“As for me, I am only a student of Lenin”: methods of creating the image of the general secretary in Soviet biographical essays about I.V. Stalin in the 1930s and 1940s

Committee of the CPSU (b), written in the 1930s and 1940s. On the basis of H. White’s concept, the author applies a historical and tropological method aimed at identifying the historiographical style. The concept of “image” in historical science is clarified as a combination of the following elements: 1) the type of plot construction underlying the narrative; 2) the methods of formal proof used by researchers; 3) the ideological implication of the essays. Thus, the author had the opportunity to consider the hero of the biography in the context of the dominant concept of the philosophy of history in the research community. The prerequisites and reasons why the image of Stalin acquired the character of a personality cult in the historical narrative are revealed. The combination of conflicting elements in the image leads to the glorification of the figure of Stalin in the historical text. According to their plot, biographical sketches are comic, that is, they believe that there are certain laws of social development that a person can put at his service. This approach magnifies Stalin’s personal qualities and emphasizes his ability to solve problems of a global nature. The methods of formal proof in such texts are based on mechanistic argumentation, which establishes a close connection between the people and their leader, and organicist argumentation, which refers the reader to the leader’s outstanding personal qualities. All these elements, in turn, create a radical implication in the biographies, suggesting that I. V. Stalin is able to resolve global problems relying on his personal qualities.