The Problem of Poland’s Western Civilization Choice and Its Consequences in M. O. Koyalovich’s Assessment

Abstract

The article looks into the problem of Poland’s Western civilization choice and its consequences in the assessment of M. O. Koyalovich, a famous Russian conservative historian of Belarusian origin. The research is conducted on the basis of M. O. Koyalovich’s main works and contemporary Russian historiography. The author considers this problem in Russian historiography of the stated period as one of the key problems in the historical Polonistics of Russia. The conclusion is made that M. O. Koyalovich’s assessments of the problem of western civilizational choice of Poland and its consequences were distinguished by conservative-Slavophile position with strongly pronounced features of Polonophobia, anti-Semitism and anti-Western orientation. The problem of civilization choice of the development path of Russia, other Slavic peoples (primarily Poland as a country which chose a different path of development) became one of the key issues in Russian historiography of the 19th — early 20th centuries, often determining through the practice of the past the attitude towards the present. As contemporary Russian reality testifies, the question of Poland’s civilizational identity has remained topical in contemporary Russian historical and socio-political thought.