Authors

Camilo Domingues¹;  ¹ Federal Fluminense University, Brazil

Discussion

The article “O Prichinakh Padenya Rima” (On the Causes of the Fall of Rome), by Russian publicist Nikolay Chernyshevsky came to light in the May 1861 issue of Sovremennik (The Contemporary). This paper identifies and analyzes its theoretical, critical and interdisciplinary connections with works that preceded it, primarily the First Philosophical Letter(1836), by Pyotr Chaadaev; the studies on Russian peasant commune by the German August von Haxthausen, Studien über die innern Zustände, das Volksleben und insbesondere die ländlichen Einrichtungen Russlands (1847-1852); the brochure Du Développement des Idées Révolutionnaires en Russie (1851), by Aleksandr Herzen, and his open letter to Jules Michelet, published in the same year, entitled “Le Peuple Russe et le Socialisme”; and the Légendes Démocratiques du Nord (1851), by the French historian Jules Michelet. So, from Chaadaev’s First Philosophical Letter to Chernyshevsky’s article “On the Causes of the Fall of Rome”, a rich transnational and interdisciplinary debate on the Russian and European development paths recruited different generations of thinkers from both Russia and abroad. By analyzing their works this paper addresses its main subject: what theoretical and critical path did the debate about Russia’s historical role take in the nineteenth century and what were its connections with the historiographical discussions prevailing in Western Europe? Three main hypotheses are discussed: 1) there was an intergenerational and transnational route – dynamic, non-linear and interdisciplinary – of historiographical debate, from Chaadaev’s work up to Chernyshevsky’s article, including Haxthausen, Herzen and Michelet’s works; 2) the article “On the Causes of the Fall of Rome” summarizes the main elements of the historiographical debate at the time, within and outside Russia; 3) Chaadaev, Haxthausen, Herzen, Michelet and Chernyshevsky’s historical ideas deal with positivist notions, such as progress and civilization, as well as with political ideas about democracy, socialism and Russia’s historical role vis-a-vis the Western Europe. This paper proposes an original, transnational and interdisciplinary approach to this subject and to the understanding of nineteenth-century Russian historiography.