A New "Time of Troubles": Russian Historians Witness the Events of 1917

This paper analyses the personal diaries of three Russian historians, Mihail Bogoslovsky, Yuri Gautier and Stepan Veselovskii, during the Russian Revolution, emphasising in particular their accounts of the political and social situation in Russia between February and October 1917. Compared to some of the other reactions of the intelligentsia, these historians had no illusions with regard to the regime change: they had a pessimistic view of the process that had been initiated. As early as February of that year, these historians began to interpret the revolutionary moment as a new Time of Troubles (1598-1613), whose destructive actions, social unrest, stirrings of independence on the fringes and foreign appetites would precipitate the collapse of the State and lead the country to lose all integrity.