“Sometimes the Biography of a Scholar is Similar to an Adventure Novel”: Some Notes on Publishing a New Book

Abstract

The article discusses a book by the well-known St. Petersburg scholar and Doctor of History, Professor Petr Bazanov that explores the life and activity of the Russian émigré historian and thinker Nikolay Uljanov (1904– 1985). This book was published in 2018 in St. Petersburg by Vladimir Dal Publishing as part of the series “Russia at the Turning Point.””. The authors show that this monograph is a result of a long period of work by Bazanov, whose first studies on Uljanov were published at the beginning of 1990s. The authors stress that an analysis of this monograph demonstrates Bazanov’s excellent knowledge of scholarship devoted to Uljanov. The archival foundation for this book includes materials from numerous Russian and foreign archives. This article discusses how Bazanov’s monograph characterizes Uljanov’s way of life. Uljanov’s life was connected with pupils and comrades of V. E. Meyerhold, and he was the last pupil of academician S. F. Platonov and a comrade of Sergey Melgunov. The authors show that using different historical sources and scholarship, Bazanov characterizes all nuances of Uljanov’s fate. The authors conclude that this monograph makes a serious contribution to the Russian historiography, and this book would be interesting not only for professional historians, but also for people interested in the history of Russian culture and Russian thought.