Abstract

The article examines the formation of scientifc historical knowledge in the West Ural region and analyzes the works of authors who have made a signifcant contribution to the study of the history and culture of this region, expanded and enriched scholarly vision of the Russia’s past. Attention is focused on such an important area of national culture as regional studies. Te frst works on the history of the Western Urals date back to the 18th century. Te pre-Soviet period witnessed the appearance of special studies dealing with the development of industries, contribution of the Stroganov dynasty to the progress of the Perm-Kama region etc. along with the general works on the social, economic, cultural development of this territory. Regional studies, born in the Urals in the 18th century, received a powerful impetus in the second half of the 19th century. Local historians of that time understood the importance of such a research and strived to link it with processes across Russia. The author examines the efficient activities of the teaching staff of the Perm University established in 1916 as a branch of Petrograd University, its role in the development of the local history movement and scholarly study of regional history, which made the university the Ural centre for humanities research and studies in Ural history. The period of the “golden decade of national local history” lasted until the turn of the 1920s and 1930s. After the complete ideological control over humanities had been established and the course of forced industrialization had been adopted, the so-called industrial regional studies began to be implanted. Local lore societies, mainly of a humanities profile, began to announce their dissolution due to criticism, which would inevitably lead to their closure. Some representatives of academic science had to leave the university, and these resignations undoubtedly affected the quality of research. Nevertheless, the accumulated richest material, methodology and lines of research in that controversial period are of great interest to modern scholars.

References

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