Mikhail Nikolayevich Pokrovsky

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Mikhail Nikolajewitsch Pokrovsky (1907)

Mikhail Pokrovsky ( Russian Михаил Николаевич Покровский ., Scientific transliteration Mikhail Nikolaevich Pokrovskii ; born 17 jul. / 29. August  1868 greg. In Moscow ; † 10. April 1932 ) was a Russian Marxist and historians .

Life

Pokrowski, who came from a family of officials in Moscow, began studying Russian history and universal history at the Moscow State University after completing a humanistic high school , where he attended lectures by Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky and Pavel Gavrilovich Vinogradov , among others . Already at this time Pokrowski was involved in socialist student circles. After graduating in 1891, he remained committed to Marxism and joined the RSDLP in 1903 . In 1905 he visited Lenin in his exile in Switzerland and then joined the Bolshevik direction . Hindered from an academic career by the Russian authorities because of his party work , he himself had to spend several years in exile (including in Paris ).

Within the party he belonged to the so-called "left" faction under Alexander Alexandrowitsch Bogdanow , which was in conflict with Lenin, and worked for the party school under the leadership of Maxim Gorki in Capri and in Bologna .

During the First World War Pokrovsky was one of the supporters of Leon Trotsky ; In 1917 he was elected chairman of the Moscow Soviet and as such took an active part in the preparation of the October Revolution . He also took part in the 1918 peace negotiations in Brest-Litovsk , where he positioned himself together with the "Left Communists" against Lenin.

For Pokrovsky, the years after the October Revolution were marked by the rise in key positions in Bolshevik educational policy ; from May 1918 until his death he held the post of Deputy People's Commissar for Education of the RSFSR . In addition, Pokrowski headed the Institute of the Red Professorship from 1921 to 1932 , was a member of the Presidium of the Communist Academy and in 1929 became a member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences .

After a long illness he died on April 10, 1932 in Moscow. His urn was buried on the Kremlin wall in Moscow.

plant

As a supporter of the Bolsheviks , he admitted to the Marxist conception of history and applied this to his main work, the history of Russia. From its creation to the most recent times , in which he emphasized the importance of the respective production conditions as the driving force of history as opposed to the role of personality . He also wrote a Small History of Russia , which was published in 1920 and which Lenin provided with a foreword, in which he expressed his great appreciation for this work.

After Pokrovski's death, he was attacked by the Communist Party for his alleged "vulgar sociologism". His books were banned, which is sometimes explained by the fact that the consistently Marxist approach of his work was in contrast to the personality cult around Stalin . It was not until the perestroika period under Gorbachev that his work was made accessible to the public again.

Fonts

  • Brief history of Russia . Translated by DS Mirsky . 2 volumes. International Publishers, New York 1933.
    • In German: History of Russia. From its creation to the most recent times . Translator Alexandra Ramm . Edited by Wilhelm Herzog. Hirschfeld, Leipzig 1929
    • Russian History: From the Most Ancient Times to 1917 . Translated into German by A. Maslow
  • Historical essays. An anthology . Translated by F. Axel. Literature and Politics, Vienna 1928 (Marxist Library, vol. 17; publication of the Communist Academy in Moscow, vol. 1)

literature

  • Lutz-Dieter Behrendt: MN Pokrowski on the relationship between Russia and Europe, in Erhard Hexelschneider, Ed .: Russia & Europe. Historical and cultural aspects of a problem of the century. Jena Forum for Education and Science, Leipzig 1995, ISBN 3929994445 , pp. 153–160

Web links

Commons : Mikhail Pokrovsky  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Edgar Hödsch: Art. Pokrovskij, Michail Nikolaevič . In: Historikerlexikon. From antiquity to the present . 2nd revised and expanded edition, Munich 2002, p. 257.
personal data
SURNAME Pokrovsky, Mikhail Nikolajewitsch
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Покровский, Михаил Николаевич (Russian); Pokrovskij, Michail Nikolaevič (scientific transliteration)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian Marxist and historian
DATE OF BIRTH August 29, 1868
PLACE OF BIRTH Moscow
DATE OF DEATH April 10, 1932
Place of death Moscow