“Political culture is one of essential things...” (Interview with Boris Kolonitskii)

Abstract

The publication of an interview with Boris Ivanovich Kolonitskii, a historian of the Russian Revolution of 1917, Professor at the European University in Saint Petersburg, and Leading Research Fellow at the Saint Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, is timed to coincide with his seventieth birthday. Boris Ivanovich talks about his family, his studies at the A. I. Herzen Pedagogical Institute, his military service, and his work at the Public Library; he recalls his teachers, friends, and colleagues, and how, having started with studying the English Revolution of the 17th century, he decided to become a historian of the Russian Revolution; he talks about the emergence of an interest in political culture and the role that Perestroika and work abroad played in his professional development. In conclusion, Boris Kolonitskii shares his thoughts on the benefits and harms of ‘intellectual binges’ and shares his creative plans. The interview is preceded by a block of three essays in which Igor Narskii, Vladislav Aksenov, and Vadim Zhuravlev discusses the books of the jubilee: “Symbols of Power and the Struggle for Power: Towards a Study of the Political Culture of the Russian Revolution of 1917” (2001); ‘Tragic Erotica’: Images of the Imperial Family during the First World War” (2010); ‘Comrade Kerensky: The Revolution Against the Monarchy and the Formation of the Cult of the Leader of the People (March–June 1917)’ (2017).