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2025. Vol.10. №1.

V.P. Danilov: Scientific opponent of the “Great Break”

May 20 2025

Krasilnikov S.A. V.P. Danilov: Scientific opponent of the “Great Break” // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2025. V.10. №1. P. 43-57.

EDN: FSHBKB

Annotation

The past century left a deep mark not only on the life and fate of the Russian peasantry as a civilizational social-cultural community but also on the work of historians who studied it. Among them, one of the most outstanding is Viktor Petrovich Danilov. As a historian of the Soviet era, he enjoyed well-deserved respect and reputation on both sides of the border, having developed a platform for their creative union in two successive documentary works on the tragic history of the Soviet peasantry in the era of etatization of the agrarian economy. The article aims at assessing the professional and personal experience of a participant of the famous Danilov’s projects, a representative of the next generation of historians who grew professionally while working with Danilov. The author considers some principles of collective work on serial documentary publications, difficulties of such work and ways to overcome them, which allowed to achieve the final results, focusing on the development of alternativeness in the transformations of the 1920s. Due to its consistent rejection of Stalin’s solution to the peasant question, Danilov’s legacy serves as a moral challenge to conformism as a widespread historical corporate disease.

Keywords

Peasant studies, Viktor Petrovich Danilov, N. I. Bukharin, alternative to Stalinism, serial documentary publications.

About the author

Sergey A. Krasilnikov, DSc (History), Chief Researcher, Institute of History, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Nikolaeva St., 8, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

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2024. Vol.9. №1.

Repressive de-peasantization in the USSR as a research question: Approaches and search for new solutions

Apr 18 2024

Krasilnikov S. A. Repressive de-peasantization in the USSR as a research question: Approaches and search for new solutions // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2024. V.9. №1. P. 6-22.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2024-9-1-6-22

Annotation

When considering the peasant component of special settlements in Stalin’s epoch, the author proposes to combine the repressive paradigm with the socially transformative one, which leads to the idea of repressive de-peasantization. This term focuses on the peasantry and peasant families deportation to special settlements as a state policy based on coercion, violence and discipline through punishment, which resulted in the loss of the most basic values (including religious ones) by the peasantry, the deformation of labor incentives and ethos, the transformation of family models and intergenerational ties. These issues are considered in the article through their study since the late 1980s (historiographical approach). Thus, the conceptual “breakthrough” (N. A. Ivnitsky, V.Ya. Shashkov, V.N. Zemskov) limited this analysis to the records of the central authorities, and the dictate of such sources affected the historical discourse, determining the dominance of quantitative characteristics (numbers, dislocations, spheres of labor application, living conditions, etc.) and the ignorance of the implicit qualitative aspects of the exiles’ life (marginality, adaptability, excessiveness, everyday activities). Having noted the presence of terminological ‘relics’ in contemporary historical works (“raskulachivanie”, or de-kulakization, “legal status”, etc.), the author emphasizes the need to consider such qualitative concepts as “regulation of special settlements”, “hierarchy of exiles”, “intergenerational ties and conflicts”, and “the price of repression”. As the basis of de-peasantization, the social-professional mobility of the exiled peasantry, including to other strata (workers, employees), was generally leveled by its regime status.

Keywords

Forced de-peasantization, dynamics of research, peasant family, exile, special settlement regime, mobility, marginalization.

About the author

Sergey A. Krasilnikov, DSc (History), Chief Researcher, Institute of History, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Nikolaeva St., 8, Novosibirsk, 630090.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

Full text

 

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