Batkin and Marxism, or Once More on the "Discontent of the Culture"

This article discusses the relationship of Leonid Baktin, the prominent Renaissance historian, to the ideas of Marx. Typically, the influence of Marxism on Batkin is limited only to the early stage of his work and his book on Dante and the politics of his time (1965). The article's author shows that Batkin's connection to Marxism was also obvious post 1973 (when the historian's main focuses were Mikhail Bakhtin's philosophical principles and Vladimir Bibler's "dialogics of culture") and in Batkin's new thoughts on universal history as late as the early 21st century. Like other prominent Renaissance scholars (Jacob Burkhardt and Hans Baron, for example), the image of the past in Batkin has been determined by the reaction to the "discontent of the culture" of his time.