SUMMARY:

Ilya Gerasimov reconstructs the so-called scheme of Russian history as a master narrative, whose origins date back to the 1760s, and which still, to a large degree, predetermines the interpretations and scope of studies of Russia’s past. Building on the discussions of Donald Ostrowski and of Kevin Platt on the applicability of Hayden White’s model of historical narratives to the field of Russian history, Gerasimov points to a paradox: while modern formalized procedures of academic writing make it virtually impossible for a historical study to completely fit any of White’s narrative strategies, quite a few historians of Russia seem to have consciously opted for full-scale narrativization and even novelization of their work. The most common type of these works assumes a format of national history. Another group of studies that embraces clear narrative forms focuses on the relatively recent Soviet period and demonstrates stylistic sophistication. Gerasimov concentrates on this latter group using the example of studies by Yuri Slezkine, Mark Lipovetsky, Serguei Oushakine, and Alexei Yurchak as perfectly embodying the four modes of emplotment identified by White (Romance, Satire, Tragedy, and Comedy). Gerasimov contends that the Soviet period is especially attractive for narrative-driven studies for several reasons. First, by reducing the multidimensional sociopolitical sphere of the early Soviet Union to the homogeneous plane of ideologically controlled textuality, the Stalinist regime made it particularly susceptible to discourse-based modes of analysis. Second, the dearth of primary sources, mainly due to the inaccessibility of many key archives, prompts compensatory narrativization instead of complex critical analysis. Finally, it is a desire to overcome a simplified national narrative by producing more complex, novel-like prose.
Gerasimov argues that the master narrative conveying early Soviet history and still dominating international Soviet studies was forged by the Russian-speaking liberal intelligentsia of the Thaw period, who created the familiar popular myth of the interwar period and the rhetorical paradigm framing the perception of the postwar decades. Even when modern historians resist this legacy by evoking sophisticated concepts and comparisons, the structure of narrative causes them to overlook societal multifaceted diversity, of which ethnoconfessional groupness is just the most obvious element.
More successful in communicating social complexity was the imperial turn of the 1990s. Although it failed to radically dismantle the dominant scheme of Russian history, the imperial turn at least differentiated it into multiple self-sufficient yet complementary national histories, thus significantly restricting narrative’s hold over historical writing. According to Gerasimov, national history resists any further deconstruction and rationalization because nation is a narrative and hence an ideal embodiment of the narrative strategies identified by White. Only an equally coherent but multifaceted narrative, akin to the complex prose of novels, is capable of transcending the constraints of national history while avoiding the trap of belletrization. One of the candidates for the job is the metanarrative of the imperial situation that describes diversity and hierarchy as dynamic systems rather than fixed structures and characteristics – a fundamental human condition rather than a marginal quality.