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Academician Lev Vladimirovich Cherepnin, 1905-1977: In Memoriam

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Joan Afferica
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Slavic Review , Volume 39 , Issue 4 , December 1980 , pp. 633 - 668
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Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1980

References

1. See, among others, P. G., Ryndziunskii, “Tvorcheskii put’ sovetskikh uchenykh: L. V. Cherepnin,” Voprosy istorii, 1965, no. 6, pp. 179–80Google Scholar (hereafter cited as VI); Sovetskaia istoricheskaia entsiklopediia, vol. IS (Moscow, 1968), pp. 840-41; N. M., Druzhinin and V. T., Pashuto, “K semidesiatiletiiu L. V. Cherepnina,” in Obshchestvo i gosudarstvo feodal'noi Rossii: Sbornik statei, posviashchennyi 70-letiiu akademika L'va Vladimir ovicha Cherepnina (Moscow, 1975), pp. 3–8 Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Obshchestvo); V. D. Nazarov and V. L. Ianin, “K semidesiatiletiiu akademika L. V. Cherepnina,” VI, 1975, no. 5, pp. 149-55; unsigned obituary in VI, 1977, no. 7, pp. 219-20; V. T. Pashuto and V. D. Nazarov, “Pamiati starshego druga: O L've Vladimiroviche Cherepnine,” Istoriia SSSR, 1978, no. 1, pp. 144-56 (hereafter cited as SSSR); Kashtanov, S. M., “Lev Vladimirovich Cherepnin (1905-1977),” Arkheograficheskii ezhegodnik sa 1977 (Moscow, 1978), p. 378–80.Google Scholar

2. A selected bibliography of Cherepnin's works may be found in Feodal'naia Rossiia vo vsemirno-istoricheskom protsesse: Sbornik statei, posviashchennyi L'vu Vladimir ovichu Cherepninu (Moscow, 1972), pp. 7-27. It continues in Obshchestvo, pp. 344-47.

3. VI, 1951, no. 2, pp. 52-80.

4. The report was published in VI, 1978, no. 2, pp. 41-53. They are also mentioned together in the report of the meeting of the Scholarly Council of the Institute of History, December 1948 ( “V Institute istorii Akademii nauk SSSR,” VI, 1948, no. 12, p. 172). According to a recent biography, Pashuto's monographs and articles treat the complex of theoretical and concrete-historical questions of the emergence of early feudal societies and states, the role and significance of the ancient Rus’ state in the system of international relations, the most important methodological problems of the historical process in feudal Russia, the mastery of the Leninist conception of Russian history, and problems of party-spiritedness in historical science, and so forth (see Vestnik akademii nauk SSSR, 1977, no. 3, pp. 38-39 (hereafter cited as Vestnik).

5. It was published in VI, 1976, no. 4, pp. 25-48.

6. Pashuto and Nazarov, “Pamiati starshego druga,” p. 149.

7. Ibid.

8. Obshchestvo, p. 5.

9. Ibid., p. 6.

10. Cherepnin, L. V., Zemskie sobory rttsskogo gosudarstva v XVI-XVII vv. (Moscow, 1978), p. 3–4.Google Scholar One may note that the concept “estate-representative monarchy” long posed a dilemma for Soviet historians. As was remarked in an article coauthored by Cherepnin, the term was not used by either Lenin or Stalin (see VI, 1949, no. 11, p. 10).

11. L. V. Cherepnin, Zemskie sobory, p. 2.

12. Nazarov and Ianin, “K semidesiatiletiiu,” p. 152.

13. Also see his “I. V. Stalin o russkom feodalizme,” Moscow University, Uchenye zapiski, 156 (1952): 3-18, not listed in the published bibliography. Early in 1953, the Presidium of the Academy directed that “the working out of the brilliant legacy of the great continuers of the work of Marx and Engels—V. I. Lenin and I. V. Stalin—as the theoretical bases of historical science” must occupy a central place in the work of the Institute of History (Vestnik, 1953, no. 4, p. 78).

14. Obshchestvo, p. 3.

15. SSSR, 1978, no. 1, p. 155.

16. Cherepnin, A. I., “O grivennoi denezhnoi sisteme po drevnim kladam,” Trudy Moskovskago numizmaticheskago obshchestva, vol. 2 (Moscow, 1901).Google Scholar

17. For an interesting account of the purposes and conditions of the radical experiment known as the “labor” school, which aspired to merge school “with life itself,” see, among others, Dela i dni, 1 (1920): 585-86.

18. The interview took place on June 1, 1972. The tape is deposited in the Sector of the History of the Most Ancient States, Institute of History of the USSR, Moscow.

19. The following brief account of Moscow University at this period is based on the informative work, well grounded in archival research, by Ivanova, L. V., U istokov sovetskoi istoricheskoi nauki (Podgotovka kadrov istorikov-marksistov v 1917-1929 gg.) (Moscow, 1968), part 1, chapter 1, pp. 10–35.Google Scholar

20. Ivanova writes of the supporters of Trotsky in the party organization of MGU, the activities in 1923 of the Left S.R.'s, the broad struggle of the party with Trotskyism from autumn 1923, the reorganization in 1924 of party cells in higher schools, and the first mass “inspection” of cell membership in the higher schools in May 1924, as a result of which fifteen percent of students was expelled for academic and political reasons (ibid., pp. 33-34).

21. Ibid., p. 31.

22. The background of Cherepnin's years which appears in the next paragraphs draws again from ibid., part 2, chapter 1, pp. 84-121. See especially Professor M. M. Bogoslovskii's draft “Ustav istoricheskogo instituta,” described on p. 89.

23. Protocol of the Presidium of RANION, August 25, 1926, quoted in ibid., p. 97.

24. Ivanova's quote in ibid.

25. On efforts to improve the program and the difficulties, see ibid., pp. 102-103, 109.

26. RANION, Institut istorii, Uchenye zapiski, 7 (1928).

27. Ibid., p. 155.

28. VI, 1975, no. 5, pp. 149-50.

29. See the list of Cherepnin's reports in Ivanova, U istokov sovetskoi istoricheskoi nauki, p. 107. The last was given on January 31, 1927.

30. Ibid., p. 110.

31. Cf., for example, Pravda, June 8, 1928.

32. It appeared out of chronological sequence: volume 1 in 1926; volume 2 in 1927; volume 3, which includes the annual report for 1924-25, in 1929; volume 4, which includes only materials relating to Russia, in 1929; volume 5 in 1922; volume 6 in 1928; and volume 7 in 1928. From volume 7, p. 166, it is seen that volumes 3 and 4 were given to the press in 1926-27 (Uchenye sapiski, 7 [1928]: 166). On volume 5, see VI, 1950, no. 3, p. 156.

33. Ivanova, U istokov sovetskoi istoricheskoi nauki, pp. 110-12, 118.

34. Istorik-marksist, 1929, no. 14, p. 6, cited in ibid., p. 119. The new Institute of History opened with a staff of forty and thirty-six graduate students.

35. [Cherepnin, L. V.], “Aleksei Ivanovich Iakovlev (1878-1951),” VI, 1951, no. 9, p. 183.Google Scholar

36. N. M. Druzhinin, Vospominaniia i mysli istorika (Moscow, 1967), p. 45.

37. The annual of the BSE on the occasion of Cherepnin's elevation to the rank of academician, offers the phrase: “In 1929-35—in historical-archival a” nd literary work “ (Bol'shaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia, vol. 17 [Moscow, 1973], p. 632).

38. L. V. Danilova strongly defends the argument that this discussion, together with parallel discussions in philosophy and sociology, had exceptional significance for the development of Marxist historical thought and marked the victory of the Marxist direction in all branches of Soviet historical scholarship (see L. V. Danilova, “Stanovlenie marksistskogo napravleniia v sovetskoi istoriografii epokhi feodalizma” (hereafter cited as “Stanovlenie” ), in Istoricheskie sapiski, 76 (1965): 62-119 (hereafter cited as IZ). Following the discussion on socioeconomic formations, plans were made for broad synthetic and monographic investigations of the feudal period in order to provide “a concrete picture of feudal society on the territory of the Union and its genesis, functioning, and transition to a higher form” (for details, see Danilova, “Stanovlenie,” p. 118).

39. Istorik-marksist, 1928, no. 8, pp. 79-128. One crucial aspect of the discussion concerned Petrushevskii's relation to the work of Max Weber.

40. Danilova, “Stanovlenie,” p. 107.

41. Izvestiia AN SSSR. Otdel obshchestvennykh nauk, no. 5, pp. 3S9-86. In accordance with the new charter of the Academy in 1930 (article 58), a new editorial-publications council was established, chaired by the permanent secretary, who controlled academic publications (Sobranie zakonov i rasporiashcnii SSSR, 1930, no. 30). The post was held from early 1930 to 1935 by V. P. Volgin, a Marxist historian, former president of Moscow University, and one of the founders of the Institute of Red Professors. Note that he was named as one of Cherepnin's advisers in preparing the candidate's dissertation.

42. Izvestiia AN SSSR, p. 376.

43. Pankratova, A, “Razvitie istoricheskikh vzgliadov M. N. Pokrovskogo,” in Protiv istoricheskoi kontseptsii M. N. Pokrovskogo: Sbornik statei, vol. 1 (Moscow-Leningrad, 1939), p. 7.Google Scholar

44. Druzhinin, Vospominaniia, p. SO.

45. Grekov, B. D., “Osnovnye itogi izucheniia istorii SSSR za dvadtsat’ piat’ let,” in Dvadtsat’ piat’ let istoricheskoi nauki v SSSR (Moscow, 1942), p. 88.Google Scholar

46. On Grekov as the “soul” of the new Institute of History, see Druzhinin, Vospominaniia, p. 56. The obituary in Voprosy istorii introduces Grekov as the closest student of Petrushevskii and concludes: “His authoritative word, the word of the most prominent Soviet historian-Marxist, resounded everywhere that scholarly historical problems were posed and resolved” (see VI, 1953, no. 9, pp. 164-67).

47. Volume 1, part 2 appeared only in 1950, edited by lakovlev alone, as was volume 3, part 2, published in 1952.

48. Grekov lists these volumes among the most valuable documentary publications on the history of the peoples of the USSR (Grekov, “Osnovnye itogi,” p. 79). Cherepnin's published bibliography omits Iakovlev's name in its listing, but the introduction to the reissued work in 1975 mentions their collaboration.

49. L. V., Cherepnin, “Klassovaia bor'ba v 1682 g. na iuge Moskovskogo gosudarstva,” IZ, 4 (1938): 41–75.Google Scholar

50. L. V., Cherepnin, “Letopisets Daniila Galitskogo,” IZ, 12 (1941): 228–53.Google Scholar

51. L. V., Cherepnin, “Iz istorii drevnerusskikh feodal'nykh otnoshenii XIV-XVI vv.,” 1Z, 9 (1940): 31–80Google Scholar. All the remarks of Nazarov and Ianin (VI, 1975, no. 5, p. 150) and Pashuto and Nazarov ( I SSSR, 1978, no. 1, p. 147) regarding the content and particularly the innovative character of the source work and theory contained in the dissertation do not seem to relate to the printed text.

52. For a convenient summary of N. P. Pavlov-Silvanskii's views, see Feodalizm v drevnei Rusi, 2nd ed. (Moscow-Petrograd, 1923). For criticism of some of his opponents, see pp. 45, 50. In Cherepnin's article ( “Iz istorii “), the importance of Pavlov-Silvanskii and the 1920s debate may be seen on pp. 40, 54, 61, 66. Cherepnin also refers to the Veselovskii-Presniakov dispute on the origin of immunities (ibid., p. 75).

53. Cherepnin, “Iz istorii,” p. 31. It is instructive to compare Cherepnin's analysis of the metropolitan documents with that of S. B. Veselovskii in Feodal'noe semlevladenie v severo-vostochnoi Rusi, vol. 1 (Moscow-Leningrad, 1947), part 2. See also Cherepnin, , Russkie feodal'nye arkhivy XIV-XV vekov, part 2 (Moscow, 1951)Google Scholar (hereafter cited as RFA).

54. Cherepnin makes the argument against the distinctiveness of Russian development in “Iz istorii,” p. 50. On mobility, see Cherepnin, ibid., pp. 57 ft., and Pavlov-Silvanskii, Feodalizm, pp. 81-86.

55. Cherepnin, “Iz istorii,” p. 32; see also p. 38 and the last section.

56. Ibid., p. 76.

57. Ibid., p. 80.

58. A. M. Pankratova, “Sovetskaia istoricheskaia nauka za 25 let i zadachi istorikov v usloviiakh velikoi otechestvennoi voiny,” in Dvadtsat’ piaf let, pp. 30 and 28.

59. Smirnov writes: “Placing before himself the task of studying the system of relations of domination and subordination in the estates of the Moscow metropolitanate, … Cherepnin, instead of analyzing the essence of these relations in their historical development, went along the path of purely external comparison of discrete historical institutions of Russian feudal law of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries with analogous institutions of the Western European Middle Ages. But what was original and valuable in the time of Pavlov-Silvanskii at the end of the nineteenth century could scarcely satisfy anybody in 1940” (I. I. Smirnov, “Problemy krepostnichestva i feodalizma v sovetskoi istoricheskoi literature,” in Dvadtsaf piaf let, p. 98). The very title of the article stresses the shift in the debate's direction since the early 1930s (cf. Grekov, “Osnovnye itogi,” pp. 85-87, and S. V. Bakhrushin in Protiv istoricheskoi kontseptsii Pokrovskogo, vol. 1, pp. 118-19, on the state of the debate).

60. The well-known position of Veselovskii was repeated in his introduction to Feodal'noe zemlevladenie. He cautioned about the hazards of using unevenly distributed sources, which, for the earliest period, are juridical memorials that only indirectly, and not always satisfactorily, elucidate essential questions of economics and then largely for the holdings of the monasteries which preserved them (Veselovskii, Feodal'noe zemlevladenie, pp. 8-9). He also stated that the comparative method had been abused by those who wrenched phenomena from the context of historical conditions of time and place, by those who were unable to distinguish the essential and constant from the external and accidental, and by those who were scarcely able to master the vast source materials on the Russian side, not to speak of the voluminous and rapidly changing Western literature on Western phenomena that exhibit extraordinary diversities and peculiarities (ibid., pp. 14-16). Cherepnin was associated with the publication of this very controversial work in 1947; his bibliography mentions membership in the group that prepared the anonymous critical introduction to the work.

61. Danilova, “Stanovlenie,” pp. 63-64, 113-19. She criticizes severely those in the 1930s who valued Petrushevskii, I. M. Grevs, and Veselovskii as the principal legacy of Soviet historiography of the 1920s. In conclusion she insists that scholars from bourgeois schools came to play an active role in the study of the feudal period only in the second stage of Soviet historiography. The first stage is reserved for those like Pokrovskii who came to the discipline from the Revolutionary struggle and who spoke from Marxist positions prior to 1917 as well as to the younger generation of specialists who were educated in the 1920s in the Soviet higher schools (ibid., p. 119). Danilova's article allows one to speculate that those Soviet historians whose primary scholarly concern lay in theoretical questions were among those who most strenuously opposed the abuses of Stalin's cult.

62. Shunkov, V, “Institut istorii AN SSSR v 1947 godu,” VI, 1948, no. 5, p. 137.Google Scholar They were not published for several years.

63. Veselovskii, Feodal'noe semlevladenie, pp. 1-4. The introduction criticizes Veselovskii for concentrating on questions of law to the exclusion of basic themes of feudalism as a social form and cautions the reader against being misled by Veselovskii's analysis to see the boyars as the politically and economically advanced element in society and the enemies of feudal fragmentation.

64. L. V., Cherepnin, “ ‘Smuta’ i istoriografiia XVII veka,” IZ, 14 (1945): 81–128.Google Scholar

65. L. V., Cherepnin, “K voprosu o proiskhozhdenii i sostave Pskovskoi Sudnoi Gramoty,” IZ, 16 (1945): 203–31.Google Scholar

66. L. V., Cherepnin, “Dokumenty Moskovskogo velikokniazheskogo arkhiva i ikh znachenie v politicheskoi bor'be pri Ivane III,” Trudy istoriko-arkhivnogo instituta, vol. 2, pp. 3–67.Google Scholar

67. L. V., Cherepnin, “Proiskhozhdenie sobraniia dogovornykh gramot Novgoroda s kniaz'iami XIII-XV vv.,” IZ, 19 (1946): 215–33.Google Scholar

68. L. V., Cherepnin, “Sostav i proiskhozhdenie Novgorodskoi Sudnoi Gramoty,” IZ, 21 (1947): 222–53.Google Scholar

69. L. V., Cherepnin, “Dogovornye i dukhovnye gramoty Dmitriia Donskogo kak istochnik dlia izucheniia politicheskoi istorii velikogo kniazhestva Moskovskogo,” IZ, 24 (1947): 225–67.Google Scholar

70. L. V., Cherepnin, “ ‘Povest’ vremennykh let, ’ ee redaktsii i predshestvuiushchie ei letopisnye svody,” IZ, 25 (1948): 293–333.Google Scholar

71. L. V. Cherepnin, “ ‘Smuta’ i istoriografiia,” p. 83.

72. Akademiia nauk, Kommissiia po istorii. Trudy, vol. 3: A.A. Shakhmatov: 1864-1929; sbornik statei i materialov (Moscow, 1947).

73. Cherepnin, “ ‘Povest’ vremennykh let, ’ “ pp. 293-94.

74. Cherepnin, RFA, part 1, p. 4.

75. Ibid., pp. 4, 448, 456.

76. Ibid., p. 9. 77. Ibid., pp. 5, 6.

78. Ibid., p. 11.

79. Ibid., p. 12.

80. Ibid., p. 14.

81. Ibid., p. 161.

82. Ibid., p. 162.

83. Ibid., p. 6.

84. Ibid., p. 8, and chapters 5 and 6.

85. Ibid., p. 9, and chapters 6 and 7.

86. See, for example, ibid., pp. 4-9 passim.

87. Ibid., pp. 457, 461, 9.

88. A. Zimin and V. Pashuto, VI, 1949, no. 9, pp. 119-22. The discussion of the monograph at the Institute of History was reported in Vestnik, 1949, no. 8, pp. 83-85. (The actual defense of the doctoral dissertation in 1946 was not reported in VI.)

89. Cherepnin, RFA, part 1, p. 472.

90. Ibid., pp. 9 and 448.

91. Ibid., p. 4.

92. Ibid., p. 453.

93. V., A., “Zasedanie uchenogo soveta Instituta istorii AN SSSR. 24-28 marta 1949 goda,” VI, 1949, no. 3, p. 152.Google Scholar

94. A. Krotov, “Primirenchestvo i samouspokoennost',” Literaturnaia gazeta, September 8, 1948, p. 2. See also Pavlov, S, “Ob ektivistskie ekskursy v istoriiu,” Kul'tura i zhisn', 27 (82), September 21, 1948.Google Scholar

95. Mosina, Z, “O rabote Instituta istorii AN SSSR,” VI, 1948, no. 11, p. 146.Google Scholar

96. “Protiv ob” ektivizma v istoricheskom nauke,” VI, 1948, no. 12, p. 8.

97. Ibid., p. 10.

98. Ibid., pp. 8 and 10. See also Mosina's demonstrative quotation of A. A. Zhdanov's attack on G. F. Aleksandrov's History of Western European Philosophy in 1947: “He [Aleksandrov], without realizing it perhaps, was a prisoner of bourgeois historians of philosophy who proceed from the fact that they see in every philosopher first and foremost a colleague in the profession and then only a protagonist. Such conceptions, if they develop here, inevitably lead to objectivism, to kowtowing before bourgeois philosophers and exaggerating their merits, to depriving our philosophy of a militant, aggressive spirit” (Mosina, “0 rabote Instituta,” p. 147).

99. Ibid., p. 148.

100. See, for example, ibid.

101. “Protiv ob” ektivizma,” p. 6. See Srednie veka, E. A. Kosminskii, ed., no. 2 (Moscow- Leningrad, 1946).

102. Kudriavtsev, I, “Ob ‘Istoricheskikh zapiskakh’ Instituta istorii AN SSSR,” VI, 1948, no. 10, p. 124.Google Scholar

103. Mosina, “O rabote Instituta,” pp. 144-45.

104. Ibid., p. 145. It should be noted that while Iakovlev and Andreev were attacked, Cherepnin criticized himself. At the sector meeting of October 21, 1948, Cherepnin was no longer listed with the two others, and he spoke of the need to provide a substantial criticism of Shakhmatov's bourgeois method. At the same meeting, however, his dissertation was charged with “crucial deficiencies” ( “V Institute istorii AN SSSR,” p. 172).

105. Mosina, “O rabote Instituta,” p. 145.

106. Ibid., p. 147.

107. “V Institute istorii AN SSSR,” p. 172.

108. Mosina, “O rabote Instituta,” p. 145; “Protiv ob” ektivizma,” p. 172.

109. A. V., “Zasedanie uchenogo soveta Instituta,” p. 153.

110. Mosina, “O rabote Instituta,” p. 147.

111. “V Institute istorii AN SSSR,” p. 172. Just this second “shortcoming” appears to have been addressed in a reworked conclusion. The summons to criticize not only the “bourgeois” tradition but Soviet scholarship as well suggests why Cherepnin included Grekov and other contemporaries in his survey. About three weeks separated the sector meeting from the authorization to print the manuscript.

112. Mosina, “O rabote Instituta,” p. 148.

113. “Protiv ob” ektivizma,” pp. 4 and 8.

114. Mosina, “O rabote Instituta,” p. 147.

115. Ibid.; “Protiv ob” ektivizma,” p. 5.

116. Mosina, “O rabote Instituta,” p. 147.

117. Ibid., pp. 144-45.

118. “Protiv ob” ektivizma,” p. 12.

119. “V Institute istorii AN SSSR,” p. 172.

120. Mosina, “O rabote Instituta,” p. 148.

121. “Protiv ob” ektivizma,” p. 3.

122. Ibid., p. 12.

123. Ibid.

124. A. V., “Zasedanie uchenogo soveta Instituta,” p. 154.

125. “V Institute istorii AN SSSR,” p. 172.

126. Mosina, “O rabote Instituta,” p. 144.

127. Ibid., p. 149.

128. See, for example, his articles on Lappo-Danilevskii (VI, 1949, no. 8, pp. 30-51) and Presniakov (IZ, 33 [1950]: 203-31); his contribution to the lead editorial on the basic tasks of studying the history of the USSR in the feudal period (VI, 1949, no. 11, pp. 3-12); his articles on the periodization of Russian history of the feudal period (VI, 1951, no. 2, pp. 52-80 [with V. T. Pashuto]); Isvestiia AN SSSR. Seriia istorii i filosofii (9, no. 2 [1952]: 115-32); and on Stalin (see above note 13). Cherepnin's role in establishing the historical profession in Soviet Moldavia is described by la. S. Grosul and N. A. Mokhov in Obshchestvo, pp. 9-12.

129. [Cherepnin, L. V.], “S. V. Bakhrushin,” VI, 1950, no. 3, pp. 157–59.Google Scholar

130. Records of the Academy of Sciences would surely indicate that Cherepnin was nominated for the rank of academician well before it was granted in 1972. The range, volume, and importance of his scholarship suggests, at the very least, that he was eligible for nomination following the publication of his monograph on the formation of the Russian centralized state (Obrazovanie Russkogo tsentralizovannogo gosudarstva v XIV-XVI w. (Moscow, 1960).