Robert Wipper and the Community of the Moscow Historians in Pre-revolution Time

Abstract

Despite a large number of works devoted to the study of various aspects of Wipper’s life and his works, his biography still has not been researched comprehensively. In many respects this situation can be explained by the fact that there has never existed a tradition of passing down the knowledge about Wipper from his followers. There are two Wippers. The first is a left-wing intellectual with original views, who was not accepted by the community of Moscow historians. And the second is a post-revolutionary professor, who initially turned to the traditions of classical historiography, but then, thanks to the works on the history of early Christianity, turned toward Soviet historiography. As a historian, Wipper was very successful. Wipper’s pedagogical and scholarly career developed fast: the professor at the University in Odessa, one of three professors at Moscow University (since 1899), the leading professor of the university between the two revolutions. He met the revolution of 1917 without any obligations to the pre-revolutionary historians. At the same time, in the first years after the revolution, he selflessly began to defend the values of classical historical science. In this connection we can find a certain academic relationship between Wipper and the pre-revolutionary generation of historians. In this paper I will try to present Wipper against the background of the community of Moscow historians, with whom he had very uneasy relationships.