П. А. Столыпин в журнале «Русская Мысль»

Abstract

The journal Russkaya Mysl’ (Russian Thought) was not a “Cadet monthly” and positioned itself as a journal of the “national Russian culture”. P. A. Stolypin was comprehended on its pages not only as a sharply political and controversial figure (P. B. Struve, A. S. Izgoev, A. A. Kizevetter, A. A. Kaufman, etc.), but as a reformer and creator of a new cultural way of life under the battle-cry of building Great Russia. Stolypin’s name first appears on the pages of the journal in reviews of Duma discussions in 1907 and in connection with the analysis of the revolutionary disturbance of 1905. In Letters from the Taurida Palace (1907), the historian A. A. Kizevetter launches the offensive against the government, noticing the “constitutional mask on the bureaucrat” Stolypin. It is the position of the Cadet faction (headed by P. N. Milyukov) in the State Duma, the majority of which did not allow the idea of joint constructive work with him. Struve thought differently and was present at a closed meeting with the Prime Minister on the night of June 3, 1907. Stolypin’s agrarian reform was covered in detail by the economist Kaufman in Russkaya mysl’ (Russian Thought), who warned that the main reason for the unresolved land issue in Russia is the lack of land against the backdrop of a rapidly growing population. Struve, after the assassination of the Prime Minister, publishes the` article Criminal and Victim (1911), in which there are several theses. The political face of Stolypin was determined by “rational constitutionalism.” He was against the restoration of absolute monarchy. But relying on the nobility and bureaucracy of the empire, entering into a dialogue with the public, Stolypin worked for the national idea. He had to retreat. Stolypin’s fate depended on the political situation in which he was involved and the victim of which he became. An insightful historical and psychological portrait of the assassinated Stolypin, his dual image, and his relationship with Nicholas II, takes on a finished form in Struve’s publications from the émigré newspaper Vozrozhdeniye (Revival) in 1925–1926.