The Fate of Soviet Historian: V. S. Alekseev-Popov

The paper analyzes academic development of a Soviet scholar V. S. Alekseev-Popov, a historian of the French Revolution. It delineates achievements, describes the complexities of research process under scrutiny of ideological control. The article considers a series of academic conflicts and handicaps: the relationship between different generations of academics and research directions ("schools"), the position of a scholar in a "provincial institution", unavailability of the necessary French archives, etc. The paper concentrates on the conflict between academic potential and aspirations of the scholar, and limited opportunities for their realization.