The “state-oriented” historian Mikhail Pogodin and Alexander Pypin's pseudo-scientific theory of “official nationality”

This article deals with the role of the historian, prose writer and journalist Mikhail Pogodin (1800-1875) in Russian culture and an influence of the theory of “Official Nationality” introduced by the liberal journalist Alexander Pypin on Pogodin's reputation. For many years Pogodin's creative work remained in oblivion and he was undeservedly treated as a reactionary and obscurant who based his opinions on the precepts recommended by the ruling tsarist power. This distorted reputation of the eminent public figure was largely based on the statement accepted by society that he was a typical representative of the “Official Nationality” trend in Russian culture. The present article proves that Pogodin was an original and independent thinker. It also asserts that the “Official Nationality” is just a liberal polemic device or label created for ideological struggle against writers of the conservative trend rather than a scientific notion. Critical judgements on Pypin's term devoid of objectivity grow more prominent in the present-day historical, literary and philosophical studies and suggestions are recurrently made to reject the use of this tendentious notion with regard to cultural figures.