V. A. Berdinskikh. Problems of History in the Stalin Era as a Subject of Scientific Reflection.
Book Review: Tikhonov V. V. The Useful Past: History in the Stalinist USSR. Moscow: Novoe
Literaturnoe Obozrenie, 2024. 367 p. // Petersburg Historical Journal, no. 4, 2025, pp. 290–294.

DOI: 10.51255/2311–603X_2025_4_290

Abstract:

The article examines the main problems of the book of the Moscow historian V. V. Tikhonov,
devoted to the problems of interaction between Soviet historians and the authorities in the era of Stalinism. The book is written in the genre of scientific essay. The transformation of the ideology of Stalinism and the complex of relations between the authorities and the scientific and historical community are the focus of the author’s attention. An attempt to understand how the “historiographic vertical of power” works is clearly a success for V. V. Tikhonov. He posed important and relevant questions of the place and role of historians in historical politics.

Key words: Soviet historiography, ideology and practice of Stalinism in the field of historical science, Stalinist prizes and school textbooks, the cult of historical heroes, ideological campaigns of late Stalinism.

Author:

Berdinskikh, Viktor Arkad’evich — Dr of Sci. in History, chief researcher at the Institute of
Language, Literature and History of the Komi Scientific Center of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Syktyvkar, Russia).
E-mail: bva.prof@mail.ru

References:

Berdinskikh, V. A. Remeslo istorika v Rossii [The Craft of a Historian in Russia. In Russ.]. Moscow, Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie publ., 2009. 603 p.

Dubrovskii, A. M. Vlast’ i istoricheskaya mysl’ v SSSR (1930–1950-e gg.) [Power and Historical Thought in the USSR (1930s–1950s). In Russ.]. Moscow, ROSSPEN publ., 2017. 621 p.

Formozov, A. A. Russkie arkheologi v period totalitarizma. Istoriograficheskie ocherki. [Russian Archaeologists in the Period of Totalitarianism. Historiographical Sketches. In Russ.]. Moscow, Znak publ., 2006. 344 p.

Tikhonov, V. V. Ideologicheskie kampanii “pozdnego stalinizma” i sovetskaya istoricheskaya nauka (seredina 1940-kh — 1953 g.) [Ideological Campaigns of “Late Stalinism” and Soviet Historical Science (mid‑1940s — 1953). In Russ.]. Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nestor-Istoriya publ., 2016. 424 p.

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