality formation and social relations.

Characteristic, from the point of view of Klyuchevsky, were the following features of turmoil: "Power without a clear consciousness of its tasks and limits, and with a shaken authority, with impoverished ... means without a sense of personal and national dignity ..."

“The old received the meaning not of the obsolete, but of the national, original, Russian, and the new - the meaning of the foreign, someone else's... but not the best, improved.

Conflict between the center and places. Strengthening separatist consciousness. The absence of social forces capable of reviving the country. The rebirth of power structures under authoritarian traditions in Russia.

Klyuchevsky carefully studied the nature of the unrest of the XIII and XVII centuries. and their move. He came to the conclusion that turmoil develops from top to bottom and is continuous in time. Trouble in the 17th century lasted 14 years, and its consequences - the entire "rebellious" XVII century. Trouble consistently captures all strata of society. First, the rulers enter it (the first stage of unrest). If the leaders are not able or do not want to solve the fundamental problems that led to the turmoil, then the turmoil descends “one floor below” (the second stage of the turmoil). "Debauchery of the upper classes. Passive courage of the people. "The upper classes diligently assisted the government in increasing social discord." They consolidated old customs in a new shell, left unresolved urgent tasks - the main spring of unrest, and thus betrayed the people. And this, in turn, exacerbated the confusion. This destruction of "national unions" is fraught with the intervention of foreigners. So, confusion descends to the "lower floor" and discontent becomes universal. It is possible to cure the turmoil only by eliminating the causes that caused this disease, by solving the problems that confronted the country on the eve of the turmoil. The way out of the turmoil goes in the reverse order - from the bottom up, the local initiative is of particular importance.

Exit from the Great Troubles of the 17th century. in the conditions of the development of serfdom and absolutism, it had its own characteristics (controversial, camouflage, inhumane and potentially explosive). Thus, an a priori, armchair approach to reforms has entered the Russian tradition, when a ready-made program (or a set of slogans) is offered to the people, while the desires and capabilities of the people are not taken into account.

Klyuchevsky “as if warns the future reformers of Russia who planned to Europeanize it: experience shows how important it is to take into account the root causes of the disease in the programs of revival - both general and special, otherwise their implementation may give the opposite result,” considers the researcher of this story N.V. Shcherben. It's all about overcoming the inertia of authoritarian thinking and monopoly tendencies.

Klyuchevsky saw the positive work of unrest in the sad benefit of troubled times: they take away people's peace and contentment and instead give experiments and ideas. The main thing is a step forward in the development of public consciousness. "The Rise of the People's Spirit". The unification takes place "not in the name of any state order, but in the name of national, religious and simply civil security." Freed from the "braces" of the authoritarian state, national and religious feelings begin to perform a civic function and contribute to the revival of civic consciousness. There comes an understanding of what can be borrowed from someone else's experience, and what cannot. The Russian people are too big to be "alien-eating plants". Klyuchevsky reflected on the question of how "to use the fire of European thought so that it shines, but does not burn." The best, albeit difficult, school of political reflection, according to Klyuchevsky, is popular coups. The feat of the Time of Troubles in "the struggle with oneself, with one's habits and prejudices." Society was taught to act independently and consciously. In critical epochs, new progressive ideas and forces are born in agony.

The turmoil also had negative consequences for public consciousness: “The destruction of the old ideals and foundations of life due to the impossibility of forming a new worldview from hastily grasped concepts... worldview is replaced by mood, and morality is exchanged for decency and aesthetics. At the dawn of the "separation of powers" in Russia, the "patrimony" of power prevailed over the representative body elected by the people. Uprisings, "black people" against the "strong" caused "mandatory forgery under the people's will" - a phenomenon that accompanied the entire subsequent history of Russia. Social changes took place in the composition of the ruling class: "The Troubles were resolved by the triumph of the middle social strata at the expense of the social elite and the social bottom." At the expense of the latter, the nobles received "more than the former honors, gifts and estates." The bitterness of Klyuchevsky's conclusion was that the potential possibilities of turmoil in the future were preserved, that is, they do not give any immunity to the future of turmoil.

The opinion about the establishment of serfdom of the peasants by Boris Godunov, Klyuchevsky believed, belongs to the number of our historical fairy tales. On the contrary, Boris was ready to take a measure aimed at strengthening the freedom and well-being of the peasants: he, apparently, was preparing a decree that would precisely determine the duties and dues of the peasants in favor of the landowners. This is a law that the Russian government did not decide on until the emancipation of the serfs. Describing Boris Godunov and analyzing his mistakes, Klyuchevsky was guided in his judgments by his own political sympathies: “Boris should have taken the lead in business, while turning the Zemsky Sobor from an accidental official assembly into a permanent popular representation, the idea of ​​​​which was already roaming ... in Moscow minds under Grozny and the convocation of which Boris himself demanded in order to be popularly elected. This would reconcile the opposition boyars with him and - who knows - would avert the troubles that befell him with his family and Russia, making him the founder of a new dynasty. Klyuchevsky emphasized the ambiguity of Godunov's policy: he began to elevate poor-born people, unaccustomed to government affairs and illiterate, to high ranks for trickery.

4th period. From the beginning of the seventeenth century until the middle of the nineteenth century. All-Russian, imperial-noble, the period of serfdom, agricultural and factory. "RU

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), in his last year he deliberately left 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 time of study for Klyuchevsky coincided with the biggest event in the life of the country - the bourgeois reforms of the early 1860s. He was an opponent of extreme measures of the government, but did not approve of the political actions of the students. The subject of graduation essay at the university Tales of foreigners about Moscow state(1866) Klyuchevsky chose to study about 40 legends and notes of foreigners about Russia in the 15th-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) thesis is devoted to another type of medieval Russian sources. Ancient Russian Lives of the Saints as a Historical Source(1871). 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 of the Solovetsky Monastery in the White Sea Territory(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. He taught the course of general history at the Alexander Military School, the 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 activities brought Klyuchevsky well-deserved fame. Gifted with the ability of figurative penetration into the past, a master of artistic expression, a famous 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.

Doctoral dissertation Boyar Duma of Ancient Russia(first published on the pages of the journal "Russian Thought" in 1880-1881) was a well-known stage in the work of Klyuchevsky. The subject of subsequent scientific works of Klyuchevsky clearly indicated this new direction - 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 zemstvo cathedrals of ancient Russia(1890) and others.

The most famous scientific work of Klyuchevsky, which received worldwide recognition, is Russian history course 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. (later time Well 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 the 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. The allocation of the natural factor, the importance of 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 still, 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, the most important events are thoughts,” Klyuchevsky wrote. 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.