Cyclic Concepts of Russian History in Modern Historiography

Abstract

In post-Soviet historiography, the concept of the cyclic pendulum, or inversion, of Russia’s development has become widespread. According to it, Russia, unlike the West, is characterized not by progressive, but by spasmodic pendulum development: progress is replaced by reaction, movement goes in a vicious circle. The article verifies four variants of the concept and makes conclusions about its strengths and weaknesses. Three most significant shortcomings are noted. The first is anti-historicism: fundamental changes that took place in the Russian society are ignored, which contradicts the principle of historicism. The second is Eurocentrism: the West is idealized and regarded as the highest manifestation of civilization, as a model for imitation and comparison, and deviations from this model, reforms that do not lead to Westernization, are condemned. The third is apriorism, weak empirical validity: explanations in most cases are hypothetical, even guesswork. The main methodological strategies are comparison, analogy, good examples, deduction as a selective ordering of facts to substantiate a certain hypothesis. Historians, as a rule, consider such methods to be unreliable, opening up opportunities for many ill-founded hypotheses. The concept objectively reflects the characteristic features of the Russian historical process: the presence of cycles; the pulsating nature of the reform; widespread authoritarian management style; low general culture of the population; the great role of traditional institutions, popular political culture and specific cognitive practices; strong historical inertia — dependence on the past path, due to civilizational stereotypes. However, the shortcomings inherent in the Russian society are exaggerated, and achievements are minimized. The imbalance creates a bias, and the representation of the course of Russian history is inadequate.