Petersburg Historical Journal № 2 (34) 2022

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PHJ № 2 (34) 2022 — V. G. Vovina-Lebedeva. PEASANTS OF UST’-IZHORA AND THEIR CHURCH

The village of Ust-Izhora on the bank of the Neva is known in connection with the battle at Neva in 1240. Already in the time of Peter the Great, the first wooden church in the name of St. Blessed Prince Alexander Nevsky was built. Materials TsGIA SPb allow to restore some stages of the life of the church and its parish in the 19th — early 20th century. The industrial development of the country affected the life of the suburban villages. Ust’-Izhora Church of St. Alexander Nevsky became the center of spiritual life for a wide district, which included not only local peasants, but also numerous working people. The reconstruction of the stone temple and its decoration were carried out at the expense of the peasants of Ust’-Izhora, some of whom were wealthy brick manufacturers and timber merchants. Even after the revolution of 1917, the church of St. Alexander Nevsky in the village Ust’-Izhora was not plundered thanks to the intercession of local peasants, to whom this property passed. They managed to preserve the values of the temple even during the period of mass confiscation of church property, so the church of St. Alexander Nevsky was closed only in 1934.

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PHJ № 2 (34) 2022 — K. Kościelniak. ALEXANDER NEVSKY IN POLISH HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE 19TH–21ST CENTURIES

The article aims to show how the works of Polish historians viewed the activities of Alexander Nevski. Whether it was complete biographical information or only cursory, selected facts that have been repeated many times in numerous publications, bringing nothing to the knowledge of this extraordinary figure. It is important that the biography of Alexander Nevsky has not been published in Poland, and all information about him is scattered around publications on various topics.

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PHJ № 2 (34) 2022 — I. A. Karpenko. A NEW IMAGE OF AN OLD HERO. PREPARING FOR THE FILMING OF MOVIE “ALEXANDER NEVSKY” IN 1952–1953 IN LENINGRAD

In the article the influence of state ideology on film production, on the example of preparing the script for the new movie “Alexander Nevsky” in 1952–1953, is examined. The article based on the complex of materials from Central State Archive of Literature and Art of St. Petersburg. These documents make it possible to trace how state ideological guidelines regulated the content of a work of art and ordered its authors to put ideology and clichés into the script and dialogues. The project proposed to Lenfilm by the USSR Minkino was supposed to work towards creating a correct view of both historical and contemporary events. One of the most interesting components of the documental complex is the recommendations of bureaucrats on how to understand and interpret the history of the 13th century in a historical perspective. On this basis, the filmmakers had to create a new image of the national hero.

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PHJ № 2 (34) 2022 — E. F. Sinelnikova. SPEECH OF THE RUSSIAN NATURE AMATEURS SOCIETY SECRETARY ON THE SIMPLIFICATION OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES REPORTING FORMS, 1926

The article discusses the speech of the Russian Nature Amateurs Society secretary V. A. Kazitsyn, discovered in the Central State Archives of St. Petersburg in the fund of the Leningrad Branch of the Main Directorate of Scientific Institutions of the Academic Center of the People’s Commissariat of Enlightenment of the RSFSR (F. 2555). It raised the question of simplifying the reporting of scientific societies to administrative bodies, scientific administrative and financial control institutions. V. A. Kazitsyn’s speech focused on the difficulties that are caused by redundant reporting and control over the activities of scientific societies. This problem was one of the most important in the relationship between the authorities and scientific societies in the mid‑1920s. The published document is dated 1926. The report was intended for a meeting of directors of scientific institutions subordinate to Glavnauka, which took place in Leningrad on April 1, 1926. Undoubtedly, V. A. Kazitsyn was the spokesman not only for the opinion of the council of the Russian Nature Amateurs Society, but also for other scientific societies. The ways of solving problems in relations between the authorities and scientific societies, proposed in the speech, testify to the fact that scientists were striving to democratize these relations. However, the proposed adjustments to the system of state regulation of the activities of scientific institutions and organizations in the conditions of the formation of a totalitarian system in the country could not be implemented. We believe that the published document is an interesting source on the social history of Russian science in the 1920s.

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PHJ № 2 (34) 2022 — M. M. Safonov. “AGENT OF HEKKERN” (A. A. AKHMATOVА AND N. N. PUSHKINА)

In the late 1930s A. A. Akhmatova began to work on the history of the death of A. S. Pushkin. The work continued until her death. On the eve of the death of Akhmatovа called these articles “almost ready”, but did not give them to print. This circumstance must be taken into account when evaluating these essays. E. G. Gerstein called Ahmatovа’s studies about the death of Pushkin “artistic concept” and allocated as distinctive features “the artist’s imagination”. In fact, they are artistic works that the form of a documentary study. Akhmatova based on the classical work P. Shchegolev about the last duel of Pushkin. And presented the death of the poet, which painted her poetic imagination. From this outstanding pushkinist Ahmatovа inherited hostility to the wife of the poet, who was the head of the fateful duel. The most interesting thing in this Akhmatovа’s cycle of articles is the language they have been written. Language features of this difficult time, when party and government figures one after another declared spies of foreign states.

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PHJ № 2 (34) 2022 — A. I. Rupasov. THE NORTH-WESTERN REGIONAL ECONOMIC MEETING: PROBLEMS OF PROSPECTIVE PLANNING OF REGIONAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (SECOND HALF OF THE 1920S)

By the mid‑1920s, USSR industry had approached the limit of its extensive development, which inevitably placed the political leadership of the state before the most difficult problem of planning on a national scale. The authorities of the North-West region had to solve a complex of problems in planning the development of the regional economy, including the problem of slowing economic development, reduction of raw material and fuel resources of industry, elimination of commodity hunger for consumer goods, scarcity of financial influence from the central government, shortage of skilled labor, deterioration of transport infrastructure. Solving all these problems in the forward planning process was complicated by the diktat of the Centre in defining the parameters of regional economic development, and the reticence of the Centre towards the requests of regional authorities for additional funding. As a result, the process of elaboration of perspective plans turned into a fiction. In practice, planning was reduced to the coordination of rather unreliable information received by the North-Western Regional Economic Meeting from the provincial economic meetings, with the norms sent from the Centre. This practice was quickly revealed to be flawed, calling into question the very need for the existence of the North-Western Regional Economic Meeting.

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PHJ № 2 (34) 2022 — B. N. Kovalev. THE HUMAN FACTOR IN THE SOVIET STATE SECURITY: THE BATTLE OF LENINGRAD, 1941–1944

The battle of Leningrad (1941–1944) was a fierce struggle. The Soviet state security bodies were opposed by both the Nazis and their allies. The former did not always emerge victorious over the latter. This can be explained not only by the high efficiency of the Germans. The human factor played a crucial role in this confrontation: mistakes, miscalculations, individual derelictions of duty and failures of Soviet security officials. On June 22, 1943, the head of the Leningrad Directorate of the NKGB, Pyotr Kubatkin, held a training seminar for his employees. In the seminar, his deputy, Colonel Iona Ivanov, made the report “Secret agents: training and the pace of work”. It analyzed the experience gained by the KGB servicemen over the two years of the armed confrontation. Pyotr Kubatkin emphasized the following. “To make an arrest with no sufficient ground, with no adequate verification is a shame and a crime for our bodies. We should have a bare-knuckled fight with this shameful phenomenon in our ranks; we absolutely cannot put up with this crime. Our goal is to continue to work so that there are no violations of the rules”.

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PHJ № 2 (34) 2022 — E. Yu. Skvortsova. LIBERATOR OF AUSCHWITZ GENERAL F. M. KRASAVIN: ORDER OF ALEXANDER NEVSKY DURING LIFE, REHABILITATION — POSTHUMOUSLY

The Order of Alexander Nevsky is the only one that existed (with some changes) in the times of the Russian Empire, in the USSR and in new Russia. To trace the fate of the holders of the Order and collect them in a single catalogue is a topic for a major study, which it seems will be done sooner or later. This is also required by the culture of remembrance as in the fates of the heroes one can trace the continuity of the country’s history. On the example of the fate of one of the awardees of the Order of Alexander Nevsky — General F. M. Krasavin — shows the reflection of turning events in the life of Russia.

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PHJ № 2 (34) 2022 — P. A. Avakov. A NEW STUDY ABOUT THE RUSSIAN-TURKISH WAR OF 1710–1713 (REVIEW OF THE MONOGRAPH: ARTAMONOV V. A. THE TURKISH-RUSSIAN WAR OF 1710–1713. MOSCOW: KUCHKOVO POLE, 2019. 448 P.)

The monograph under review is a serious contribution to the study of the foreign policy and military history of Russia in the first decades of the 18th сentury. V. A. Artamonov used a large array of historical sources (primarily archival ones) and offered a number of innovative assessments and conclusions.

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PHJ № 2 (34) 2022 — P. V. Krylov. “GET BEHIND SOMEONE ELSE’S GAME”. BOOK REVIEW: TRAVIN D. YA. WHY HAS RUSSIA LAGGED BEHIND? ST. PETERSBURG: EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY IN ST. PETERSBURG, 2021

The review analyzes a polemical book that examines the history of Russia in the Middle Ages and early Modern times in the context of modernization theory. The author of the reviewed work convincingly proves the objective reasons for the lower intensity of modernization of Russia against the background of neighboring countries.