Russian Revolution and the Issue of Culture in Mikhail Rostovtsev’s Treatise “Society and Economy in the Roman Empire”

Abstract

Mikhail Ivanovich Rostovtsev (1870 – 1952) was one of the well-known Russian, and since 1920ies – American, historians of antiquity who contributed substantially to various areas of antiquity studies. Furthermore, politics and public activity were very important for him not only as the subject of study and analysis with reference to the distant past, but were also the sphere of his direct activities during many years: he was a member of the Constitutional Democratic Party (Popular Freedom Party) since 1905, and in 1917 he was member of the committee managing the party printing plant, and when in emigration was elected the party Central Committee member. In his publicism he many times ardently touched on various aspects of Russian revolution and post-revolutionary reality. In the present article the author attempts to interpret the key theses of Rostovtsev in his fundamental work “Society and Economy in the Roman Empire” devoted to the crises in the 3d century A.D which he termed revolution, from the point of view of his understanding of Russian revolution and the its results and consequences. In the long run the authors believe that the comparison of the two revolutions send us to the implicit vision of the existing tension between “high culture” and the “masses”, and they attempt to explicitly state this vision.