“But a Researcher Can Ask Other Questions As Well...”: Reflections on the Margins of B. I. Kolonitskii’s Book “Comrade Kerensky”

Abstract

The article focuses on the methodological contribution of B. I. Kolonitskii monograph “‘Comrade Kerensky’: The Anti-Monarchist Revolution and Formation of the ‘Leader of the People’ Cult”, emphasizing its innovative approach to the study of representation and legitimation of power in the context of revolutionary crisis. The aim of the paper is to show how B. I. Kolonitskii, combining the analysis of monarchical tradition and revolutionary symbolism, reconstructs the dynamics of the political cult as a system where linguistic clichés, visual images, and ritual practices be- come tools for building the authority. The key methodological breakthrough of the research is the synthesis of classic concepts that studied the cultural codes of the era and symbolic representations of power, and the development of their toolkit. This approach shifts the focus from the process of creating images to their pragmatics – the use in political struggle, and also introduces multidimensional contextualization, linking the cult to the overall revolution dynamics. The source base of the study, which includes eight groups of materials, is analyzed through identifying their role in shaping collective emotions. The conclusions emphasize that the Kolonitski’s work sets a new standard in the study of revolutions, combining microanalysis of specific cases of power representations with the macro-political context. The author demonstrates how the “new imagology”, which includes the deconstruction of leader images and the analysis of rituals, reveals the mechanisms of legitimation, where the theatricality of politics becomes the key to understanding the sacralization of power. The study contributes to the debate on the nature of political language by showing how the 1917 revolution, while rejecting monarchical forms, reproduced their archetypes in hybrid systems. The particular value of the monograph lies in presenting a toolkit suitable for studying times of crisis, when emotions and symbols form collective illusions about a “savior”.