Historians in Russia: the structure of a professional community

Abstract

The author presents the results of a study of the structure of the professional community ofRussian historians conducted jointly by theScientificElectronicLibrary eLibrary and theCenter forInstitutionalAnalysis ofScience andEducation of theEuropeanUniversity inSt.Petersburg.In the course of its implementation, unique data on the social and intellectual landscape ofRussian history, political science, sociology, economics and jurisprudence were collected, worthy of introduction into the academic circuit.Data were collected through a survey of researchers who publish the results of their studies (N-4009, whereNis the number of cases), the survey was conducted inNovember 2022.In this article, the social structure of theRussian historical discipline appears in several senses.On the one hand, its aim is the simplest statistical description of theRussian historical community, namely sociodemographic structure, distribution by thematic areas, etc.On the other hand, the author explores correlations between all these elements, namely how different characteristics of individuals relate to each other.Historians are divided by specialisation in countries and periods (primarily by the division into those researchingRussian andWorldHistory), as well as by modernist vs postmodernist views on the nature of historical knowledge.Postmodernist views are more widely represented among historians in academic centres (capital cities, leading universities); the opposite is true for the academic periphery.Support for modernism is also declining among younger generations.