Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky. Curriculum Vitae

KLUCHEVSKY Vasily Osipovich, Russian historian, academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences in the category of Russian history and antiquities (1900) and honorary member in the category of belles-lettres (1908); Privy Councilor (1903). From the family of a village priest. He graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University (1865), where he attended lectures by F. I. Buslaev (history of Russian literature), S. V. Eshevsky (general history), P. M. Leontiev (Latin philology and literature), S. M. Solovyov (Russian history), B. N. Chicherin (history of law), etc. He taught courses in general history at the 3rd Alexander Military School (1867-83), Russian history at the Moscow Theological Academy (1871-1906; from 1882 professor , since 1897, emeritus professor, since 1907, honorary member of the academy), at the Guerrier courses (1872-88), at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1898-1910), a course in Russian history and special courses at Moscow University (1879-1911; from 1879 private assistant professor, from 1882 professor, in 1887-89 dean of the Faculty of History and Philology, in 1889-90 assistant rector of the university, in 1911 honorary member of the university). In 1893-95, he taught in Abastuman (a mountain climatic resort in the Akhaltsikhe district of Tiflis province) the course “Recent history of Western Europe in connection with the history of Russia” to the seriously ill Grand Duke Georgy Alexandrovich. Member of the Society of Russian History and Antiquities (since 1872; chairman in 1893-1905), the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature (since 1874; honorary member since 1909), and the Moscow Archaeological Society (since 1882).

Klyuchevsky's political worldview was characterized by a desire to find a middle line between extremes: he denied both revolution and reaction, and avoided active political activity. Already after D.V. Karakozov’s assassination attempt on Emperor Alexander II (1866), Klyuchevsky spoke with disapproval of “extreme liberalism and socialism.” During the Revolution of 1905-1907 he shared the cadet program and ran (unsuccessfully) for electors to the 1st State Duma. Member of the Special Meeting to draw up a new Charter on the press (1905-06), advocated the elimination of censorship. He was invited by Emperor Nicholas II to discuss the draft law on the “Bulygin Duma” (1905), insisted on granting the Duma legislative rights, on the introduction of universal suffrage, and objected to the idea of ​​class representation, citing the obsolescence of the class organization of society. In 1906 he was elected a member of the State Council from the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences and Universities, but refused this position, not finding his stay “independent enough to freely discuss emerging issues of public life in the interests of the cause.”

Klyuchevsky considered the essence of national history to be a unique combination of factors in its development. He singled out geographical, ethnic, economic, social and political factors among them, none of which, according to Klyuchevsky, was unconditionally predominant. The engine of history, according to Klyuchevsky, is the “mental labor and moral feat” of man. Klyuchevsky also wrote about three forces that “build human society” - “the human personality, human society, the nature of the country.” He paid great attention to the sense of national unity inherent, in his opinion, in the Russian people at all times, which was realized in the unity of power and people, that is, in the state. Klyuchevsky’s creative style and historical concept were distinguished by: the combination of source research and historical narrative in a single text; choosing the realities of economic and social life as the subject of study; knowledge of the life of various social strata and insight into their everyday psychology; polished style and language of storytelling, bordering on literary and artistic techniques. From S. M. Solovyov and the “state school” of Russian historiography, Klyuchevsky inherited the idea of ​​Russia as a country whose territory was constantly being developed by its population. However, he translated the thesis about the “country being colonized” from a general philosophical and historical premise into a system of observing population movements with the aim of plowing new lands (“Economic activity of the Solovetsky Monastery in the White Sea Territory”, 1867, “Pskov disputes”, 1872, etc.) .

Systematized and compared information from about 40 embassy reports, notes from travelers, letters from foreigners about the Russian state, published in various European languages ​​(“Tales of foreigners about the Moscow state,” 1866). In search of new historical sources, Klyuchevsky, on the advice of S. M. Solovyov, turned to the lives of Russian medieval saints - the founders of monasteries and organizers of a large monastic economy in North-Eastern Rus'. He was the first to study the development of Russian medieval hagiography and develop methods of scientific criticism of hagiographic texts (“Old Russian Lives of Saints as a Historical Source”, 1871). He analyzed the lives of 166 saints (about 5 thousand lists, compiled by Klyuchevsky in about 250 editions), established the time and place of origin of the lists, as well as their sources. I came to the conclusion that they were created according to literary models, reflected abstract Christian moral ideals and therefore do not contain information about economic and social history and are not reliable historical evidence. At the same time, Klyuchevsky subsequently used the lives as a source for characterizing the life, culture, national consciousness, and economic development of North-Eastern Rus'.

According to contemporaries, Klyuchevsky laid the foundation for the socio-economic trend in historiography. In the book “The Boyar Duma of Ancient Rus'” (1881), having explored a wide range of phenomena and processes (“from markets to offices”) using a huge array of legislative, record-keeping and legislative sources, Klyuchevsky examined the emergence and evolution of social classes in the 10th - early 18th centuries , identified by him on the basis of the differences in their occupations, rights and responsibilities: “industrial”, by which Klyuchevsky understood the “military and commercial aristocracy”, “service” - the princely squad, which was replaced by the nobility, “urban” - artisans and traders. According to Klyuchevsky, classes were formed both under the influence of economic processes and under the influence of the state. The norm of their existence was mutual cooperation, in maintaining which Klyuchevsky assigned a large role to the state. The Boyar Duma, according to Klyuchevsky, was “a flywheel that set in motion the entire government mechanism,” an essentially constitutional institution “with extensive political influence, but without a constitutional charter.” The latter, as well as the lack of feedback from society, led, according to Klyuchevsky, to the decline of its role and its replacement by the Senate.

Based on the analysis of bread prices, Klyuchevsky developed methods for assessing the purchasing power of the ruble in the 16th-18th centuries, opening the way to the study and interpretation of evidence from historical sources of a financial and economic nature (“Russian ruble of the 16th-18th centuries in its relation to the present”, 1884). He transferred the problem of the emergence of serfdom from the political to the socio-economic sphere. In contrast to the theory of enslavement of all classes by the state, developed by the “state school” of Russian historiography, Klyuchevsky formulated (on the basis of order and loan records, which he first studied) the concept of the origin of serfdom as the result of peasant debt to landowners. According to Klyuchevsky, the state, which considered peasants, first of all, as the main payers of taxes and executors of government duties, only regulated the existing serfdom [“The Origin of Serfdom in Russia”, 1885; “Poll tax and the abolition of servitude in Russia”, 1886; “History of estates in Russia”, 1887; “Abolition of serfdom” (created in 1910-11, published in 1958)].

Klyuchevsky is the author of the extensive university “Course of Russian History” (the author brought it up to the reforms of the 1860-70s inclusive), which became the first generalizing historical work in Russian science, which, instead of the traditional sequential presentation of political (“event”) history, contains an analysis of the main, according to Klyuchevsky, the problems of the Russian historical process, attempts to substantiate the patterns of development of the people, society, and state. In Russian history, depending on the direction of the flow of colonization of vast spaces of Russia by the Russian people, Klyuchevsky distinguished four periods: Dnieper (8-13 centuries; the bulk of the population was located on the middle and upper Dnieper, along the line Lovat River - Volkhov River; the basis of economic life - foreign trade and the “forestry trades” caused by it, and political - “fragmentation of the land under the leadership of cities”); Upper Volga (13th - mid-15th centuries; concentration of the bulk of the Russian population in the upper reaches of the Volga with its tributaries; the most important occupation is agriculture; political system - fragmentation of the land into princely appanages); Great Russian, or Tsar-boyar (mid-15th century - 1620s; resettlement of the Russian people “along the Don and Middle Volga black soil” and beyond the Upper Volga region; the most important political factor is the unification of the Great Russian people and the formation of a single statehood; social structure - military-landowning ); All-Russian, or imperial-noble (from the 17th century; the spread of the Russian people from the Baltic and White Seas to the Black and Caspian Seas, the Urals and “even... far beyond the Caucasus, the Caspian and the Urals”; the main political factor is the unification of the Great Russian, Little Russian and Belarusian branches of the Russian people under a single government, the formation of an empire; the main content of social life is the enslavement of peasants; the economy is agricultural and factory). Klyuchevsky did not always adhere to the position of a plurality of equally significant forces in the historical process: as he approached modern times, political and personal factors became increasingly important in his constructions. Klyuchevsky’s course was distinguished by high artistic merits; often all students of Moscow University gathered at his lectures; originally distributed in student handwritten and hectographed notes, first published in 1904-10 (parts 1-4; reprinted several times).

Klyuchevsky proposed new solutions to a number of major problems in Russian history. He believed that the Eastern Slavs came to the Russian Plain from the Danube River, and that they formed a military alliance in the Carpathians in the 6th century; noted the diversity of political forms in the Old Russian state (princely-Varangian power, city “regions”, power of the Kyiv prince). He put forward a version of the consistent involvement of all layers of Russian society “from top to bottom” into the Troubles of the 17th century. Klyuchevsky’s schemes and assessments have been and continue to be the subject of discussion and research among scientists. Klyuchevsky also studied the problems of general history, primarily from the point of view of their influence on the history of Russia.

Klyuchevsky is an outstanding master of historical portrait, created a gallery of images of the rulers of Russia (Tsars Ivan IV Vasilyevich the Terrible, Alexei Mikhailovich, Emperor Peter I, Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, Emperor Peter III, Empress Catherine II), statesmen (F. M. Rtishchev, A. L. Ordin-Nashchokin, Prince V.V. Golitsyn, His Serene Highness Prince A.D. Menshikov), church leaders (St. Sergius of Radonezh), cultural figures (N.I. Novikov, A.S. Pushkin, M.Yu. Lermontov ), historians (I.N. Boltin, N.M. Karamzin, T.N. Granovsky, S.M. Solovyov, K.N. Bestuzhev-Ryumin, F.I. Buslaev). Possessing the gift of artistic and historical imagination, Klyuchevsky consulted literary and artistic figures (thus, F.I. Chaliapin, with the help of Klyuchevsky, developed stage images of the kings Ivan IV the Terrible, Boris Fedorovich Godunov, Elder Dosifei and was shocked by how skillfully Klyuchevsky himself during consultations played Tsar Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky). Klyuchevsky’s artistic gift was embodied in his aphorisms, remarks, and assessments, some of which were widely known in the intellectual circles of Russia.

The name of Klyuchevsky is associated with the Klyuchevsky school that developed at Moscow University in the late 19th and early 20th centuries - historians (not only students) who gathered around Klyuchevsky or shared his scientific principles. At different times, it included M. M. Bogoslovsky, A. A. Kizevetter, M. K. Lyubavsky, P. N. Milyukov, M. N. Pokrovsky, N. A. Rozhkov and others; Klyuchevsky influenced the formation of the scientific views of M. A. Dyakonov, S. F. Platonov, V. I. Semevsky and others. Outstanding artists who were teachers and students of the Moscow School of Painting and Sculpture testified to Klyuchevsky’s influence on the development of historical themes in the fine arts and architecture (V. A. Serov and others).

In the house where Klyuchevsky lived in Penza, the V. O. Klyuchevsky Museum has been operating since 1991.

Works: Works: In 8 vols. M., 1956-1959; Letters. Diaries. Aphorisms and thoughts about history. M., 1968; Unpublished works. M., 1983;

Works: In 9 vols. M., 1987-1990; Historical portraits. Figures of historical thought. M., 1990; Letters from V. O. Klyuchevsky to Penza. Penza, 2002; Aphorisms and thoughts about history. M., 2007.

Lit.: V. O. Klyuchevsky. Characteristics and memories. M., 1912; V. O. Klyuchevsky. Biographical sketch. M., 1914; Zimin A. A. Archive of V. O. Klyuchevsky // Notes of the Department of Manuscripts of the State Library named after V. I. Lenin. 1951. Issue. 12; Chumachenko E. G. Klyuchevsky - source scientist. M., 1970; Nechkina M. V. V. O. Klyuchevsky. The story of life and creativity. M., 1974; Fedotov G. P. Klyuchevsky’s Russia // Fedotov G. P. Fate and sins of Russia. St. Petersburg, 1991. T. 1; Klyuchevsky. Sat. materials. Penza, 1995. Vol. 1; Kireeva R. A. Klyuchevsky V. O. // Historians of Russia. Biographies. M., 2001; Popov A. S. V. O. Klyuchevsky and his “school”: a synthesis of history and sociology. M., 2001; V. O. Klyuchevsky and the problems of Russian provincial culture and historiography: In 2 books. M., 2005; History of historical science in the USSR. Pre-October period. Bibliography. M., 1965.

And the famous Russian scientist Vasily Klyuchevsky was supposed to become a priest. However, already in his last year in the diocese, he dropped out to become a student at Moscow University. Passionate about history, the student - and then teacher - wrote many scientific works, and queues lined up at his lectures.

“Was anyone poorer than you and me...”: youth and studies at the seminary

Vasily Klyuchevsky was born on January 28, 1841 in the village of Voskresenovka, Penza region. His father, a village priest, died early. This death was such a shock for the boy that he began to stutter and for many years could not cope with this problem. A widowed mother with three small children (nine-year-old Vasily was the eldest) moved to Penza, where a friend of her late husband gave her a small house to live in. The Penza diocese took upon itself the maintenance of the family. “Was there anyone poorer than you and me at the time when we were left orphans in the arms of our mother?”, - Klyuchevsky later wrote to his sister, recalling those times.

When Vasily Klyuchevsky grew up, he was sent to a religious school. Due to his severe stuttering, Klyuchevsky failed in many subjects, and his teachers were unhappy with him. At any moment he could be expelled for “professional unsuitability”: a speech defect would not allow him to become a priest or sexton. Therefore, Klyuchevsky’s mother persuaded one of the older students to practice speech production with the boy.

Thanks to regular classes, Vasily Klyuchevsky coped with his stuttering. His manner of pronouncing the endings of words slowly and clearly ceased to be a speech defect, and later became a recognizable feature. “For an attentive listener, not a single sound, not a single intonation of a quiet but unusually clear-sounding voice could be lost.”, - Professor Alexey Yakovlev wrote about Klyuchevsky.

In 1856, Klyuchevsky graduated from theological school and entered the seminary. According to the conditions of the Penza diocese, he was supposed to become a priest, but in his last year he decided to quit his studies and apply to Moscow University. The spiritual authorities objected to the expulsion of the student, who had almost completed his studies, but Penza Bishop Varlaam stood up for him: “Klyuchevsky has not yet completed his course of study, and, therefore, if he does not want to be in the clergy, then he can be dismissed without hindrance”.

Professor and teacher of the Grand Duke

Leonid Pasternak. Portrait of Vasily Klyuchevsky (fragment). 1909. State Historical Museum, Moscow

In 1861, Vasily Klyuchevsky entered the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University. In his free time, he worked as a tutor to support himself and help his mother and sisters who remained in Penza.

In 1865, Klyuchevsky graduated from the university and defended his Ph.D. thesis “Tales of Foreigners about the Moscow State.” For this work he was awarded a gold medal and remained at the department “to prepare for a professorship.”

Work on his master's thesis “Ancient Russian Lives of Saints as a Historical Source” took five years. During this time, Klyuchevsky studied about a thousand biographies and conducted six independent scientific studies. The main conclusion that the scientist made in his dissertation is that lives cannot be a reliable historical source, since they do not allow details to be established. “situation, place and time, without which for the historian there is no historical fact”.

After defending his master's thesis in 1871, Klyuchevsky received the right to teach in higher educational institutions. He read history at the Alexander Military School, at the Higher Women's Courses, at the Moscow Theological Academy and at the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Since 1879, he headed the history department of Moscow University instead of his scientific supervisor, Sergei Solovyov. In 1882, Klyuchevsky defended his doctoral dissertation “The Boyar Duma of Ancient Rus'” and received the title of professor. Klyuchevsky’s lectures were very popular among students: he spoke captivatingly about any historical events, brought up unexpected points of view, involved listeners in discussion and answered all questions. Even those who did not have the professor’s classes on the schedule tried to get into the classroom; many took their seats early in the morning. From 1893 to 1895, Klyuchevsky taught history to the emperor’s son, Grand Duke Georgy Alexandrovich.

In 1900, the professor was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences, and from 1904 Klyuchevsky began publishing his main scientific work - “A Course of Russian History” in five parts, on which he had worked for the previous 30 years. Before this, scientists divided the history of Russia into three periods associated with the strengthening of state power: the time of feudal fragmentation, the era of the unification of the principalities into the Moscow State and the Russian Empire, starting with the reign of Peter I. Klyuchevsky in his works developed a different concept and identified four historical periods. The first of them is Dnieper Rus': the basis of its economy was trade, and all administration was concentrated in several large cities. Then the period of Upper Volga Rus' began: state power passed to the prince, and agriculture became the main economic factor. Further, according to Klyuchevsky, the time of Great Rus' came, when the state was ruled by the tsar and the boyar duma. And the last stage of history was Imperial Russia: the nobles became the ruling class in it, and the economy developed due to agriculture, the work of plants and factories.

“Confidant of my soul”: Klyuchevsky’s family life

In the late 1860s, Vasily Klyuchevsky met the older sister of one of his students, Anna Borodina. The historian courted the girl and proposed to her, but was refused: Anna vowed not to marry until she raised her four orphaned nephews. Vasily took the breakup hard, but soon wooed Anna’s older sister, Anisya. They married in 1869.

Anisya Borodina was three years older than Klyuchevsky, and, like himself, came from the clergy. She did not become for her scientist husband, as had happened before, either a secretary, or an ideological inspirer, or the keeper of his archives - the role of a hospitable housewife and keeper of the hearth was much closer to her. Throughout their lives, the couple maintained deep affection for each other: Klyuchevsky in correspondence affectionately called his wife “the confidant of my soul.”

In 1879, the Klyuchevskys had a son, Boris. He was an only child, but the family also raised the historian’s niece, Elizaveta Korneva. The girl died in 1906 from consumption. Three years later, Klyuchevsky’s wife also passed away. Both the scientist and his adult son took these deaths very hard. Klyuchevsky’s student Stepan Veselovsky wrote about them: “were left orphaned, helpless, like little children”.

Boris Klyuchevsky became his father's home secretary and assistant. He graduated from two faculties of Moscow University, history and law, but he was never seriously interested in scientific activity. Klyuchevsky Jr. worked as an assistant to a sworn attorney, and in his free time he went in for sports and tried to improve different models of bicycles. However, after his father’s death in 1911, it was Boris who compiled an archive of his documents, published his articles, published and republished his books.

In 1991, the Vasily Klyuchevsky Museum opened in Penza. Also, one of the city streets is named after the historian, and in 2008 the first monument to Klyuchevsky was erected in Penza. Since 1994, authors of outstanding scientific works on Russian history have received the Klyuchevsky Prize.

January 28, 1841 (Voskresenovka village, Penza province, Russian Empire) - May 25, 1911 (Moscow, Russian Empire)



Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky is the most prominent Russian liberal historian, a “legend” of Russian historical science, an ordinary professor at Moscow University, an ordinary academician of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (extra staff) in Russian history and antiquities (1900), chairman of the Imperial Society of Russian History and Antiquities at Moscow University, Privy Councilor.

IN. Klyuchevsky

So much has been written about V.O. Klyuchevsky that it seems completely impossible to insert even a word into the grandiose memorial erected to the legendary historian in the memoirs of his contemporaries, scientific monographs of fellow historians, popular articles in encyclopedias and reference books. For almost every anniversary of Klyuchevsky, entire collections of biographical, analytical, historical and journalistic materials were published, devoted to the analysis of one or another aspect of his work, scientific concepts, pedagogical and administrative activities within the walls of Moscow University. Indeed, largely thanks to his efforts, Russian historical science already in the second half of the 19th century reached a completely new qualitative level, which subsequently ensured the appearance of works that laid the foundations of modern philosophy and methodology of historical knowledge.

Meanwhile, in the popular scientific literature about V.O. Klyuchevsky, and especially in modern publications on Internet resources, only general information about the biography of the famous historian is given. The characteristics of the personality of V.O. Klyuchevsky, who, of course, was one of the most outstanding, extraordinary and remarkable people of his era, the idol of more than one generation of students and teachers at Moscow University, are also presented very differently.

This inattention can be partly explained by the fact that the main biographical works on Klyuchevsky (M.V. Nechkina, R.A. Kireeva, L.V. Cherepnin) were created in the 70s of the 20th century, when in classical Soviet historiography “the path of the historian” was understood primarily as the process of preparing his scientific works and creative achievements. Moreover, under the conditions of the dominance of Marxist-Leninist ideology and the propaganda of the advantages of the Soviet way of life, it was impossible to openly say that even under the “damned tsarism” a person from the lower classes had the opportunity to become a great scientist, a privy councilor, to enjoy the personal favor and deep respect of the emperor and members of the tsarist government. families. This to some extent neutralized the gains of the October Revolution, among which, as is known, the people declared that they had gained those same “equal” opportunities. In addition, V.O. Klyuchevsky in all Soviet textbooks and reference literature was unambiguously ranked among the representatives of “liberal-bourgeois” historiography - i.e. to class alien elements. It would never have occurred to any Marxist historian to study the private life and reconstruct little-known facets of the biography of such a “hero.”

In post-Soviet times, it was believed that the factual side of Klyuchevsky’s biography had been sufficiently studied, and therefore there was no point in returning to it. Of course: in the life of a historian there are no scandalous love affairs, career intrigues, acute conflicts with colleagues, i.e. there is no “strawberry” that could interest the average reader of the Caravan of Stories magazine. This is partly true, but as a result, today the general public knows only historical anecdotes about the “secrecy” and “excessive modesty” of Professor Klyuchevsky, his maliciously ironic aphorisms, and contradictory statements “pulled up” by the authors of various pseudo-scientific publications from personal letters and memoirs of contemporaries.

However, a modern view of the personality, private life and communications of a historian, the process of his scientific and extra-scientific creativity implies the intrinsic value of these objects of research as part of the “historiographic life” and the world of Russian culture as a whole. Ultimately, the life of each person consists of relationships in the family, friendships and love affairs, home, habits, and everyday trifles. And the fact that one of us ends up or doesn’t end up in history as a historian, writer or politician is an accident against the backdrop of the same “everyday little things”...

In this article we would like to outline the main milestones of not only the creative, but also the personal biography of V.O. Klyuchevsky, to talk about him as a person who has made a very difficult and thorny path from the son of a provincial clergyman, a poor orphan to the heights of glory as the first historian of Russia.

V.O. Klyuchevsky: triumph and tragedy of the “commoner”

Childhood and adolescence

IN. Klyuchevsky

IN. Klyuchevsky was born on January 16 (28), 1841 in the village of Voskresensky (Voskresenovka) near Penza, into a poor family of a parish priest. The life of the future historian began with great misfortune - in August 1850, when Vasily was not yet ten years old, his father died tragically. He went to the market to do some shopping, and on the way back he was caught in a severe thunderstorm. The horses got scared and bolted. Father Osip, having lost control of the car, apparently fell from the cart, lost consciousness from hitting the ground and choked on the streams of water. Without waiting for his return, the family organized a search. Nine-year-old Vasily was the first to see his dead father lying in the mud on the road. From the strong shock the boy began to stutter.

After the death of their breadwinner, the Klyuchevsky family moved to Penza, where they entered the Penza diocese. Out of compassion for the poor widow, who was left with three children, one of her husband’s friends gave her a small house to live in. “Was there anyone poorer than you and me at the time when we were left orphans in the arms of our mother,” Klyuchevsky later wrote to his sister, recalling the hungry years of his childhood and adolescence.

At the theological school where he was sent to study, Klyuchevsky stuttered so much that he was a burden to the teachers and did not do well in many basic subjects. As an orphan, he was kept in an educational institution only out of pity. Any day now the question of expelling a student due to professional incompetence could arise: the school trained clergy, and the stutterer was not fit to be either a priest or a sexton. Under the current conditions, Klyuchevsky might not have received any education at all - his mother did not have the funds to study at the gymnasium or invite tutors. Then the priest's widow tearfully begged one of the students from the senior department to take care of the boy. History has not preserved the name of this gifted young man, who managed to turn a timid stutterer into a brilliant speaker, who later attracted thousands of student audiences to his lectures. According to the assumptions of the most famous biographer of V.O. Klyuchevsky, M.V. Nechkina, he could be seminarian Vasily Pokrovsky, the older brother of Klyuchevsky’s classmate Stepan Pokrovsky. Not being a professional speech therapist, he intuitively found ways to combat stuttering, so that it almost disappeared. Among the techniques for overcoming the shortcoming was this: slowly and clearly pronounce the ends of words, even if the emphasis did not fall on them. Klyuchevsky did not completely overcome his stuttering, but he performed a miracle - he managed to give the small pauses that appeared involuntarily in his speech the appearance of semantic artistic pauses, which gave his words a unique and charming flavor. Subsequently, the flaw turned into a characteristic individual trait, which gave a special appeal to the historian’s speech. Modern psychologists and image makers deliberately use such techniques to attract the attention of listeners and add “charisma” to the image of a speaker, politician, or public figure.

IN. Klyuchevsky

A long and persistent struggle with a natural deficiency also contributed to the excellent diction of lecturer Klyuchevsky. He “minted” every sentence and “especially the endings of the words he spoke so that for an attentive listener not a single sound, not a single intonation of a quiet but unusually clear sounding voice could be lost,” his student Professor A. I. Yakovlev wrote about the historian. .

After graduating from the district theological school in 1856, V.O. Klyuchevsky entered the seminary. He had to become a priest - this was the condition of the diocese, which took his family into support. But in 1860, having dropped out of seminary in his last year, the young man was preparing to enter Moscow University. The desperately bold decision of a nineteen-year-old boy determined his entire fate in the future. In our opinion, it testifies not so much to Klyuchevsky’s persistence or the integrity of his nature, but rather to the intuition inherent in him already at a young age, which many of his contemporaries later spoke about. Even then, Klyuchevsky intuitively understands (or guesses) his personal destiny, goes against fate in order to take exactly the place in life that will allow him to fully realize his aspirations and abilities.

One must think that the fateful decision to leave the Penza Seminary was not easy for the future historian. From the moment the application was submitted, the seminarian lost his scholarship. For Klyuchevsky, who was extremely strapped for funds, the loss of even this small amount of money was very noticeable, but circumstances forced him to be guided by the principle “either all or nothing.” Immediately after graduating from the seminary, he could not enter the university, because he would be obliged to accept a clergy title and remain in it for at least four years. Therefore, it was necessary to leave the seminary as soon as possible.

Klyuchevsky’s daring act exploded the measured seminary life. The spiritual authorities objected to the expulsion of a successful student who, in fact, had already received an education at the expense of the diocese. Klyuchevsky motivated his request for dismissal by cramped home circumstances and poor health, but it was obvious to everyone in the seminary, from the director to the stoker, that this was just a formal excuse. The seminary board wrote a report to the Penza bishop, His Eminence Varlaam, but he unexpectedly issued a positive resolution: “Klyuchevsky has not yet completed his course of study and, therefore, if he does not want to be in the clergy, then he can be dismissed without hindrance.” The loyalty of the official document did not quite correspond to the true opinion of the bishop. Klyuchevsky later recalled that during the December exam at the seminary, Varlaam called him a fool.

Uncle I.V. Evropeytsev (the husband of his mother’s sister) gave money for the trip to Moscow, who encouraged his nephew’s desire to study at the university. Knowing that the young man was experiencing great gratitude, but at the same time also spiritual discomfort from his uncle’s charity, Evropeytsev decided to cheat a little. He gave his nephew a prayer book “as a keepsake” with parting words to turn to this book in difficult moments of life. A large banknote was inserted between the pages, which Klyuchevsky found already in Moscow. In one of his first letters home, he wrote: “I left for Moscow, firmly relying on God, and then on you and on myself, not counting too much on someone else’s pocket, no matter what happened to me.”

According to some biographers, a complex of personal guilt towards his mother and younger sisters left in Penza haunted the famous historian for many years. As evidenced by the materials of Klyuchevsky’s personal correspondence, Vasily Osipovich maintained the warmest relations with his sisters: he always tried to help them, look after them, and participate in their fate. Thus, thanks to the help of her brother, her elder sister Elizaveta Osipovna (married Virganskaya) was able to raise and educate her seven children, and after the death of her younger sister, Klyuchevsky accepted her two children (E.P. and P.P. Kornev) into his family and raised them.

The beginning of the way

In 1861, V.O. Klyuchevsky entered the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University. He had a difficult time: almost revolutionary passions were in full swing in the capitals, caused by the manifesto of February 19, 1861 on the liberation of the peasants. The liberalization of literally all aspects of public life, Chernyshevsky’s fashionable ideas about the “people's revolution”, which were literally floating in the air, confused young minds.

During his studies, Klyuchevsky tried to stay away from political disputes among students. Most likely, he simply had neither the time nor the desire to engage in politics: he came to Moscow to study and, in addition, he needed to earn money by giving lessons in order to support himself and help his family.

According to Soviet biographers, Klyuchevsky at one time attended the historical and philosophical circle of N.A. Ishutin, but this version is not confirmed by the currently studied materials from the historian’s personal archive. They contain an indication of the fact that Klyuchevsky was a tutor of a certain high school student Ishutin. However, this “tutoring” could have taken place even before Klyuchevsky entered Moscow University. ON THE. Ishutin and D.V. Karakozov were natives of Serdobsk (Penza province); in the 1850s they studied at the 1st Penza Men's Gymnasium, and seminarian Klyuchevsky during the same period actively earned money by giving private lessons. It is possible that Klyuchevsky renewed acquaintance with his fellow countrymen in Moscow, but researchers did not find any reliable information about his participation in the Ishutinsky circle.

Moscow life obviously aroused interest, but at the same time it gave rise to wariness and mistrust in the soul of the young provincial. Before leaving Penza, he had never been anywhere else; he moved mainly in a spiritual environment, which, of course, made it difficult for Klyuchevsky to “adapt” to the capital’s reality. “Provincialism” and subconscious rejection of everyday excesses, considered the norm in a big city, remained with V.O. Klyuchevsky throughout his life.

The former seminarian, no doubt, had to endure a serious internal struggle when he moved from the religious traditions learned in the seminary and family to scientific positivism. Klyuchevsky followed this path by studying the works of the founders of positivism (Comte, Mile, Spencer), the materialist Ludwig Feuerbach, in whose concept he was most attracted by the philosopher’s predominant interest in ethics and religious problems.

As Klyuchevsky’s diaries and some personal notes testify, the result of the internal “rebirth” of the future historian was his constant desire to distance himself from the world around him, maintaining his personal space in it, inaccessible to prying eyes. Hence - Klyuchevsky’s ostentatious sarcasm, caustic skepticism, more than once noted by his contemporaries, his desire to act in public, convincing others of his own “complexity” and “closedness.”

In 1864-1865, Klyuchevsky completed his course at the university with the defense of his candidate’s essay “Tales of Foreigners about the Moscow State.” The problem was posed under the influence of Professor F.I. Buslaeva. The candidate's essay received a very high assessment, and Klyuchevsky was retained at the department as a scholarship holder to prepare for a professorship.

Work on his master's thesis “The Lives of Saints as a Historical Source” lasted for six years. Since Vasily Osipovich could not remain a scholarship holder, at the request of his teacher and mentor S.M. Solovyov, he received a position as a tutor at the Alexander Military School. Here he worked from 1867 for sixteen years. Since 1871, he replaced S.M. Solovyov in teaching the course of new general history at this school.

Family and personal life

In 1869, V.O. Klyuchevsky married Anisya Mikhailovna Borodina. This decision came as a real surprise, both for relatives and for the bride herself. Klyuchevsky initially courted the younger Borodin sisters, Anna and Nadezhda, but proposed to Anisya, who was three years older than him (she was already thirty-two at the time of the wedding). At that age, a girl was considered a “vekovushka” and practically could not count on marriage.

Boris and Anisya Mikhailovna Klyuchevsky, probably with their dogs, named V.O. Klyuchevsky Grosh and Kopeyka. Not earlier than 1909

It's no secret that among the creative intelligentsia, long-term marriages, as a rule, are based on relationships between like-minded people. The wife of a scientist, writer, or famous publicist usually acts as a permanent secretary, critic, or even a generator of ideas for her creative “half,” invisible to the public. Little is known about the relationship between the Klyuchevsky spouses, but most likely they were very far from a creative union.

In correspondence of 1864, Klyuchevsky affectionately called his bride “Nixochka,” “confidant of my soul.” But, what is noteworthy, no further correspondence between the spouses was recorded. Even during Vasily Osipovich’s departures from home, he, as a rule, asked his other recipients to convey information about himself to Anisya Mikhailovna. At the same time, for many years Klyuchevsky maintained a lively and friendly correspondence with his wife’s sister, Nadezhda Mikhailovna Borodina. And according to his son, Vasily Osipovich carefully kept and hid drafts of old letters to his other sister-in-law, Anna Mikhailovna, among the “Penza papers.”

Most likely, the relationship between the Klyuchevsky spouses was built exclusively on a personal, family and everyday level, remaining so throughout their lives.

V.O. Klyuchevsky’s home secretary, his interlocutor and assistant in his work was his only son Boris. For Anisya Mikhailovna, although she often attended her husband’s public lectures, the sphere of scientific interests of the famous historian remained alien and largely incomprehensible. As P.N. Milyukov recalled, during his visits to the Klyuchevskys’ house, Anisya Mikhailovna only performed the duties of a hospitable hostess: poured tea, treated guests, without participating in any way in the general conversation. Vasily Osipovich himself, who often attended various informal receptions and zhurfixes, never took his wife with him. Perhaps Anisia Mikhailovna had no inclination for social pastime, but, most likely, Vasily Osipovich and his wife did not want to cause themselves unnecessary worries and put each other in an uncomfortable situation. Mrs. Klyuchevskaya could not be imagined at an official banquet or in the company of her husband’s learned colleagues arguing in a smoky home office.

There are known cases when unfamiliar visitors mistook Anisya Mikhailovna for a servant in the professor's house: even in appearance she resembled an ordinary bourgeois housewife or priest. The historian’s wife was known as a homebody, she ran the house and household, solving all the practical issues of family life. Klyuchevsky himself, like any person passionate about his ideas, was more helpless than a child in everyday trifles.

All her life A.M. Klyuchevskaya remained a deeply religious person. In conversations with friends, Vasily Osipovich often sneered at his wife’s passion for “sports” trips to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, which was located far from their home, although there was another small church nearby. During one of these “campaigns,” Anisiya Mikhailovna became ill, and when they brought her home, she died.

Nevertheless, in general, one gets the impression that during many years of marriage, the Klyuchevsky spouses maintained deep personal affection and almost dependence on each other. Vasily Osipovich took the death of his “half” very hard. Student of Klyuchevsky S.B. Veselovsky these days wrote in a letter to a friend that after the death of his wife, old Vasily Osipovich (he was already 69 years old) and his son Boris “were left orphaned, helpless, like little children.”

And when the long-awaited fourth volume of the “Course of Russian History” appeared in December 1909, there was an inscription before the text on a separate page: “In memory of Anisia Mikhailovna Klyuchevskaya († March 21, 1909).”

In addition to his son Boris (1879-1944), Vasily Osipovich’s niece, Elizaveta Korneva (? –01/09/1906), lived in the Klyuchevsky family as a pupil. When Lisa got a fiancé, V.O. Klyuchevsky did not like him, and the guardian began to interfere with their relationship. Despite the disapproval of the entire family, Lisa left home, hastily got married, and soon after the wedding died “of consumption.” Vasily Osipovich, who loved her as his own daughter, experienced the death of his niece especially hard.

Professor Klyuchevsky

In 1872 V.O. Klyuchevsky successfully defended his master's thesis. In the same year, he took the chair of history at the Moscow Theological Academy and held it for 36 years (until 1906). In those same years, Klyuchevsky began teaching at the Higher Women's Courses. Since 1879 - lectures at Moscow University. At the same time, he completed his doctoral dissertation “The Boyar Duma of Ancient Rus'” and in 1882 defended it at the university department. From that time on, Klyuchevsky became a professor at four educational institutions.

His lectures were extremely popular among students. Not only students of history and philology, for whom, in fact, the course of Russian history was taught, were his listeners. Mathematicians, physicists, chemists, doctors - everyone tried to break into Klyuchevsky’s lectures. According to contemporaries, they literally emptied classrooms at other faculties; many students came to the university early in the morning to take a seat and wait for the “desired hour.” The listeners were attracted not so much by the content of the lectures as by the aphorism and liveliness of Klyuchevsky’s presentation of even already known material. The democratic image of the professor himself, so atypical for the university environment, also could not but arouse the sympathy of young students: everyone wanted to listen to “their” historian.

Soviet biographers tried to explain the extraordinary success of V.O. Klyuchevsky’s lecture course in the 1880s with his desire to “please” the revolutionary-minded student audience. According to M.V. Nechkina, in his first lecture, given on December 5, 1879, Klyuchevsky put forward the slogan of freedom:

“Unfortunately, the text of this particular lecture has not reached us, but the memories of the listeners have been preserved. Klyuchevsky, writes one of them, “believed that Peter’s reforms did not produce the desired results; In order for Russia to become rich and powerful, freedom was needed. Russia of the 18th century did not see it. Hence, Vasily Osipovich concluded, and its weakness as a state.”

Nechkina M.V. “Lecture skills of V.O. Klyuchevsky"

In other lectures, Klyuchevsky spoke ironically about Empresses Elizaveta Petrovna, Catherine II, and colorfully characterized the era of palace coups:

“For reasons known to us...,” Klyuchevsky’s university student recorded a lecture in 1882, “after Peter, the Russian throne became a toy for adventurers, for random people who often unexpectedly stepped on it... Many miracles happened on the Russian throne from death of Peter the Great - there were childless widows and unmarried mothers of families there, but there was no buffoon yet; Probably, the game of chance was aimed at filling this gap in our history. The buffoon has appeared."

It was about Peter III. No one from a university department has ever spoken about the House of Romanov like this.

From all this, Soviet historians drew a conclusion about the anti-monarchist and anti-noble position of the historian, which almost made him similar to the regicide revolutionaries S. Perovskaya, Zhelyabov and other radicals who wanted to change the existing order at any cost. However, the historian V.O. Klyuchevsky did not even think about anything like that. His “liberalism” clearly fit into the framework of what was permitted in the era of government reforms of the 1860-70s. “Historical portraits” of kings, emperors and other outstanding rulers of antiquity, created by V.O. Klyuchevsky, are only a tribute to historical authenticity, an attempt to objectively present monarchs as ordinary people who are not alien to any human weaknesses.

The venerable scientist V.O. Klyuchevsky was elected dean of the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University, vice-rector, chairman of the Society of Russian History and Antiquities. He was appointed teacher of the son of Alexander III, Grand Duke George, was more than once invited to walks with the royal family, and had conversations with the sovereign and empress Maria Feodorovna. However, in 1893-1894, Klyuchevsky, despite the emperor’s personal favor towards him, categorically refused to write a book about Alexander III. Most likely, this was neither the historian’s whim nor a manifestation of his opposition to the authorities. Klyuchevsky did not see his talent as a flattering publicist, and for a historian to write about the “next” emperor who is still living or who has just died is simply not interesting.

In 1894, he, as chairman of the Society of Russian History and Antiquities, had to give a speech “In memory of the late sovereign Emperor Alexander III.” In this speech, the liberal-minded historian sincerely regretted the death of the sovereign, with whom he often communicated during his lifetime. For this speech, Klyuchevsky was booed by students, who saw in the behavior of their beloved professor not grief for the deceased, but unforgivable conformism.

In the mid-1890s, Klyuchevsky continued his research work and published a “Brief Guide to New History”, the third edition of the “Boyar Duma of Ancient Rus'”. Six of his students are defending dissertations.

In 1900, Klyuchevsky was elected to the Imperial Academy of Sciences. Since 1901, according to the rules, he resigns, but remains to teach at the university and the Theological Academy.

In 1900-1910, he began to give a course of lectures at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, where his listeners were many outstanding artists. F.I. Chaliapin wrote in his memoirs that Klyuchevsky helped him understand the image of Boris Godunov before a benefit performance at the Bolshoi Theater in 1903. The memoirs of the famous singer about the famous historian also repeatedly speak about Klyuchevsky’s artistry, his extraordinary talent to attract the attention of the viewer and listener, his ability to “get used to the role” and fully reveal the character of the chosen character.

Since 1902, Vasily Osipovich has been preparing for publication the main brainchild of his life - “The Course of Russian History”. This work was interrupted only in 1905 by trips to St. Petersburg to participate in commissions on the law on the press and the status of the State Duma. Klyuchevsky’s liberal position complicated his relationship with the leadership of the Theological Academy. In 1906, Klyuchevsky resigned and was fired, despite student protests.

According to the assurances of cadet historians P.N. Milyukov and A. Kiesewetter, at the end of his life V.O. Klyuchevsky stood on the same liberal constitutional positions as the People's Freedom Party. In 1905, at a meeting in Peterhof, he did not support the idea of ​​a “noble” constitution for the future “Octobrists”, and agreed to run for the State Duma as a deputy from Sergiev Posad. In fact, despite all the curtseys from the leaders of the barely fledgling political parties, V.O. Klyuchevsky was not interested in politics at all.

Quite fierce disputes arose more than once among Soviet historians regarding Klyuchevsky’s “party affiliation”. M.V. Nechkina unequivocally (following Milyukov) considered Klyuchevsky an ideological and actual member of the People's Freedom Party (KD). However, Academician Yu.V. Gauthier, who personally knew the historian in those years, argued that his son Boris almost forcibly forced the “old man” to run for the Duma from this party, and “it is impossible to make Klyuchevsky a cadet figure.”

In the same polemic with Nechkina, the following phrase was heard by Yu.V. Gautier: “Klyuchevsky was a real “wet chicken” in terms of character and social activities. That's what I told him. He had a will only in his works, but in life he had no will... Klyuchevsky was always under someone’s shoe.”

The question of the actual participation or non-participation of the historian in the affairs of the Cadet Party has lost its relevance today. His deputy in the State Duma did not take place, but, unlike P.N. Milyukov and Co., this did not matter for Klyuchevsky: the scientist always had something to do and where to realize his oratorical talent.

“Course of Russian History” and the historical concept of V.O. Klyuchevsky

Along with the special course “History of Estates in Russia” (1887), research on social topics (“The Origin of Serfdom in Russia”, “Poll Tax and the Abolition of Serfdom in Russia”, “Composition of Representation at Zemstvo Councils of Ancient Rus'”), history culture of the 18th and 19th centuries. and others, Klyuchevsky created the main work of his life - “Course of Russian History” (1987-1989. T.I - 5). It is in it that the concept of the historical development of Russia according to V.O. Klyuchevsky is presented.

Most contemporary historians believed that V.O. Klyuchevsky, as a student of S.M. Solovyov, only continued to develop the concept of the state (legal) school in Russian historiography in new conditions. In addition to the influence of the state school, the influence of his other university teachers on Klyuchevsky’s views - F.I. Buslaeva, S.V. Eshevsky and figures of the 1860s. - A.P. Shchapova, N.A. Ishutin, etc.

At one time, Soviet historiography made a completely unfounded attempt to “divorce” the views of S.M. Solovyov as an “apologist of autocracy” and V.O. Klyuchevsky, who stood on liberal-democratic positions (M.V. Nechkin). A number of historians (V.I. Picheta, P.P. Smirnov) saw the main value of Klyuchevsky’s works in an attempt to give the history of society and people in its dependence on economic and political conditions.

In modern research, the prevailing view is that V.O. Klyuchevsky is not only a successor of the historical and methodological traditions of the state (legal) school (K.D. Kavelin, B.N. Chicherin, T.N. Granovsky, S.M. Soloviev) , but also the creator of a new, most promising direction, based on the “sociological” method.

Unlike the first generation of “statists,” Klyuchevsky considered it necessary to introduce social and economic factors as independent forces of historical development. The historical process in his view is the result of the continuous interaction of all factors (geographical, demographic, economic, political, social). The task of the historian in this process comes down not to constructing global historical schemes, but to constantly identifying the specific relationship of all of the above factors at each specific moment of development.

In practice, the “sociological method” meant for V.O. Klyuchevsky’s thorough study of the degree and nature of the country’s economic development, closely related to the natural-geographical environment, as well as a detailed analysis of the social stratification of society at each stage of development and the relationships that arise within individual social groups (he often called them classes). As a result, the historical process took over from V.O. Klyuchevsky’s forms are more voluminous and dynamic than those of his predecessors or contemporaries such as V.I. Sergeevich.

His understanding of the general course of Russian history V.O. Klyuchevsky presented the most concisely in periodization, in which he identified four qualitatively different stages:

VIII-XIII centuries - Rus' Dnieper, policeman, trade;

XIII - mid-XV centuries. - Upper Volga Rus', appanage-princely, free agricultural;

mid-15th - second decade of the 17th century. - Great Rus', Moscow, royal-boyar, military-landowning;

beginning of the 17th - mid-19th centuries. - the all-Russian period, the imperial-noble period, the period of serfdom, agricultural and factory farming.

Already in his doctoral dissertation “The Boyar Duma of Ancient Rus'”, which was, in fact, a detailed social portrait of the boyar class, the novelty that V.O. Klyuchevsky contributed to the traditions of the public school.

In the context of the divergence of interests of the autocratic state and society that sharply emerged at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, Klyuchevsky revised the views of his teacher Solovyov on the entire two-century period of the country’s new history, thereby crossing out the results of the last seventeen volumes of his “History of Russia” and the political program of the domestic pre-reform built on them liberalism. On these grounds, a number of researchers (in particular, A. Shakhanov) conclude that it is impossible to classify Klyuchevsky as a state school in Russian historiography.

But that's not true. Klyuchevsky only announces a “new history” and updates the sociological orientation of historical research. In fact, he did what most appealed to the needs of the younger generation of historians of the 1880s: he announced the rejection of schemes or goals proposed from outside, both Westernizing and Slavophile. Students wanted to study Russian history as a scientific problem, and Klyuchevsky’s “sociological method” gave them this opportunity. Klyuchevsky’s students and followers (P. Milyukov, Y. Gauthier, A. Kiesewetter, M. Bogoslovsky, N. A. Rozhkov, S. Bakhrushin, A. I. Yakovlev, Ya. L. Barskov) are often called “neo-statists”, i.e. .To. in their constructions they used the same multifactorial approach of the public school, expanding and supplementing it with cultural, sociological, psychological and other factors.

In the “Course of Russian History,” Klyuchevsky already gave a holistic presentation of Russian history based on his sociological method. Like no other public school historical work, “The Course” by V.O. Klyuchevsky went far beyond the scope of a purely educational publication, turning into a fact of not only scientific, but also social life of the country. An expanded understanding of the multifactorial nature of the historical process, combined with the traditional postulates of the state school, made it possible to bring to its logical limit the concept of the Russian historical process that was laid down by S.M. Solovyov. In this sense, the work of V.O. Klyuchevsky became a milestone for the development of all historical science in Russia: he completed the tradition of the 19th century and at the same time anticipated the innovative searches that the 20th century brought with it.

Assessment of the personality of V.O. Klyuchevsky in the memoirs of contemporaries

Figure V.O. Klyuchevsky, already during his lifetime, was surrounded by an aura of “myths,” various kinds of anecdotes and a priori judgments. And today the problem of clichéd perception of the historian’s personality persists, which, as a rule, is based on the subjective negative characteristics of P. N. Milyukov and the caustic aphorisms of Klyuchevsky himself, which are widely available to the reader.

P.N. Milyukov, as is known, quarreled with V.O. Klyuchevsky even in the process of preparing his master’s thesis on the reforms of Peter I. The dissertation was enthusiastically received by the scientific community, but V.O. Klyuchevsky, using his indisputable authority, persuaded the academic council the university will not award a doctorate for it. He advised Miliukov to write another dissertation, noting that “science will only benefit from this.” The future leader of the cadets was mortally offended and subsequently, without going into details and the true reasons for the teacher’s attitude towards his work, he reduced everything to the complexity of character, egoism and “mystery” of V.O. Klyuchevsky, or, more simply, to envy. For Klyuchevsky himself, everything in life was not easy, and he did not tolerate the quick success of others.

In a letter dated July 29, 1890, Milyukov writes that Klyuchevsky “It’s hard and boring to live in the world. He will not be able to achieve greater glory than he has achieved. He can hardly live with the love of science given his skepticism... Now he is recognized, secured; every word is caught with greed; but he is tired, and most importantly, he does not believe in science: there is no fire, no life, no passion for scientific work - and for this reason, there is no school and no students.”.

In the conflict with Miliukov, obviously, two remarkable egos collided in the scientific field. Only Klyuchevsky still loved science more than himself in science. His school and his students developed the ideas and multiplied the scientist’s merits many times over – this is an indisputable fact. The older generation of fellow historians, as is known, supported Klyuchevsky in this confrontation. And not only because at that time he already had name and fame. Without Klyuchevsky, there would have been no Miliukov as a historian, and what is especially sad to realize is that without the conflict with the all-powerful Klyuchevsky, Miliukov as a politician might not have happened. Of course, there would have been other people who wanted to shake the edifice of Russian statehood, but if Miliukov had not joined them, not only historical science, but also the history of Russia as a whole would have benefited from this.

Often, memories of Klyuchevsky as a scientist or lecturer smoothly flow into psychological analysis or characteristics of his personality. Apparently, his person was such a striking event in the life of his contemporaries that this topic could not be avoided. Many contemporaries noticed the scientist’s excessive causticism, closed character, and distance. But it is necessary to understand that different people could have been allowed by Klyuchevsky to come to him at different distances. Everyone who wrote about Klyuchevsky, one way or another, directly or in context, indicated their degree of closeness to the scientist’s personal space. This was the reason for the various, often directly opposite, interpretations of his behavior and character traits.

Klyuchevsky’s contemporaries (including S. B. Veselovsky, V. A. Maklakov, A. E. Presnyakov) in their memoirs decisively refute the myth of his “complexity and mystery,” “selfishness,” “buffoonery,” and constant desire to “play.” to the public,” they try to protect the historian from quick and superficial characterizations.

Vasily Osipovich was a man of subtle psychological makeup, who endowed all phenomena of life, his attitude towards people, and even his lectures with a personal emotional coloring. P. N. Milyukov compares his psyche to a very sensitive measuring apparatus, in constant oscillation. According to Miliukov, it was quite difficult for a person like his teacher to establish even ordinary everyday relationships.

If we turn to the historian’s diaries from different years, then, first of all, the researcher is struck by deep self-reflection, the desire to elevate one’s inner experiences above the bustle of everyday life. There are often records that indicate a lack of understanding by contemporaries, as it seemed to Klyuchevsky himself, of his inner world. He withdraws, seeks revelations in himself, in nature, away from the bustle of modern society, the values ​​and way of life of which he, by and large, does not fully understand and does not accept.

It is impossible not to admit that generations of rural clergy, having absorbed the habits of a simple and unassuming, low-income life, left a special stamp on Klyuchevsky’s appearance and his way of life. As M.V. writes Nechkina:

“...For a long time now he could have proudly carried his fame, felt famous, loved, irreplaceable, but there is not a shadow of high self-esteem in his behavior, even on the contrary - a pointed disregard for fame. He “gloomily and annoyedly waved away” the applause.

In the Moscow house of the Klyuchevskys, the atmosphere traditional for the old capital reigned: the visitor was struck by old-fashioned “homespun rugs” and similar “philistine elements”. Vasily Osipovich agreed extremely reluctantly to numerous requests from his wife and son to improve their life, such as buying new furniture.

Klyuchevsky, as a rule, received visitors who came to him in the dining room. Only when he was in a complacent mood did he invite him to the table. Sometimes his colleagues and professors came to visit Vasily Osipovich. In such cases, “he ordered a small decanter of pure vodka, herring, cucumbers, then a beluga appeared,” although in general Klyuchevsky was very thrifty. (Bogoslovsky, M. M. “From the memories of V. O. Klyuchevsky”).

To lectures at the university, Klyuchevsky traveled only in cheap cabs (“vankas”), fundamentally avoiding the dandy cabs of the Moscow “reckless drivers”. On the way, the professor often had animated conversations with the “vankas” - yesterday’s village boys and men. Klyuchevsky went about his business on a “poor Moscow horse-drawn horse,” and “climbed onto the imperial.” The horse-drawn railway, as one of his students A.I. Yakovlev recalls, was then distinguished by endless downtime at almost every siding. Klyuchevsky traveled to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra to teach at the Theological Academy twice a week by rail, but always in third grade, in a crowd of pilgrims.

I. A. Artobolevsky said: “The famous rich woman Morozova, with whose son Klyuchevsky once worked, offered him “as a present” a stroller and “two drawbar horses.” “And yet I refused... For mercy’s sake, does this suit me?.. Wouldn’t I be ridiculous in such a stroller?! In borrowed plumes..."

Another famous anecdote about a professor’s fur coat, given in the monograph by M.V. Nechkina:

“The famous professor, no longer constrained by a lack of money, wore an old, worn fur coat. “Why don’t you get yourself a new fur coat, Vasily Osipovich? Look, she’s all worn out,” her friends noted. - “The face and the fur coat,” Klyuchevsky answered laconically.”

The professor's notorious "frugality" undoubtedly did not indicate his natural stinginess, low self-esteem or desire to shock others. On the contrary, she speaks only of his inner, spiritual freedom. Klyuchevsky was used to doing what was convenient for him, and was not going to change his habits for the sake of external conventions.

Having crossed the threshold of his fiftieth birthday, Klyuchevsky fully retained his incredible ability to work. She amazed his younger students. One of them recalls how, after working long hours with young people late in the evening and at night, Klyuchevsky appeared at the department in the morning fresh and full of strength, while the students could barely stand on their feet.

Of course, he was sometimes ill, complaining either of a sore throat or a cold, the drafts that blew through the lecture hall at Guerrier’s courses began to irritate him, and sometimes his teeth hurt. But he called his health iron-clad and he was right. Not really observing the rules of hygiene (he worked at night, not sparing his eyes), he created an original aphorism about her: “Hygiene teaches you how to be the watchdog of your own health.” There was another saying about work: “Whoever is not able to work 16 hours a day did not have the right to be born and should be eliminated from life as a usurper of existence.” (Both aphorisms date back to the 1890s.)

Klyuchevsky’s memory, like that of any failed clergyman, was amazing. One day, while going up to the pulpit to give a report at some public scientific celebration, he tripped over a step and dropped the sheets of his notes. They fanned out across the floor, their order was completely disrupted. The sheets of paper were once again mixed during collection by the students who rushed to help the professor. Everyone was worried about the fate of the report. Only Klyuchevsky’s wife Anisya Mikhailovna, sitting in the front rows, remained completely calm: “He will read, he will read, he remembers everything by heart,” she calmly reassured the neighbors. And so it happened.

The very distinct “beaded” handwriting, perhaps even smaller than beads, and notes made with a sharp pencil long testified to the historian’s good eyesight. What makes it difficult to read his archival manuscripts is not his handwriting - it is impeccable - but a pencil worn out by time. Only in the last years of his life did Klyuchevsky’s handwriting become larger, with a predominant use of pen and ink. “Being able to write legibly is the first rule of politeness,” says one of the historian’s aphorisms. On his desk he did not have some massive inkwell on a marble board, but there was a five-kopeck bottle of ink into which he dipped his pen, as he had once done in his seminary years.

In the memoirs dedicated to the historian, the question of whether he was happy in his marriage is not discussed at all. This piquant side of private life was either deliberately kept silent by his acquaintances, or was hidden from prying eyes. As a result, Klyuchevsky’s relationship with his wife, reflected only in correspondence with relatives or in the extremely rare memoirs of family friends, remains not entirely certain.

It is not without reason that the memoir theme characterizing Klyuchevsky’s attitude towards the fair sex stands out against this background. The respected professor, while maintaining the image of a trustworthy family man, managed to gain the reputation of a gallant gentleman and ladies' man.

Maria Golubtsova, the daughter of Klyuchevsky’s friend, teacher of the Theological Academy, A.P. Golubtsov, recalls such a “funny scene.” Vasily Osipovich, coming to Easter, was not averse to “sharing Christ” with her. But the little girl unceremoniously refused him. “The first woman who refused to kiss me!”- Vasily Osipovich said, laughing, to her father. Even on a walk in the mountains with Prince George and all his “brilliant company,” Klyuchevsky did not fail to attract female attention to his person. Distressed that he was given an old, old lady-in-waiting as his companion, he decided to take revenge: Klyuchevsky shocked the company by plucking an edelweiss tree that was growing right above the cliff and presenting it to his lady. “On the way back, everyone surrounded me, and even the youngest young ladies walked with me,” the professor reported, pleased with his outburst.

Klyuchevsky taught at the Higher Women's Courses, and here the elderly professor was pursued by a mass of enthusiastic fans who literally idolized him. At the university, even during the time of the ban on girls attending university lectures, its female audience was constantly growing. The hostesses of the most famous Moscow salons often competed with each other, wanting to see Klyuchevsky at all their evenings.

The historian’s attitude towards women was something chivalrous and at the same time detached - he was ready to serve them and admire them, but, most likely, disinterestedly: only as a gallant gentleman.

One of the few women with whom Klyuchevsky maintained trusting, even friendly relations for many years, was his wife’s sister, Nadezhda Mikhailovna, already mentioned by us. Vasily Osipovich willingly invited his sister-in-law to visit, corresponded with her, and became the godfather of her pupil. The different characters of these people were most likely united by a passion for witty humor and intellectual irony. V. O. Klyuchevsky gave Nadezhda Mikhailovna a priceless gift - he gave him his “black book” with a collection of aphorisms. Almost all aphorisms now attributed to the historian are known and remembered only thanks to this book. It contains many dedications to women and, perhaps, that’s why after Klyuchevsky’s death, memoirists involuntarily focused their attention on the topic of his “extra-family” relationships with the fair sex.

Speaking about Klyuchevsky’s appearance, many contemporaries noted that he “was unenviable in appearance... undignified.” From the famous photograph of 1890, a typical “commoner” looks at us: an elderly, tired, slightly ironic man who does not care too much about his appearance and looks like a parish priest or deacon. Klyuchevsky’s modest demands and habits, ascetic appearance, on the one hand, distinguished him from the environment of university professors, on the other hand, they were typical of ordinary Moscow inhabitants or visiting provincials. But as soon as Vasily Osipovich started a conversation with someone, “something incomprehensible immediately appeared in him.” magnetic force, forcing, somehow involuntarily, to fall in love with him.” He did not imitate anyone and was not like anyone, “it was created in every way original”. (Memoirs of priest A. Rozhdestvensky. Memories of V. O. Klyuchevsky // Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky. Biographical sketch... P. 423.)

Klyuchevsky’s personality was also interesting due to his extraordinary sense of humor: “He sparkled like fireworks with sparkles of wit”. As is known, the vivid images of Klyuchevsky’s lectures were prepared by him in advance and were even repeated from year to year, which was noted by his students and colleagues. But at the same time, they were always refreshed by the “fast and accurate as a shot” improvisation. At the same time, “the beauty of his witticisms was that in each of them, along with a completely unexpected comparison of concepts, there was always a very subtle thought hidden.” (Bogoslovsky, M. M. “From the memories of V. O. Klyuchevsky.”)

Klyuchevsky’s sharp tongue spared no one, hence his reputation as an “incorrigible skeptic who does not recognize any sacred things.” At first glance, he could easily seem selfish and evil. But this impression, of course, was incorrect - P.N. Milyukov and A.N. Savin justified it: “The Mask of Mephistopheles” was designed to prevent strangers from entering the holy of holies of his sensitive soul. Finding himself in a new and heterogeneous social environment, Klyuchevsky had to develop the habit of wearing this mask like a “protective shell,” perhaps thereby misleading many of his colleagues and contemporaries. Perhaps with the help of this “shell” the historian tried to win his right to internal freedom.

Klyuchevsky communicated with almost the entire scientific, creative and political elite of his time. He attended both official receptions and informal zhurfixes, and simply loved to visit his colleagues and acquaintances. He always left the impression of an interesting interlocutor, a pleasant guest, a gallant gentleman. But according to the recollections of relatives, Klyuchevsky’s most sincere friends remained ordinary people, mostly of the clergy. For example, one could often find him with the assistant librarian of the Theological Academy, Hieromonk Raphael. The hieromonk was a great original and a very kind person (nephews or seminarians constantly lived in his cell). Father Raphael knew scientific works only by the titles and color of the spines of the books; moreover, he was extremely ugly, but he loved to boast of his learning and former beauty. Klyuchevsky always joked about him and especially liked to ask why he didn’t get married. To which he received the answer: “You know, brother, when I graduated from the seminary, we have brides, brides, passion. And I used to run into the garden, lie down between the ridges, and lie there, but they were looking for me. I was beautiful then.” “Traces of the former beauty are still noticeable,” Klyuchevsky agreed with kind irony.

When he came to Sergiev Posad for holidays, the professor loved, along with the townspeople's boys and girls, to take part in folk festivals and ride the carousel.

Obviously, in such communication, the eminent historian was looking for the simplicity so familiar to him from childhood, which the prim academic environment and metropolitan society so lacked. Here Klyuchevsky could feel free, not wear “masks,” not play “scientific professor,” and be himself.

The significance of the personality of V.O. Klyuchevsky

The significance of V. O. Klyuchevsky’s personality for his contemporaries was enormous. He was highly regarded as a professional historian and valued as an extraordinary, talented person. Many students and followers saw in him a source of morality, instructiveness, kindness, and sparkling humor.

But those who communicated with V.O. Klyuchevsky in an informal setting were often repulsed by his excessive, (sometimes unjustified) economy, scrupulousness in detail, unpretentious, “philistine” home environment, sharp tongue and at the same time - wastefulness in emotions, restraint, isolation of character.

The extraordinary talent of a researcher and analyst, the courage in judgments and conclusions inherent in V.O. Klyuchevsky would hardly have been allowed to make a successful career as a clergyman. Having applied all these qualities in the scientific field, the provincial popovich actually caught the “bird of luck” by the tail, for which he came from Penza to Moscow. He became the most famous historian of Russia, a venerable scientist, academician, a “general” of science, a personality of all-Russian and even global scale. However, V.O. Klyuchevsky did not feel triumphant. Having lived almost his entire adult life in isolation from the environment that raised him, he still tried to remain true to his real self, at least in his family structure, everyday life, and habits. This caused bewilderment and ridicule of Professor Klyuchevsky’s “eccentricities” among some contemporaries, while others made them talk about his “inconsistency,” “complexity,” and “selfishness.”

In this global contradiction of mind and heart, in our opinion, lay the triumph and tragedy of many famous people of Russia, who emerged from among the “commoners” and entered a society where, by and large, the traditions of noble culture still prevailed. Klyuchevsky turned out to be a significant figure in this regard.

IN. Klyuchevsky

A nondescript-looking man in an old fur coat and with stains on his official uniform, looking like a sexton of a provincial church, at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries he was the “face” of Moscow University, an ordinary academician of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, and a teacher of the royal children.

This fact largely indicates a change in external priorities and democratization not only of Russian society, but also of domestic science as a whole.

As scientist V.O. Klyuchevsky did not make a global revolution in the theory or methodology of historical science. By and large, he only developed and brought to a new qualitative level the ideas of the “state” historical school of Moscow University. But the very image of Professor Klyuchevsky broke all the previously existing stereotypes of the appearance of a famous scientist, a successful lecturer and in general an “educated person”, as a bearer of noble culture. Intuitively not wanting to adapt, to adapt to external conventions, at least in everyday life and behavior, the historian Klyuchevsky contributed to introducing into the capital’s academic environment a fashion for democracy, freedom of personal expression and, most importantly, spiritual freedom, without which the formation of a social “stratum” called the intelligentsia is impossible.

Students loved Professor Klyuchevsky not at all for his shabby fur coat or his ability to artistically tell historical anecdotes. They saw before them a man who, before their eyes, turned the clock, who, with his example, destroyed the gap between the history of the Fatherland as an instrument for nurturing loyal patriotism and history as a subject of knowledge accessible to every researcher.

Over the course of forty years of inflamed public passions, the historian was able to “pick up the key” to any audience - spiritual, university, military -, captivating and captivating everywhere, never arousing the suspicion of the authorities and various authorities.

That is why, in our opinion, V.O. Klyuchevsky - a scientist, artist, painter, master - was elevated not only by his contemporaries, but also by his descendants to the high pedestal of the luminary of Russian historical science. Like N.M. Karamzin at the beginning of the 19th century, at the beginning of the 20th century he gave his compatriots the history that they wanted to know at that very moment, thereby drawing a line under all previous historiography and looking into the distant future.

V.O. Klyuchevsky died on May 12 (25), 1911 in Moscow, and was buried in the Donskoy Monastery cemetery.

Memory and descendants

The memorization of the cultural space in Moscow associated with the name of Klyuchevsky actively developed in the first years after his death. A few days after the death of V. O. Klyuchevsky, in May 1911, the Moscow City Duma received a statement from member N. A. Shamin about “the need to perpetuate the memory of the famous Russian historian V. O. Klyuchevsky.” Based on the results of the Duma meetings, it was decided to establish a scholarship at the Moscow Imperial University in 1912 “in memory of V. O. Klyuchevsky.” Klyuchevsky’s personal scholarship was also established by the Moscow Higher Women’s Courses, where the historian taught.

At the same time, Moscow University announced a competition for the provision of memoirs about V.O. Klyuchevsky.

Boris Klyuchevsky in childhood

In the house on Zhitnaya Street, where Vasily Osipovich lived in recent years, his son, Boris Klyuchevsky, planned to open a museum. The library and personal archive of V.O. remained here. Klyuchevsky, his personal belongings, a portrait by the artist V.O. Sherwood. The son oversaw the annual memorial services in memory of his father, gathering his students and everyone who cared about his memory. Thus, the house of V. O. Klyuchevsky continued to play the role of a center uniting Moscow historians even after his death.

In 1918, the historian’s Moscow house was searched, the main part of the archive was evacuated to Petrograd, to one of Klyuchevsky’s students, literary historian Ya.L. Barsky. Subsequently, Boris Klyuchevsky managed to obtain a “safe conduct letter” for his father’s library and, with great difficulty, return the bulk of the manuscripts from Barsky, but in the 1920s, the historian’s library and archive were confiscated and placed in state archives.

At the same time, among Klyuchevsky’s students who remained in Moscow, the problem of erecting a monument to the great historian acquired particular relevance. By that time there was not even a monument at his grave in the Donskoy Monastery. The reason for various conversations was partly the negative attitude of the students towards the only living descendant of Klyuchevsky.

Boris Vasilyevich Klyuchevsky, according to him, graduated from two faculties of Moscow University, but scientific activity did not attract him. For many years he played the role of his famous father's home secretary, and was fond of sports and improving his bicycle.

From the stories of B. Klyuchevsky himself, M.V. Nechkina knows this episode: in his youth, Boris invented some special “nut” for a bicycle and was very proud of it. Rolling it in the palm of your hand, V.O. Klyuchevsky, with his usual sarcasm, told the guests: “What a time has come! In order to invent such a nut, you need to graduate from two faculties - history and law...” (Nechkina M.V. Decree. cit., p. 318).

Obviously, Vasily Osipovich spent much more time communicating with his students than with his own son. The son's hobbies did not evoke either understanding or approval from the historian. According to the recollections of eyewitnesses (in particular, this is indicated by Yu. V. Gauthier), in the last years of his life, Klyuchevsky’s relationship with Boris left much to be desired. Vasily Osipovich did not like his son’s passion for politics, as well as his open cohabitation with either a housekeeper or a maid who lived in their house. Friends and acquaintances of V.O. Klyuchevsky – V.A. Maklakov and A.N. Savin - they also believed that the young man was putting strong pressure on the elderly Vasily Osipovich, weakened by illness.

However, during the life of V.O. Klyuchevsky, Boris helped him a lot in his work, and after the scientist’s death he collected and preserved his archive, actively participated in the publication of his father’s scientific heritage, and was involved in the publication and reprinting of his books.

In the 1920s, Klyuchevsky’s colleagues and students accused the “heir” of the fact that the grave of his parents was in disrepair: there was neither a monument nor a fence. Most likely, Boris Vasilyevich simply did not have the funds to install a worthy monument, and the events of the revolution and the Civil War contributed little to the concerns of living people about their deceased ancestors.

Through the efforts of the university community, the “Committee on the Issue of Perpetuating the Memory of V. O. Klyuchevsky” was created, which set as its goal the installation of a monument to the historian on one of the central streets of Moscow. However, the Committee limited itself only to the creation in 1928 of a common monument-tombstone at the grave of the Klyuchevsky spouses (Donskoy Monastery cemetery). After the “academic affair” (1929-30), persecution and expulsion of historians of the “old school” began. V.O. Klyuchevsky was ranked among the “liberal-bourgeois” direction of historiography, and it was considered inappropriate to erect a separate monument to him in the center of Moscow.

Width="300">

The historian’s son, Boris Klyuchevsky, already in the first half of the 1920s broke all ties with the scientific community. According to M.V., who visited him in 1924. Nechkina, he served as an assistant legal adviser “in some automobile department” and, finally, was engaged in his favorite business - car repair. Then Klyuchevsky’s son was an auto technician, translator, and minor employee of the VATO. In 1933, he was repressed and sentenced to exile in Alma-Ata. The exact date of his death is unknown (around 1944). However, B.V. Klyuchevsky managed to preserve the main and very important part of his father’s archive. These materials were acquired in 1945 by the Commission on the History of Historical Sciences at the department of the Institute of History and Philosophy of the USSR Academy of Sciences from the “widow of the historian’s son.” The V.O. Klyuchevsky Museum in Moscow was never created by him, and memories of his father were also not written...

Only in 1991, on the 150th anniversary of Klyuchevsky’s birth, a museum was opened in Penza, named after the great historian. And today the monuments to V.O. Klyuchevsky exist only in his homeland, in the village of Voskresenovka (Penza region) and in Penza, where the Klyuchevsky family moved after the death of their father. It is noteworthy that initiatives to perpetuate the memory of the historian, as a rule, came not from the state or the scientific community, but from local authorities and enthusiastic local historians.

Elena Shirokova

To prepare this work, materials from the following sites were used:

http://www.history.perm.ru/

Worldview portraits. Klyuchevsky V.O. Bibliofund

Literature:

Bogomazova O.V. Private life of a famous historian (based on the memoirs of V.O. Klyuchevsky) // Bulletin of Chelyabinsk State University. 2009. No. 23 (161). Story. Vol. 33. pp. 151–159.

History and historians in the space of national and world culture of the 18th–21st centuries: collection of articles / ed. N. N. Alevras, N. V. Grishina, Yu. V. Krasnova. – Chelyabinsk: Encyclopedia, 2011;

The world of a historian: historiographic collection / edited by V.P. Korzun, S.P. Bychkova. – Vol. 7. – Omsk: Om Publishing House. State University, 2011;

Nechkina M.V. Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky (1841-1911). History of life and creativity, M.: “Nauka”, 1974;

Shakhanov A.N. The fight against “objectivism” and “cosmopolitanism” in Soviet historical science. “Russian historiography” by N.L. Rubinstein // History and historians, 2004. - No. 1 – P.186-207.