Discourse "Sovietskost" in the Intellectual Space of the USSR: on the Materials of Archive of RAS and Russian State Archive of Social and Political History

Abstract

The work is devoted to the Soviet humanities in the post-war intellectual life. Based on materials from archival sources, the evolution of the style of scientific discussions of historians, philosophers and sociologists in the 1940s - 1960s is shown. As the analysis of the documents has revealed, the very discourse of “Sovietness” was changing from an complete ideological dictate to a more ourspoken scientific content. This was manifested not only in style, but also in changing the problems of discussion, as evidenced by the growing interest of historians in the methodology of history. A scientific, not an ideological community of historians and philosophers, has emerged. At the same time, the Soviet ideologization of humanitarian knowledge was transformed from belief in its obligation into a form of social behavior. This trend is especially evident in the clerical documents of scientific institutions.