Authors

Paul Robinson¹;  ¹ University of Ottawa, Canada

Discussion

For more than two centuries, the predominant understanding of the nature of history in Russia has been deterministic – that is to say that Russian thinkers have viewed history as flowing in a predetermined direction according to defined rules. This paper will describe the various forms that this historical determinism has taken. They include: a moderate Westernizing version that was popular among liberal scholars in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and that viewed Russia as marching inevitably towards Western-style constitutionalism; a communist version, founded on Marxist historical and dialectical materialism, that was official ideology throughout the Soviet period; and a radical Westernizing version that briefly dominated after the collapse of communism. The paper will then examine certain other strands of thought that existed alongside historical determinism, emanating from Russian religious thought and developing through Slavophilism into civilizational theory in the late nineteenth century. The paper will argue that while these other views were for a long time marginal in Russian historical thought, in the late Soviet period they began to become increasingly important. The development of culturology, for instance, challenged historical materialism in key ways. The collapse of communism then discredited the Marxist version of historical determinism, while the negative experiences of the post-communist 1990s turned many against visions of history that saw Russia moving inevitably in a Western direction. The paper will argue that these developments made it possible for civilizational theories that were resolutely anti-deterministic to gain ground. These latter theories have now acquired official imprimatur and been enshrined in educational curricula. At least for now, therefore, historical determinism has lost the dominant position it once held in Russian thought.