Бегство от античности: казус Дилигенского

Abstract

Diligenskiy's case seems difficult to explain: a senior researcher at the Institute of History of the USSR Academy of Sciences in the prime of his career (Ph.D. dissertation defended and published, many publications in Soviet and foreign journals, frequent trips to foreign conferences) quits his subject (history of late antiquity), leaves the institute and switches to the study of the social psychology of the working class in France. A long and difficult conversation with the head of the Sector of ancient history S.L. Utchenko, who obviously considered G.G. Diligenskiy as his possible successor, could not change anything. What prompted the young historian to stop studying late antiquity and leave the ancient history sector of the Institute of History of the USSR Academy of Sciences? The choice of specialization took place in the years complicated by tough campaigns to combat cosmopolitanism, etc. According to the memoirs of M.K. Trofimova, who studied a little earlier, her relatives insisted that she should be engaged in the history of the ancient world or archaeology, as the most secure from an ideological (and practical) point of view historical disciplines. Thus, the choice of the history of antiquity was rather "protective" in nature; antiquity could attract as a relatively safe field for historical research. The era of the "thaw" gave rise to illusions among a part of the Soviet intelligentsia about the possibility of social changes and the improvement of the Soviet socio-political system. The history of antiquity was a field of research too far from modern problems, and the scholar chose another sphere of activity. The works of G.G. Diligenskiy made a very significant contribution to the development of sociological and socio-psychological research in the late USSR, and the "Diligenskiy school" laid the foundations for political scientific research in modern Russia. The Marxist, "Eurocommunist" views of the scholar found better application in the academic but influential Institute of World Economy and International Relations, which made recommendations to the authorities, than in the rather dogmatic sphere of ancient history, where the best way out was not the "improvement" of Marxism, but a radical departure from Marxist dogma.