Chimeras in the false mirrors of historiography

Abstract

The monograph by A. Yu. Dvornichenko, analyzed in this article focuses on one of the most difficult and controversial problems of historical science: the historiography of Eastern Slavic politogenesis. The author unfolds before the readers’ eyes a majestic and epochal historiographic canvas, unprecedented in its chronology (from the ancient scribes to the present day) and in comprehensiveness of the material (involving almost all relevant for the theme by Russian researchers and a significant body of foreign studies). A. Yu. Dvornichenko managed to accessibly and vividly deal with many difficult questions of politogenesis, making the book read in one breath, as an exciting “historical novel”. With this aim, apparently, the author selected corresponding images: mirrors (historiography) and Chimeras (fruitless and concepts harmful to science). However, this formulation led to the main drawback of the monograph: A. Y. Dvornichenko does not so much try to reconstruct an objective historiographical picture as he battles chimeras, which are “customized” to those research activities and works that do not agree with “the democratic concept of politogenesis” upheld by the author. Another criteria for a positive appreciation of the work of researchers is their denial of the presence of the state in pre-Mongol Russia. As a consequence, this limits the main conclusion of the work in which the main paradigm of development of the historiography of Ancient Russian politogenesis was “the move from a monarchical to the democratic idea”. This case, as shown in this article, is actually a concept of A. Y. Dvornichenko far from “democratic”, as his extremely simplified understanding of the state and reluctance to explain to the reader how the hierarchical strategy as proposed by the author was transformed into heterarchial one, and then again into a hierarchical one. A special source of bewilderment is the way A. Y. Dvornichenko addresses his opponents, an approach which often boils down to a simple postulation of their opinions and ridicule, but not to refute, the concepts of the opponents. Refs 16.