Can History be Not Political? The Phenomenon of Nina Aleksandrovna Khachaturyan

Abstract

The article examines the process of transformation of the world historiography, including Russian one, in the field of the political history of the Middle Ages. The contribution of the Annales School is emphasized not only because of the appeal to man as an actor of historical processes, but also the methodological overcoming of the binary opposition of matter and spirit. Structuralism with its systematic analysis also played a positive role, as well as the appeal of historians to the study of phenomena of long duration, which began to be perceived as the history of states and, more broadly, the power. All these changes were reflected in the work of Professor N. A. Khachaturian (1931—2020). Thanks to her research on the representative regime of the West in the Middle Ages, on the social nature of the estate monarchy in France, on the forms of dialogue between power and society, as well as due to her creation of the Scientific Group “Power and Society” (holding conferences, publishing collective monographs), political history in Russian medieval studies took the place of the backbone of historical research.