Nikolay Raevsky — Russian officer, writer and the white movement researcher

Abstract

The article is devoted to the personality of Nikolay Alekseevich Raevsky — a historian, researcher, and writer. Raevsky is known mainly as a researcher of A.S. Pushkin’s life and work. His books about the great Russian poet were immensely popular in Soviet times and had a well-deserved recognition among Pushkin scholars. But still unknown is the other life of N.A. Raevsky — an officer of the Tsarist and White armies, who emigrated after the Civil War from Russia as part of the army of General P.N. Wrangel to the territory of Turkey (to Gallipoli), and then to Bulgaria. Then there was Czechoslovakia, Prague, where he completed a course at Charles University and devoted himself to creating works about the fate of the white movement in Russia. The value of these works today lies in the fact that Raevsky focuses on the political miscalculations of the White movement. In his firm conviction, Bolshevism was able to become a well-organized force largely thanks to a system of ideas clearly expressed and conveyed to the masses, which the White movement did not have. In these works, he removes the noble halo from the Civil War and the White movement, showing the true face of any fratricidal massacre. This approach to the Civil War does not fit into the usual cliché of White Guard literature and memoirs. Raevsky comprehends everything that was used by the most worthy, sincere, ardent young Russian people in the pre-revolutionary era, and especially during the Time of Troubles, and also reflects on what kind of future of Russia attracted them. The materials of the article can be used in the framework of training areas related to linguistics, cultural studies, and history.