“The Slave Revolution”: an Essay of Historiographical Reflection

The article examines the path of studying the concept of “slave revolution”, introduced into Soviet historical scholarship as a result of Stalin's statement, then rejected by it, and then repeatedly interpreted in Soviet and post-Soviet historiography. In order to obtain a consistent analysis of this study, author gives at first a brief description of how the “slave revolution”, having suddenly acquired the status of a recognized term in historiography, was then gradually replaced by derivative terms (“revolution of slaves and colons”, “revolutionary movements”), and then, having been completely delegitimized as scientific termin since the mid-1950s, became a sign of the past stage of historiography and an object of research. In the article then provides an outline of the historiography of the issue, focusing only on the presentation of the most characteristic or most influential works. Author noted that in the Soviet period, the explanation of the “slave revolution” followed the path of predominantly normalizing this obvious historiographic anomaly, while post-Soviet authors prefer to explain it as an anomalous phenomenon that adequately characterizes the specifics of Stalin's time. In the third and most extensive part of the article author examines the main problems and achievements in the study of the “slave revolution”: the search for an adequate term to designate the phenomenon, versions of the origins of Stalin's authoritative citation, a discussion of the problem of Soviet historiography's parting with the “slave revolution”.