Writing History in the Soviet Union: Making the Past Work

The history of the Soviet Union has been charted in several studies over the decades. However, earlier examinations have failed to draw attention to the political and academic environment within which these histories were composed. Identifying the significant hallmarks of the production of Soviet history by Soviet as well as Western historians, this book attempts to fill this gap. It shows how the Russian Revolution of 1917 triggered a shift in official policy towards historians and the publication of history textbooks for schools and surveys the rich body of writing the Russian Revolution generated as well as the divergent approaches to the history of the period. The conditions for research in Soviet archives are described as an aspect of official monitoring of history writing, which continues to this day.

Arup Banerji teaches Russian, Soviet and West European History at the Department of History, University of Delhi. He has published a study of private trade and traders during the 1920s, Merchants and Markets in Revolutionary Russia, 1917-30, and has written on politics and economic issues in the Russian federation as well as on the silk routes.