philosophy of history. The latter is developed by the combined efforts of philosophers seeking to comprehend the life of human society (let us point, for example, to Aurelius Augustine, and in more recent times to Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Spengler), and some historians who have a taste for more general constructions (Herodotus, and from the new ones - F. Guizot, R. Collingwood, A. Toynbee). How interesting and fruitful the aspirations of historians to comprehend the past from more general theoretical positions can be, is shown by the examples of T. Mommsen, Ed. Meyer and M.I. ) and a constructive synthesis of civilizations - the West and the East (Rostovtsev specifically applied to the contact zones of the Black Sea and Western Asia - Hellenism and Iranism).
Finally, another aspect of the historian's creative excellence is artistic skill. Above, we have already talked a lot about how important a place in historical work, in the reconstruction and interpretation of past events is occupied by fantasy, image, emotional reaction. It is clear that the design of a historical work, created through an oral (lecture) or written word (composition), is impossible without careful literary or, as they used to say in the old days, rhetorical finishing. After all, only a proper artistic presentation is capable of expressing and conveying to the listener or reader that image of the past created by the historian, without which it is neither conceivable nor comprehensible. It is no coincidence that all major historians were remarkable masters of the word - Herodotus, Tacitus, Karamzin, Klyuchevsky, and Tarle. Acquaintance with their works not only serves the cause of historical education, but also delivers the highest aesthetic pleasure. Of course, it is now difficult for us to judge to what extent these luminaries of historical science were also at their best as orators. But, fortunately, there is no shortage of modern priers. For people of my generation, the lectures of professors of the Leningrad University Sergey Ivanovich Kovalev and Semyon Bentsianovich Okun will forever remain examples of high scientific eloquence. Of course, such a level of oratory, which was demonstrated by these outstanding scientists, is not for everyone, but everyone is obliged to strive for the perfection of their speech. Inarticulate speech, oral or written, is, if not a sin, then still a huge drawback for the historian.
What has been said, it seems to us, is enough to imagine how peculiar and complex the science of history is, and how varied and whimsical its twists and turns can be, the pictures of the past it presents and judgments about past events and figures. And all this
In blessed memory of Alexander Ivanovich Dubrovin,
Chairman of the Union of the Russian People
The paradoxes of history
The history of Russia from the reign of Peter to the act of abdication of the last Russian Autocrat from the Throne is mysterious. An endless series of paradoxes and hard-to-explain internal contradictions in government policy appears before our eyes and causes bewilderment. The Russian history of the Petersburg period overturns the usual schemes about class interests and class antagonism. The idea that the rich and powerful estates supported the system that gave them wealth, honor and power, while the poor and poor estates fought against the Autocracy, is bursting at the seams as soon as you touch the pages of Russian history.
The Bolshevik ideologists had to work hard to teach us to see what is not. The introduction into our consciousness of certain dogmas, called "scientific materialism" by ideologists, has led to the fact that we have seen the cause of all historical events in economic problems, have taken the struggle between the poor and the rich as an axiom, and everywhere we find class contradictions. But it is precisely because we accept the laws of the formal logic of the materialistic doctrine as self-evident that our mind does not understand the course of Russian history. Hence so many questions and confusion.
The truth is hard to come by that the revolution came from above, namely from the ruling and propertied classes. And that it was the leaders who pursued the policy of turning Ross into a socialist state, contributing to the spread of relevant ideas in society. Narodnaya Volya and terrorist M.V. Novorussky (what a symbolic surname for our days! - ed.), who, assessing the meaning of the events of 1905, wrote:
- The revolution that has taken place is far from saying its last word. And no matter how impressive was the appearance of the "autocratic" proletariat on the proscenium, the historian should not forget that building barricades and littering the streets with their corpses was always the primordial privilege of the fourth estate of all peoples. This external fact says nothing about internal springs. And when it comes to revolutionary organizations, far-sighted people never forget that neither the richness of the spirit, nor the excess of heroism in them can make them active if the financial resources that fed them have dried up, and if the broad sympathy of influential social strata has cooled down.(M. Novorussky. From reflections in Shlisselburg. "Past Years", No. 3, 1908, p. 308).
The meaning of the policy pursued by the government circles of the Russian Empire will be clear if we take into account one essential detail. The bureaucratic class was formed from people whose upbringing took place in the spirit of skepticism towards the values of Orthodoxy. For atheists in Christianity, only the external, earthly side remains. Hence, it seems logical to think of the ruling elite, which makes them related to the sect of intellectuals: from the denial of the Truths of the Church to the ideas of socialism.
They denied only violent forms of transition to this earthly paradise, the finale of human history. But the fact that it will certainly come - almost everyone in the society of bureaucrats and intellectuals believed in it. They believed in the "spirit of the times", and in the "wheel of history", which cannot be turned, and in the "universal culture", which is higher than anything in the world. At the same time, the supreme power in Russia dealt with a powerful spokesman for Orthodoxy - a people consisting mainly of peasants and philistines. It was forced to reckon with this fact and hide its views from the people. This must be seen as the reason that the government of the Russian Empire, until the very last time of its existence, did not have its own developed ideology and its own propaganda organs. A lot of perplexed questions about this from contemporaries are resolved very simply: the government was afraid to reveal its views. Hiding behind the repetition of the formula "Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Narodnost" - it actually pursued a policy of the exact opposite: it oppressed church activities in the public sphere, limited the power of the Autocrat, humiliated the Russian nobility and removed Russian people from power. In the field of culture and the public sphere, since the time of Peter the Great, preference has been given to foreigners. The press quickly became a Jewish enterprise and spread the ideas of inter-class intra-national hostility among Russian society. As a result, the ideology of civil slaughter, revolutions was introduced into all cells of the Russian public consciousness. The right-wing, monarchist, Russian national press was accused (and is being accused!) of inciting ethnic hatred, always keeping in mind the phenomenon that was called anti-Semitism, while the preaching of intra-ethnic hatred was fully approved (and is approved!). Isn't it strange for the preachers of humanism and democracy, who then, as now, were many, who even then occupied key positions in the government apparatus of Russia?
From the acceptance of the Royal Crown by the first Romanov and the royal signature on a piece of paper with the text of the renunciation of the Throne, there was a period of steady renunciation of power from the Russian national tradition, with all its roots resting on the grace-filled fullness of the teachings of Christ - Orthodoxy.
But even at the last moment of Russian statehood, the Tsar had a choice, there were millions of people devoted to the autocratic power. The idea that the Tsar had no supporters of such power is fundamentally wrong. These supporters are skillfully hidden by the ideologists of the revolution and democracy behind the sign "Black Hundreds".
The truth, however, is that the first riots of the 1905 revolution began with the act of self-limitation of the power of the Autocratic - the Tsar's Manifesto on October 17, and the collapse of the country and the civil war - with the act of signing the abdication of the throne by the Tsar. An army of fifteen million, faithful to that duty and oath, a huge number of employees and ordinary people at the most crucial moment in the history of Russia were left without the crowned Head of the Russian State.
Many of them perceived the abdication of Nicholas II with a feeling of deep bitterness, seeing in it an act of betrayal of the sacred principle of all Russian life and statehood. The Russian people remained an orphan, they found themselves disunited and humiliated by the act of the Autocrat.
The ruling circles of the Russian Empire adopted for themselves a materialistic view of the world. Economic concerns prevailed over concerns about the spiritual enlightenment of the people and patriotic education. In recent decades, the country's industry has been gaining unprecedented pace in the world. There was a steady growth in the well-being of the people, of all its strata ... But the general discontent did not stop. And the collapse of the state followed at the point of the highest economic and military power of the State.
That is, the whole course of events was directly the opposite of what it should have been, according to the teachings of all revolutionary and democratic doctrinaires with their materialistic pragmatism.
The Bolsheviks, having inscribed "materialism" on their banner, least of all thought about the economic prosperity of the country. For the first 10 years, they quite deliberately destroyed the powerful Russian industry they inherited - exactly the same as today's rulers of Russia and by the same methods. Then they created a myth about the "backward Tsarist industry." And then, until very recently, they began to pursue a policy of oppression of the people in all spheres of its activity. They put ideological dogmas at the forefront of their policy, to which they subordinated questions of the country's internal life, and economic questions were subordinated to ideological considerations - in direct negation of all Marxist-Leninist dogma about the production base and ideological superstructure. Idea clearly prevailed over matter.
The government of Tsarist Russia, having proclaimed the priority of the Spirit, professed materialism and lost. The Bolsheviks, following the pragmatic ideas of Judaism, proclaimed materialism, while professing terry idealism. People can be convinced of anything, and they will agree to live starving in barracks and at the same time sing songs to "liberated labor." From their miserable communal burrows in barrack-type buildings, they will be taught to look with horror at the well-fed, benevolent and prosperous tsarism. Afraid to say at least one critical word, they will sincerely repeat the words about the despotism of the Tsarist regime. At the same time, studying those who created "masterpieces of thought and words" under the same "despotism" that stifled all manifestations of "free human thought."
Ideological captivity is more dangerous than physical slavery. It suffices to replace the word "slavery" with the word "freedom" and put forward slogans that flatter the human mind, such as democracy. It is enough to imagine the overseers as people from the people, calling them party organizers, heads of administration, mayors, secretaries - how people will drive themselves in the general herd to the slaughter. And it is precisely the ideological fog that closes even today the reasonable prospects for Russian life, making it impossible to understand either the country's past or the present. Modern literature on Russian history, even the most benevolent, is filled with faith in the "spirit of the times", "the progressive course of history", "democracy" and other ideological myths.
Shouldn't have pissed them off.
Is it true that on February 23, in pre-revolutionary Russia, some kind of secular holiday was also celebrated on a grand scale every year?
In 1910, at the International Women's Conference in Copenhagen, the famous feminist Clara Zetkin proposed the establishment of a "day to fight for your rights." Like, it would be nice to arrange a red day of the calendar, on which the representatives of the better half of humanity "unanimously, as one, rallying their ranks ..." would remind the world that they are also people and are no worse than men.
Initially, Zetkin fought for giving women the right to vote, later there were demands to soften labor laws, provide medical care to women in childbirth and other “social benefits”.
The very next year Frau and Fraulein took to the demonstration in Germany, Austria-Hungary, Denmark and Switzerland. Then the holiday was celebrated on March 19.
In 1913, Women's Day was already celebrated in 8 countries, including Russia. True, feminists could not agree on a common date - each country selected it independently - March 2, 9, 12. And only in 1914 it was possible to establish a single Women's Day - it was decided to celebrate it on March 8, then it just fell on Sunday.
And since our country, unlike most of Europe, lived according to the Julian calendar (13 days behind), we have International Women's Day, in Russia it was called "Working Woman's Day", fell on February 23. And so it happened.
Is it true that it was on this day that the February Revolution began?
On February 23, 1917, the ladies of Petrograd traditionally took to the demonstration. The organizer of the march of many thousands is the Russian League for Women's Equality. In the courtyard of the First World War. This time, the workers rightly protested against the lack of food and queues in stores, the fact that husbands and sons were taken into the army.
The history of the birthday of the Red Army, and then the Defender of the Fatherland Day, turned out to be not easy. Until 1917, this date on the calendar was in Russia a day of struggle for women's rights.
Then the male workers joined the women. Strikes began in the city, the soldiers of the reserve regiments refused to go to the front. Nicholas II abdicated nine days later.
The decree on the creation of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army (RKKA) was signed by Lenin on January 15 (January 28, according to the new style), 1918. A Red Army soldier was entitled to a salary of 50 rubles a month (in the tsarist army - 22.5 rubles, although the ruble exchange rate was still different). It was possible to join the Red Army only on the recommendation of military committees, party or trade union organizations.
If, however, the Red Army included whole units (subdivisions of the former tsarist army or a gang, for example, Kotovsky, Makhno), then they arranged a roll-call vote and introduced mutual responsibility.
A year later, on January 10, 1919, the chairman of the Higher Military Inspectorate of the Red Army, Nikolai Podvoisky, sent a note to the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee with a proposal to organize a parade on the anniversary of the creation of the Red Army on January 28. But for technical reasons, it was possible to organize it only on Sunday, February 23. Moreover, one holiday was already scheduled for this date - Red Gift Day - a collection of gifts for the Red Army. This date became a military holiday.
The world revolution did not wait ...
Nothing good. As early as February 10, the Soviet delegation, led by Leon Trotsky, interrupted the Brest-Litovsk peace talks with representatives of the countries of the Quadruple Union (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria). Trotsky explained this by saying that the proletariat and the soldiers of Germany and Austria-Hungary were about to support the world revolution.
A week later, the German troops went on the offensive. On the 20th, Minsk was captured, on the 21st - Polotsk, on the 24th - Pskov, where the main warehouses of weapons and food of the still tsarist Northern Front were located. And only now Germany is handing over new, even more severe terms of the peace treaty.
On the night of February 24, Lenin's government receives them. Russia undertook to recognize the independence of Courland, Livonia, Estonia (the current Baltic States), Finland and Ukraine, transfer the Anatolian provinces (territories of modern Turkey where Armenians historically lived) to Turkey, demobilize the army, disarm the Baltic and Black Sea fleets, withdraw ships from the Arctic Ocean, provide German trade privileges until 1925.
In Soviet times, textbooks wrote that "on February 23, units of the young Red Guard gave a serious rebuff to the Kaiser's troops near Pskov and Narva." Then everyone suddenly began to assert that there were no battles.
Pskov was defended by the 1st and 2nd Red Army regiments, two companies of Latvian riflemen. The Germans failed to take the city from the raid. On the evening of February 23, they brought up artillery and an armored train. And only after that they broke into the city. During the retreat, the Red Army managed to blow up warehouses with military explosives - pyroxylin. At the same time, more than 250 Germans died.
There were red troops in Narva as well. Baltic sailors (a detachment led by the famous Pavel Dybenko deserted from the battlefield), a battalion of the Putilov factory, a company of Hungarian socialists led by Bela Kun, and a combined Red Army detachment. Only with the threat of encirclement and complete extermination did the fighters leave the city on March 4.
It is worth bowing to the heroism of the people who came out to defend, probably, their Motherland, and not some abstract ideas and a handful of Bolsheviks who staged a coup d'état.
Maybe yes. Still, we have a lot to do with this date. True, before the revolution, May 6 (19) was considered the Day of the Russian Army - the Day of St. George - the defender of the Russian Land.
So, let's begin...
On May 2, 1945, the 18-year-old announcer Richard Bayer ended the last broadcast of the "Greater German Radio" from the underground studio on the Masurenallee in Berlin with the following words:
"The Fuhrer is dead. Long live the Reich!"
On the same day, soldiers of the Red Army entered the Fuhrer's bunker, located under the park and the back of the building of the old Reich Chancellery on the Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin.
Immediately after the capture of the Reich Chancellery, it included the SMERSH counterintelligence unit, specially created on March 29, 1945, whose main task was to determine the whereabouts of Adolf Hitler, alive or dead.
The charred bodies of Goebbels and his wife Magda were found in the shell-cratered park of the Reich Chancellery, but no evidence of the death of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun was found.
Closer to noon, a group of twelve female doctors and their assistants from the military sanitary department of the Red Army entered the bunker. The group leader, who spoke good German, asked the electrician Johannes Hentschel, one of the four men who remained in the bunker, a question:
“Where is Adolf Hitler? Where are the stitches?" ...
What was Spartacus like as a historical person?
There is not very much reliable information about Spartacus: 70 people left the school and disappeared on Vesuvius. The Senate urgently formed a legion (no more than 1500 people) from inexperienced recruits and sent against Spartacus. This "army" was led by the mediocre Glabr. Further, it is known for sure that Spartacus moved north, apparently wanting to leave Rome. However, having reached the northern limits, he decides to move south. He gave all the available (looted) valuables to the pirates and was deceived by them.
The last battle (against Crassus or Pompey, or both) was lost. Everything between the school breakout and the final battle is inaccurate, grossly exaggerated, or made up.
It is quite logical that after the escape, Spartacus moved north. And, here, there is no logical explanation for the march to the south, if you do not mean the desire to rob. He decided to fight Rome and free the slaves? But, he does not go to Rome.
On the contrary, diligently bypasses Rome. It is said that between the first and the last, Spartacus won 7 or 8 battles. It turns out that every two months the Senate sent against Spartacus at least a legion. The Senate did not have such an opportunity. All these "great" battles are skirmishes with local, few guards. And the behavior of the Senate becomes understandable, if we bear in mind the small number of Spartacus' detachment. The movement to the north was perceived by the Senate, which followed the movements, as a desire of Spartacus to leave the empire. Moving south, the Spartacists did so little damage that the Senate continued to watch without taking any action. Deceived by pirates and trapped in the south, Spartacus was now a danger. The inaction of the Senate contributed to the increase in Spartak's supporters. They needed something to eat. Looting became significant. The hope that Spartak would move to Sicily did not come true. The Senate called on both armies...
In 815, another uprising broke out in northern Iran. The caliphate easily suppressed the earlier discontent. This time the uprising was led by the craftsman Babek. The reasons that caused this movement, historians call different - social, religious, political and even sectarian. It doesn't matter what the reason was. It is important that Babek, standing at the head of the uprising, began to deal crushing blows to the caliphate, whose troops suffered defeat after defeat. He defeated five armies of the caliphate (small, "parochial" victories of our hero do not count) and 22! year resisted the state machine. Only the betrayal of those whom Babek trusted put an end to the victorious struggle.
Now, remembering the title "paradoxes of history", remember what place in history, in the minds and hearts each of the described characters occupies; Spartacus is an ordinary robber and hero Babek, who surpassed Alexander the Great himself. After all, Babek did not use the powerful, professional army of his father. He did not conquer foreign lands and peoples. He did not impose his culture on others. Babek is a patriot, and he fought against a foreign invader - the Caliphate.
In the light of these considerations, it seems to me absurd that some of our sports clubs are named after an ordinary robber, moreover, not very lucky. It would be better to rename all "Spartacus" to Babek, at least Razin or Pugachev. Both of these personalities are much more significant than Spartacus, the essence is a myth.
