“HISTORIAN AND READER” BY V. M. TUROK- POPOV: ABOUT A PUBLIC DEBATE DURING THE KHRUSHCHEV THAW (1961)

In 1961 the Literaturnaya Gazeta published an article by V. M. Turok-P opov, “Historian and Reader.” The author of the article named the low popularity of the works of scientists outside the narrow framework of profes- sional historians as one of the main problems of contemporary historical science. He considered the reason for this to be their poor literary style, the presence of numerous templates in the text, and schematism. V. M. Turok-P opov demonstrated his thesis by analyzing several textbooks for universities. In addition, he called for the “cleansing” of scientifi c institutions from employees who do not invest eff ort in writing scientifi c papers, while naming several of his colleagues at the Institute of History of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The article caused a strong reaction, giving rise to a long-term controversy on the pages of Literaturnaya Gazeta. The part of it involved a public discussion of the article organized by the editors with the participation of scientists (not only historians, but also physicists, astronomers, economists) and writers. A. N. Guliev accused the author of absolutizing certain shortcomings of historical science, A. Z. Manfred and V. P. Danilov argued that the criteria for assessing diff erent genres of scientifi c literature should also be diff erent. Most of the speakers supported V. M. Turok- Popov, but at the same time gave diff erent interpretations of his text. The most popular opinion was the need to intensify work on the creation of popular science literature (O. N. Pisarzhevsky, E. Ya. Drabkina, A. I. Babenets). Some of the participants perceived the text by V. M. Turok-P opov as a protest against the imposition of sociological schemes (L. B. Alaev, P. A. Lisovsky), some of the participants started talking about the need to turn to issues of life and everyday life of people of past eras (G. B. Fedorov), there was a call to “creatively develop the tenets of Marxism” (V. I. Goldansky). R. Yu. Bershadsky stated the responsibility of historians to the society. In general, the past discussion indicates that in the scientifi c community of historians and people associated with it, during the Thaw period, the question of a radical change in the previous confi guration of historiographical life and, as a consequence, a new redistribution of scientifi c capital among the actors of the fi eld became urgent.