The Truth of Historian, or How to Walk between Russophobia and Russophilia

Abstract

This article devoted to the book of well-known American historian Мarshall T. Poe, which recently appeared in Russian translation in our country. This small book is very important when we try to comprehend all trends of American studies in Russian history. Also, very significant to understand how it is correlate with such phenomenon as Russophobia, which is flourish of trumpets now and one could say that all American scholars are suffered from this “disease”. The roots of such “disease” from very old times lies in some serious differences between Russia and West countries, particularly USA. But the book, written by Poe is very far from Russophobia, because the author wants to show an organic character of Russia’s State Regime, which has dominated here for more than five centuries. He does not criticize severely this Regime as do it west colleagues in USA and even in Russia but shows that it was the only means of survival of this huge country, which gave it opportunity to keep a state hood and sovereignty during the unprecedented attacks of neighbors. The same objective approach one can see in the book of the teacher of Мarshall T. Poe — Daniel Kaiser. This book also translated and published in the same publishing house. Kaiser shows objectively Russian medieval law and in fact unit Russian research work with some achievements of West social anthropology. Probably, such approach issued from scientific work of the teacher of D. Kaiser — prominent scholar in Russian studies — Richard Hellie. One can find out small scientific school and this school is not Russophobic.

Keywords:

Russophobia, American Russian studies, Мarshall T. Poe, Daniel Kaiser, Richard Hellie