THE JOURNAL OF REGIONAL HISTORY V.7 No.2
About One Discussion in Russian Medieval Studies in the Late 20th Century
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The article is devoted to the discussion between A. Gurevich and L. Batkin, who made a significant contribution to the development of “non-Soviet” medieval studies. The purpose of the study is to determine the characteristic features of the controversy between A. Gurevich and L. Batkin and its significance in the process of transformation of the epistemological field of Russian historical science. The principles of intellectual history constitute the theoretical foundation of the article. The study was carried out on the basis of comparative historical and historical genetic methods. The present work analyzes the views of A. Gurevich and L. Batkin on a number of methodological issues that were at the center of the debate between the scholars. The author concludes that the dispute under consideration raised questions about the cultural and social essence of the individual, about the implementation by the individual of his functions within social structures, and about the causes and mechanisms for changing cultural values and dominants. The interpretation of the concept of personality determined the choice of approach to the study of society. While for A. Gurevich, the personality is a product of the socio-cultural system of a particular era and the peculiarity of the personality lies in the original combination of common features of culture, L. Batkin views the personality as an individual who, being guided by general norms and regulations, lets them go through his consciousness and as if generates norms and values again. According to L. Batkin, “the conscious personality” is the beginning of overcoming stereotypes and matrices of social consciousness. In this regard, the approach of A. Gurevich was aimed at reconstructing social stereotypes and matrices that determined people’s behavior. L. Batkin analyzed outstanding literary works, which, according to the scholar, reveal change and transformation in the culture under study. A number of points made by L. Batkin during the polemic were perceived and interpreted by Yu. Bessmertnyi, A. Yurganov, A. Karavashkin, and I. Danilevskii and influenced the formation of their research agenda. The scholars agreed that medieval culture should be studied proceeding from the peculiarities of the development of the culture itself; attention should be paid to understanding the specifics of the language of culture, features of thinking and self-expression of the era under study; unique features of culture should be taken into account; it is required to use the principles of hermeneutics as a methodological basis for the interpretation of written sources.
Andreev, M.L. “Gurevich versus Batkin: Spor dvukh epistemologii?” [Gurevich versus Batkin: Dispute between two epistemologies?] In Odissei. Chelovek v istorii. 2014 [Odysseus. Man in history. 2014], edited by A.O. Chubar'yan, iss. 25, 5–11. Moscow: Nauka, 2015. (In Russian)
Batkin, L.M. “Dva sposoba izuchat' istoriyu kul'tury” [Two ways to study the history of culture]. In L.M. Batkin, Pristrastiya. Izbrannye esse i stat'i o kul'ture [Preferences. Selected essays and articles about culture], 34–55. Moscow: Kursiv-A, 1994. (In Russian)
Batkin, L.M. Evropeiskii chelovek naedine s soboi. Ocherki o kul'turno-istoricheskikh osnovaniyakh i predelakh lichnogo samosoznaniya [European man alone with himself. Essays on the cultural and historical foundations and limits of personal self-consciousness]. Moscow: Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi gumanitarnyi universitet, 2000. (In Russian)
Batkin, L.M. “Istorik o sebe. Vnutrennyaya logika samodvizheniya” [A historian about himself. Internal logic of self-movement]. In L.M. Batkin, Pristrastiya: Izbrannye esse i stat'i o kul'ture [Preferences. Selected essays and articles about culture], 68–71. Moscow: RGGU, 2002. (In Russian)
Batkin, L.M. “K sporam o logiko-istoricheskom opredelenii individual'nosti” [On the disputes about the logical-historical definition of individuality]. In Odissei. Chelovek v istorii.1990: Lichnost' i obshchestvo [Odysseus. Man in history. 1990: Personality and society], edited by A.Ya. Gurevich, 59–75. Moscow: Nauka, 1990. (In Russian)
Batkin, L.M. “O tom, kak A.Ya. Gurevich vozdelyval svoi allod” [How A.Ya. Gurevich cultivated his allod]. In L.M. Batkin, Pristrastiya. Izbrannye esse i stat'i o kul'ture [Preferences. Selected essays and articles about culture], 66–94. Moscow: Kursiv-A, 1994. (In Russian)
Batkin, L.M. “Tip kul'tury kak istoricheskaya tselostnost'” [Type of culture as historical integrity]. Voprosy filosofii, no. 9 (1969): 99–108.
Batkin, L.M. Epizody moei obshchestvennoi zhizni [Scenes of my Social Life]. Moscow: Novyi khronograf, 2013. (In Russian)
Bessmertnyi, Yu.L. “Nekotorye soobrazheniya ob izuchenii fenomena vlasti i o kontseptsiyakh postmodernizma i mikroistorii” [Some considerations on the study of the phenomenon of power and the concepts of postmodernism and microhistory]. In Odissei. Chelovek v istorii. 1995: Predstavleniya o vlasti [Odysseus. Man in history. 1995: Ideas about power], edited by Yu.L. Bessmertnyi, 4–19. Moscow: Nauka, 1995. (In Russian)
Bessmertnyi, Yu.L. “Chto za ‘Kazus’?..” [What is the ‘Casus’?..]. In Kazus: Individual'noe i unikal'noe v istorii. 1996 [Casus: the individual and the unique in history. 1996], edited by Yu.L. Bessmertnyi, and M.A. Boitsov, 7–24. Moscow: RGGU, 1997. (In Russian)
Gurevich, A.Ya. “Eshche neskol'ko zamechanii k diskussii o lichnosti i individual'nosti v istorii” [A few more remarks on the discussion of personality and individuality in history]. In Odissei. Chelovek v istorii. 1990: Lichnost' i obshchestvo [Odysseus. Man in history. 1990: Personality and society], edited by A.Ya. Gurevich, 76–89. Moscow: Nauka, 1990. (In Russian)
Gurevich, A.Ya. Izbrannye trudy. Srednevekovyi mir [Selected works. Medieval world]. St Petersburg: Izdatel'stvo Sankt-Peterburgskogo universiteta, 2007. (In Russian)
Gurevich, A.Ya. Individ i sotsium na srednevekovom Zapade [The individual and the society in the Medieval West]. Moscow: Rossiiskaya politicheskaya entsiklopediya, 2005. (In Russian)
Gurevich, A.Ya. Istoriches ii sintez i Sh ola “Annalov” [Historical Synthesis and the Annales School]. Moscow: Indrik, 1993. (In Russian)
Gurevich, A.Ya. Istoriya istorika [History of a historian]. Moscow: Rossiiskaya politicheskaya entsiklopediya (ROSSPEN), 2004. (In Russian)
Gurevich, A.Ya. Kategorii srednevekovoi kul'tury [Categories of Medieval Culture]. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1972. (In Russian)
Gurevich, A.Ya. Problemy genezisa feodalizma v Zapadnoi Evrope [Problems of the genesis of feudalism in Western Europe]. Moscow: Vysshaya shkola, 1970. (In Russian)
Gurevich, A.Ya. “‘Put' pryamoi, kak Nevskii prospekt’, ili ispoved' istorika” [‘The path, straight as Nevsky рrospekt’, or the confession of a historian]. In Odissei. Chelovek v istorii. 1992: Istorik i vremya [Odysseus. Man in history. 1992: The historian and time], edited by A.Ya. Gurevich, 7–34. Moscow: Krug", 1994. (In Russian)
Danilevskii, I.N. Drevnyaya Rus' glazami sovremennikov i potomkov (IX–XII vv.). Kurs lektsii [Ancient Rus through the eyes of contemporaries and descendants (9th – 12th centuries). A course of lectures]. Moscow: Aspekt Press, 1998. (In Russian)
Danilevskii, I.N. Povest' vremennykh let: germenevticheskie osnovy izucheniya letopisnykh tekstov [The Tale of Bygone Years: hermeneutical foundations for the study of chronicle texts]. Moscow: Aspekt-Press, 2004. (In Russian) Karavashkin, A.V. Russkaya srednevekovaya publitsistika: Ivan Peresvetov, Ivan Groznyi, Andrei Kurbskii [Russian medieval sociopolitical essayism: Ivan Peresvetov, Ivan the Terrible, Andrey Kurbsky]. Moscow: Prometei, 2000. (In Russian) Karavashkin, A.V., and A.L. Yurganov. Opyt istoricheskoi fenomenologii: trudnyi put' k ochevidnosti [A study of historical phenomenology: a difficult path to evidence]. Moscow: RGGU, 2003. (In Russian)
Koposov, N. “O Leonide Mikhailoviche Batkine” [About Leonid Mikhailovich Batkin]. Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, no. 3 (145) (2017), accessed November 26, 2021, (In Russian)
Krom, M.M. “Aron Yakovlevich Gurevich i antropologicheskii povorot v istoricheskoi nauke” [Aron Yakovlevich Gurevich and the anthropological turn in historical science]. Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, no. 5 (75) (2006), accessed December 6, 2021, (In Russian)
Ryzhkovskii, V. “Interv'yu s L.M. Batkinym (fragmenty)” [An interview with L.M. Batkin (fragments)]. Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, no. 3 (145) (2017), accessed February 10, 2022, . (In Russian)
Sveshnikov, A.V., and B.E. Stepanov. “Istoricheskie al'manakhi ‘Odissei’, ‘Kazus’, ‘Dialog so vremenem’: poiski modelei nauchnoi kommunikatsii” [Historical publications Odysseus, Casus, Dialogue with Time: the search for models of scientific communication (preprint WP6/2008/02). Moscow: Izdatel'skii dom GU VShE, 2008. Accessed November 18, 2021. (In Russian)
Sviderskaya, M.I. “O Leonide Mikhailoviche Batkine” [About Leonid Mikhailovich Batkin]. Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, no. 3 (145) (2017), accessed November 28, 2021, (In Russian)
Stepanov, B. “Tonkaya krasnaya nit': Spory o lichnosti i individual'nosti kak zachin istoriografii 1990-kh” [A thin red thread: Disputes about personality and individuality as the beginning of historiography of the 1990s]. Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, no. 1 (83) (2007), accessed November 23, 2021, publications.hse.ru/mirror/pubs/share/folder/ocmwmreh9p/direct/74026042 (In Russian)
Stepanov, B.E. “‘Byt' dol'she v storone mne kazalos' nevozmozhnym. . . ’ (poslednee interv'yu A.Ya. Gurevicha, 11 iyunya 2006 goda)” [‘It seemed impossible for me to stay aside longer. . . ’ (The last interview with A.Ya. Gurevich, June 11, 2006)]. Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, no. 5 (75) (2006), accessed February 9, 2022, (In Russian)
“Tsentr ‘Istoriya chastnoi zhizni i povsednevnosti’” [Center ‘History of Private and Everyday Life’]. Ofitsial'nyi sait Instituta vseobshchei istorii RAN [Official website of the Institute of World History of the RAS], accessed January 26, 2022, (In Russian)
Shevchenko, M.N. “O roli ‘istoricheskoi fenomenologii’ v otechestvennoi istoriografii kontsa XX – nachala XXI v.” [On the role of ‘historical phenomenology’ in Russian historiography of the late 20th – early 21st centuries]. Vestnik Tyumenskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Gumanitarnye issledovaniya. Humanitates, vol. 6, no. 3 (23) (2020): 154–67, (In Russian)
Yurganov, A.L. Kategorii russkoi srednevekovoi kul'tury [Categories of Russian Medieval culture]. Moscow: MIROS, 1998. (In Russian)
Batkin, L.M. “Dva sposoba izuchat' istoriyu kul'tury” [Two ways to study the history of culture]. In L.M. Batkin, Pristrastiya. Izbrannye esse i stat'i o kul'ture [Preferences. Selected essays and articles about culture], 34–55. Moscow: Kursiv-A, 1994. (In Russian)
Batkin, L.M. Evropeiskii chelovek naedine s soboi. Ocherki o kul'turno-istoricheskikh osnovaniyakh i predelakh lichnogo samosoznaniya [European man alone with himself. Essays on the cultural and historical foundations and limits of personal self-consciousness]. Moscow: Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi gumanitarnyi universitet, 2000. (In Russian)
Batkin, L.M. “Istorik o sebe. Vnutrennyaya logika samodvizheniya” [A historian about himself. Internal logic of self-movement]. In L.M. Batkin, Pristrastiya: Izbrannye esse i stat'i o kul'ture [Preferences. Selected essays and articles about culture], 68–71. Moscow: RGGU, 2002. (In Russian)
Batkin, L.M. “K sporam o logiko-istoricheskom opredelenii individual'nosti” [On the disputes about the logical-historical definition of individuality]. In Odissei. Chelovek v istorii.1990: Lichnost' i obshchestvo [Odysseus. Man in history. 1990: Personality and society], edited by A.Ya. Gurevich, 59–75. Moscow: Nauka, 1990. (In Russian)
Batkin, L.M. “O tom, kak A.Ya. Gurevich vozdelyval svoi allod” [How A.Ya. Gurevich cultivated his allod]. In L.M. Batkin, Pristrastiya. Izbrannye esse i stat'i o kul'ture [Preferences. Selected essays and articles about culture], 66–94. Moscow: Kursiv-A, 1994. (In Russian)
Batkin, L.M. “Tip kul'tury kak istoricheskaya tselostnost'” [Type of culture as historical integrity]. Voprosy filosofii, no. 9 (1969): 99–108.
Batkin, L.M. Epizody moei obshchestvennoi zhizni [Scenes of my Social Life]. Moscow: Novyi khronograf, 2013. (In Russian)
Bessmertnyi, Yu.L. “Nekotorye soobrazheniya ob izuchenii fenomena vlasti i o kontseptsiyakh postmodernizma i mikroistorii” [Some considerations on the study of the phenomenon of power and the concepts of postmodernism and microhistory]. In Odissei. Chelovek v istorii. 1995: Predstavleniya o vlasti [Odysseus. Man in history. 1995: Ideas about power], edited by Yu.L. Bessmertnyi, 4–19. Moscow: Nauka, 1995. (In Russian)
Bessmertnyi, Yu.L. “Chto za ‘Kazus’?..” [What is the ‘Casus’?..]. In Kazus: Individual'noe i unikal'noe v istorii. 1996 [Casus: the individual and the unique in history. 1996], edited by Yu.L. Bessmertnyi, and M.A. Boitsov, 7–24. Moscow: RGGU, 1997. (In Russian)
Gurevich, A.Ya. “Eshche neskol'ko zamechanii k diskussii o lichnosti i individual'nosti v istorii” [A few more remarks on the discussion of personality and individuality in history]. In Odissei. Chelovek v istorii. 1990: Lichnost' i obshchestvo [Odysseus. Man in history. 1990: Personality and society], edited by A.Ya. Gurevich, 76–89. Moscow: Nauka, 1990. (In Russian)
Gurevich, A.Ya. Izbrannye trudy. Srednevekovyi mir [Selected works. Medieval world]. St Petersburg: Izdatel'stvo Sankt-Peterburgskogo universiteta, 2007. (In Russian)
Gurevich, A.Ya. Individ i sotsium na srednevekovom Zapade [The individual and the society in the Medieval West]. Moscow: Rossiiskaya politicheskaya entsiklopediya, 2005. (In Russian)
Gurevich, A.Ya. Istoriches ii sintez i Sh ola “Annalov” [Historical Synthesis and the Annales School]. Moscow: Indrik, 1993. (In Russian)
Gurevich, A.Ya. Istoriya istorika [History of a historian]. Moscow: Rossiiskaya politicheskaya entsiklopediya (ROSSPEN), 2004. (In Russian)
Gurevich, A.Ya. Kategorii srednevekovoi kul'tury [Categories of Medieval Culture]. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1972. (In Russian)
Gurevich, A.Ya. Problemy genezisa feodalizma v Zapadnoi Evrope [Problems of the genesis of feudalism in Western Europe]. Moscow: Vysshaya shkola, 1970. (In Russian)
Gurevich, A.Ya. “‘Put' pryamoi, kak Nevskii prospekt’, ili ispoved' istorika” [‘The path, straight as Nevsky рrospekt’, or the confession of a historian]. In Odissei. Chelovek v istorii. 1992: Istorik i vremya [Odysseus. Man in history. 1992: The historian and time], edited by A.Ya. Gurevich, 7–34. Moscow: Krug", 1994. (In Russian)
Danilevskii, I.N. Drevnyaya Rus' glazami sovremennikov i potomkov (IX–XII vv.). Kurs lektsii [Ancient Rus through the eyes of contemporaries and descendants (9th – 12th centuries). A course of lectures]. Moscow: Aspekt Press, 1998. (In Russian)
Danilevskii, I.N. Povest' vremennykh let: germenevticheskie osnovy izucheniya letopisnykh tekstov [The Tale of Bygone Years: hermeneutical foundations for the study of chronicle texts]. Moscow: Aspekt-Press, 2004. (In Russian) Karavashkin, A.V. Russkaya srednevekovaya publitsistika: Ivan Peresvetov, Ivan Groznyi, Andrei Kurbskii [Russian medieval sociopolitical essayism: Ivan Peresvetov, Ivan the Terrible, Andrey Kurbsky]. Moscow: Prometei, 2000. (In Russian) Karavashkin, A.V., and A.L. Yurganov. Opyt istoricheskoi fenomenologii: trudnyi put' k ochevidnosti [A study of historical phenomenology: a difficult path to evidence]. Moscow: RGGU, 2003. (In Russian)
Koposov, N. “O Leonide Mikhailoviche Batkine” [About Leonid Mikhailovich Batkin]. Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, no. 3 (145) (2017), accessed November 26, 2021, (In Russian)
Krom, M.M. “Aron Yakovlevich Gurevich i antropologicheskii povorot v istoricheskoi nauke” [Aron Yakovlevich Gurevich and the anthropological turn in historical science]. Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, no. 5 (75) (2006), accessed December 6, 2021, (In Russian)
Ryzhkovskii, V. “Interv'yu s L.M. Batkinym (fragmenty)” [An interview with L.M. Batkin (fragments)]. Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, no. 3 (145) (2017), accessed February 10, 2022, . (In Russian)
Sveshnikov, A.V., and B.E. Stepanov. “Istoricheskie al'manakhi ‘Odissei’, ‘Kazus’, ‘Dialog so vremenem’: poiski modelei nauchnoi kommunikatsii” [Historical publications Odysseus, Casus, Dialogue with Time: the search for models of scientific communication (preprint WP6/2008/02). Moscow: Izdatel'skii dom GU VShE, 2008. Accessed November 18, 2021. (In Russian)
Sviderskaya, M.I. “O Leonide Mikhailoviche Batkine” [About Leonid Mikhailovich Batkin]. Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, no. 3 (145) (2017), accessed November 28, 2021, (In Russian)
Stepanov, B. “Tonkaya krasnaya nit': Spory o lichnosti i individual'nosti kak zachin istoriografii 1990-kh” [A thin red thread: Disputes about personality and individuality as the beginning of historiography of the 1990s]. Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, no. 1 (83) (2007), accessed November 23, 2021, publications.hse.ru/mirror/pubs/share/folder/ocmwmreh9p/direct/74026042 (In Russian)
Stepanov, B.E. “‘Byt' dol'she v storone mne kazalos' nevozmozhnym. . . ’ (poslednee interv'yu A.Ya. Gurevicha, 11 iyunya 2006 goda)” [‘It seemed impossible for me to stay aside longer. . . ’ (The last interview with A.Ya. Gurevich, June 11, 2006)]. Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, no. 5 (75) (2006), accessed February 9, 2022, (In Russian)
“Tsentr ‘Istoriya chastnoi zhizni i povsednevnosti’” [Center ‘History of Private and Everyday Life’]. Ofitsial'nyi sait Instituta vseobshchei istorii RAN [Official website of the Institute of World History of the RAS], accessed January 26, 2022, (In Russian)
Shevchenko, M.N. “O roli ‘istoricheskoi fenomenologii’ v otechestvennoi istoriografii kontsa XX – nachala XXI v.” [On the role of ‘historical phenomenology’ in Russian historiography of the late 20th – early 21st centuries]. Vestnik Tyumenskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Gumanitarnye issledovaniya. Humanitates, vol. 6, no. 3 (23) (2020): 154–67, (In Russian)
Yurganov, A.L. Kategorii russkoi srednevekovoi kul'tury [Categories of Russian Medieval culture]. Moscow: MIROS, 1998. (In Russian)
Keywords:
historical anthropology, “postmodern challenge”, “history of mentalities”,
microhistory, “historical phenomenology”, Russian medieval studies, methods of historical research
For citation:
Shevchenko, M.N. “About One Discussion in Russian Medieval Studies in the Late 20th Century.” Historia Provinciae – the Journal of Regional History, vol. 7, no. 2 (2023): 674–706, https://doi.org/10.23859/2587-8344-2023-7-2-8
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
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