Classical Narodnik Movement: Social Sources and Political and Ideological Sense

Abstract

The article analyzes the social genesis and political ideological content of classical Narodnik movement in Russia. The authors criticize the position prevailing in the Soviet historiography that the classical Narodnik movement represented petty-bourgeois, utopian, pseudosocialist ideology and social movement. The authors do not agree that social sources of Narodnik movement in the second half of the 19th — the beginning of the 20th centuries are connected with the marginal public group — the intellectuals not of noble birth. Unlike Marxist historiography it is proved that Narodnik movement as a paradigm of political culture was initiated by ideologists of specific social group — the Russian noble intelligentsia, which was against bourgeois moods in Russia. The main value for classical Narodnik movement disclosing its sociopolitical essence is the priority of political self-realization of the people and recognition it as the sovereign rightforming subject of the Russian history.

DOI 10.14258/izvasu(2017)2-14