CONTEMPORARIES ABOUT “KONSTANTINOVCY”: OPTIONS OF INTERPRETATION

The article is devoted to the analysis of the contemporaries’ opinions about the party of “konstantinovcy”, led by Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich, an influential group in the government of Alexander II in the first decade of his reign. Using discourse analysis approach of “interpretative repertoires”, proposed by J. Potter and M. Wetherell, it proposes three variants of contemporaries’ interpretation of “konstantinovcy” and their role in the implementation of the Great Reforms. The courtier interpretation is characterised by the placement of “konstantinovcy” in a number of other salons and spheres of influence; the party option is aimed to localise them in a series of other parties or cliques in the government; and the reformist interpretation largely obscures the influence of individual parties, focusing on the struggle between two large ideological spheres of liberals and conservatives. The conducted research shows the non-monolithic nature of discourses about “konstantinovcy” and the existence of some patterns in their comprehension. This approach allows revising the historiographical canons for this party. It is shown that the courtier option was not used at all in historiography as an analytical model. Pre-revolutionary and Soviet historiography followed the reformist way of interpretation, giving rise to the concept of “liberal bureaucracy”. Addressing the opinions of contemporaries calls into question the predominance of party analytics, enables to fixate the complexity of the very phenomenon of “konstantinovcy” and better understand the political culture of mid-19th century Russia.