The Long-Awaited Reedition of the Outstanding Work by the Emigrant Historian Shakhmatov

Abstract

The article reviews the long-awaited reedition of the outstanding work by the emigrant historian M. V. Shakhmatov “Essays in the History of Political Thought in Ancient Rus’. Vol. 1. The teachings of the Russian chronicles of the pre-Mongol period on state power” (Prague, 1926) (Opyty po istorii drevnerusskikh politicheskikh idei. T. 1. Ucheniia russkikh letopisei domongol’skogo perioda o gosudarstvennoi vlasti). The paper considers the structure of the work, the author’s evaluation of the political system of Ancient Rus’, the opinions of contemporary emigrant reviewers from, who both noted the insufficient historical and philological analysis of the chronicles and gave Shakhmatov credit for in the first attempt at a systematic outline of political views of chronicles of the Ancient Rus’. The article also examines the republication itself and the preface to it by M. B. Smolin, focusing on a number of factual errors in the presentation of the historian’s biography. The change of the title of the monograph by Shakhmatov by the modern publisher, as well as numerous inaccuracies in the the list of his works and in general in all footnotes in the preface, are deemed inappropriate. An important question arises about the intended audience of this publication. If it is aimed at the general reader, as indicated in the abstract, then this does not correspond to the level of the book, which is, in fact, a scholarly dissertation. A professional reader will be very disappointed by the poor quality of the publication, which does not meet academic requirements. Nevertheless, we must be grateful to the publisher, who has turned to the outstanding heritage of the Russian foreign historiography more than once.

Keywords:

M. V. Shakhmatov, Russian chronicles, the political system of Ancient Rus', the history of Russian law, Russian foreign historiography