Die russische Historiographie im internationalen Umfeld: Wege des Wissenschaftstransfers

Abstract

Contemporary Russian Historiography In The Global Context: Ways Of Scientific Transfer The focus of this article is on a specific aspect of the recent state of historical research in Russia: the problem of universalisation (cognitive and institutional) of Russian historical studies and the recognition of the Russian scholars’ knowledge claims. Cognitive aspects of the “restructuring” of science, research themes, the state of the disciplinary community and communicative strategies, the position of historians in the humanities establishment and relationships with the authorities are studied. This paper aims to identify theoretical problems, which arise when studying the preconditions of and obstacles to the participation of Russian historians in the international scientific discussion. The investigation is based on the concepts of centre-periphery and cultural transfer. The key question is why, how and when the new historical knowledge developed by Russian scholars became - or, as an extreme case, hase not become - part of the global scientific heritage. The discussion of ‘presence’ in global science is connected not so much with the aftermath of autarchy during the socialist period as with the difficulties of adapting to new conditions of existence as a ‘normal’ discipline and the rigours of being a ‘poor’ science. In this article we review not only specifics of the transfer of knowledge produced by Russian historians, but also specifics of reception preceding it. This article also contains an analysis of all publications of Russian historians in foreign historical journals included in the database “Web of Science” in 1993-2008 which are examined combining quantitative parameters - numbers of articles and their citation indices - with a qualitative analysis of publications.