Boris Mironov’s «Social History of Russia» did not arouse the same intensive discussions in German academia as it did in the United States. No forums were initiated similar to the one that appeared in Slavic Review in 2001. As far as I know, there has been just one lengthy reflection on what Mironov’s work might mean for the future of scholarly research in terms of his approach and treatment, and the work’s length, in Russia and abroad. In Germany, only Lutz Häfner in the Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas discussed the positions and new avenues of research explored in the two volumes and, at the same time, took up important points that had been made in discussions in the Anglo-American community.^[1] This raises the question: was the path-breaking character of Mironov’s work not obvious to the German historians, or were the objections to Mironov’s thesis – that the Russian Empire was a normal European country – widely shared in Germany from Konstanz to Kiel?
When Mironov’s work appeared, German historians with expertise on Russia, both strong in number and well-situated, some in separate research institutes and some with chairs and lectureships in major German universities, were undergoing their own crisis: Jörg Baberowski asked ten years ago, whether a separate «Osteuropäische Geschichte» was still necessary after the end of the Cold War. He pleaded for integration of chairs for East European history into a general European history, which would integrate East European experiences into an overall perspective. In a way, he pleaded for Russia to be treated as just another European example, to be studied using the older theories of social history or the newer ones of cultural studies.^[2] Baberowski got a mixed reception. Many articles argued for the traditional implementation of East European history in German universities, mainly because of the special language skills needed to study Russia. Further, there was the danger that, under the circumstances of underfinanced universities, the integration of Russian historical area studies would lead to the extinction of chairs and expertise rather than to the integration and redesign of the academic discipline.^[3] The debate, only in part, concerned approaches, paradigms, and theories. It also included a clearly political dimension and, last but not least, the subtext of future disciplinary positions within German academia. While the smoke has now cleared from the guns of the debate, the questions raised by Baberowski and, from another perspective, by Ben Eklof are still topical and widely discussed in German universities. The failure to take up topical approaches that guide historical science elsewhere, especially in the United States, is no longer the case. Most German experts in Russian history are not only acquainted with but also, for good reason, heavily influenced by their American colleagues. The cultural turn is in full swing. This no longer seems to me to be the question.^[4] The scientific integration of East European history into so-called general history has made good progress.^[5]
This is valid not only for comparative research. Questions of transnationality and transreligiosity have always been familiar to historians of Eastern Europe. Russia, with its religious, ethnic, and social heterogeneity, is a research field par excellence for questions on which historians of Western Europe have only just begun to work. That there are realities beyond the nation-state has always been known to historians of Eastern Europe. These factors make them valuable partners in cooperative interdisciplinary research, which is presently very important in strengthening the cultural sciences at German universities. Colleagues preoccupied with Western Europe are also increasingly aware of East European history as a necessary and integral component of European history. This does not mean that studies by Russian historians on Western Europe impede German scientific discourse. Unfortunately, in Germany, as in the United States, the Russian-language works of Russian colleagues in these fields are barely reviewed. There are no translations, and in only a few cases do historians of Russia do translation work. Russian colleagues are structurally «locked» in their country, while German historians expect at least that their works on Russia will be noticed and discussed abroad.
So serious questions arise: can one speak of a single community of historians of Russia, and is Russian history seen in Germany, as Mironov puts it, as an example of «normal» European history? The renewed and heated debate on the boundaries of the European Union and on the cultural foundations of Europe has contributed to the urgency of this question. Even well-established historians such as Hans-Ulrich Wehler, one of the fathers of German «Historische Sozialwissenschaft,» are taking part in these discussions, which tend to exclude Russia and leave aside sober arguments and empirical research.^[6]
In Russia, the problem facing the historical profession today is that, in both public discourse and politics, the quest for a usable past and pride in the country’s history is strongly articulated everywhere. In the 1990s the answer to the public search for a useful past was somewhat confusing. As an example, I refer to a call for a competition of research projects dedicated to the notion of the «Russian idea.»^[7] The beginning of the new millennium was marked by an increasingly authoritarian and centralized course of the government’s seeking to affirm the idea of Russia’s greatness in all epochs as a dominant historical discourse. The aim was to connect a patriotic national identity with elements of the collective memory. Celebrations of victory day in the Great Patriotic War in May replaced the prazdnik of the October Revolution as the most important holiday, legitimizing the Soviet experiment with the success story of victory over fascism and obscuring its dark sides – the Stalinist terror and its victims.
Whether the implementation of new holidays will be successful is unknown^[8] (for example, November 4, 2005, was celebrated for the first time as a national holiday – on this date the Russians drove a Polish garrison out of the Kremlin at the end of the so-called Smuta epoch of the early seventeenth century). It shows, however, the tendency of national policy in regard to history and represents an anti-West orientation, skillfully connected with twenty-first-century public opinion polls.
«The West,» however understood, is rapidly losing its attractiveness as a model for society and a metaphor for certain values, even though criticism of the West in Russia has been based on internalized Western values.^[9] While no direct connection necessarily exists between national politics and history studies in Russia, indirectly, the distribution of financing and grants may influence an orientation of historical science toward the mainstream of patriotic, integrative narratives.^[10] Recent surveys of Russian history, written for both schools and universities, already demonstrate this tendency.
It is not only in Russia that professional historians exercise merely minor control over historical narratives. It is not only in Russian bookstores that popular historical books, which typically proliferate stereotypes, occupy more shelf space than scientific works. Not only there but also in the mass media, a super-patriotic version of history is becoming the only acceptable and available version, and indirect influence on the academic profession cannot be avoided.
At some point, a certain weariness toward Western interpretations of Russian history has become noticeable. This reaction can be understood when, occasionally, Western colleagues who lack a deep knowledge of sources or intensive empirical work in archives nevertheless offer generalizations concerning Russian history. In this context, Boris Mironov’s model of Russian history is helpful – that of Russia as a normal case in European history. It rescues discussions over different interpretations of Russian history from the relativizing conclusion maintaining simply that Russia is unique (as Eklof’s citing of the Tiutchev’s well-known lines at the beginning of his essay suggests). Of course, the «proper time» (Eigenzeit) of Russian history, as Christoph Schmidt puts it,^[11] has to be seriously taken into account. To observe the «proper time» of Russian history means not just to write stories of shortages and backwardness, but to place these stories within different cultural contexts and various segments of society.
This in turn leads to a stronger understanding of the fact that European history, in its different branches, is itself shaped by different transnational and transreligious intersections and is an agglomeration of «proper times» (Eigenzeiten) and «special ways» (Sonderwegen). These foundational elements of European history have been dominated by the pervasive model of nation-state. The captivating attraction of older theories of nationalism, in particular, has in some ways hindered the exploration of heterogeneity and differences (of empires, for example), by taking the nation with a particular form of statehood and civilization as the aim of modernity and the point of departure for comparison.
New historical approaches, whether cultural or imperial, have challenged these paradigms both in Russia and the West. Yet those at the forefront of developing these approaches and important contributions are not always aware of the paradigms they have internalized (one always stands on the shoulders of giants). At the same time, it is clear that certain theories and interpretations may lead to hegemonic discourses. And of course, some Russian historians are particularly sensitive to and skeptical of what may be viewed as «foreign regulation» of their own past.
For example, the backwardness paradigm, which Ben Eklof addresses, still implicitly influences German historical studies of Russia. In an essay that inspired heated debates at the time of its publication twenty years ago, Manfred Hildermeier discussed this paradigm in terms of its genesis and explanatory power for Russia.^[12] In its theoretical framework (originated in the United States of the 1950s and 1960s), the paradigm of backwardness has remained influential even after the end of the Soviet Union. Western democracy and – beyond the state – civil society became the key elements of «normality» and indicators for comparison. Searching for a civil society as a normative analytical concept applicable to late imperial Russia may again lead into the trap of ignoring the «proper time» of Russian history within the European frame of reference.^[13]
In part, the search for «civil society» in the urban spaces of imperial Russia was, of course, a success story.^[14] On the other hand, it led again to the neglect of the agrarian sector and resulted in the writing of another story of shortcomings in comparison with the West, while perpetuating the dichotomy of «city» and «country.»^[15] Recently, Walter Sperling, in the introduction to an anthology worth reading, rightly referred to the dangers that result from the partly unconscious assumption of traditional patterns of interpretation.^[16]
Humans always compare – the act of comparison may be regarded as an anthropological constant. In scholarship, explicit or implicit comparisons shape the perception of the object of study and probably the research agenda of scholars. The question is how perception, valuation, and analysis are interconnected and what the ultimate goal of the academic enterprise may be.
If Boris Mironov, with his knowledge of Western research traditions, describes Russia as a normal European case, he is calling for comparative approaches. Without comparison, there can hardly be any interpretation that does not risk the danger of positivism. One must state openly what one is comparing and for what purpose, as well as which values and perceptions constitute one’s own intellectual background. German historians of Russia orient themselves strongly toward research conducted in the United States and at the same time suffer from the fact that their results are only marginally known to their U.S. colleagues. In certain ways they sit in the same boat with their Russian (and French) colleagues. Yet, it is up to them to contribute to the development of a real, single research community by producing interesting and challenging works and interpretations that influence and broaden the dominating discourse.