Russian post-revolutionary military emigres on the problem of national consolidation during World War I

The article examines the views of Russian post-revolutionary military emigrants on the problem national consolidation in the context of the First World War and the collapse of the military efforts of the Russian Empire. The study reveals an alternative interpretation of the causes of Russia’s defeat, which differs from the canonical provisions of Soviet historiography, which focused on socio-economic backwardness and national oppression. Special attention is paid to the interpretation of national disintegration as a key factor in weakening the military’s combat capability, as well as to the role of regional identities in undermining a unified national identity. Based on the analysis of memoirs, journalistic and research publications of A. I. Denikin, N. N. Golovin, Yu. N. Danilov and other representatives of the emigrant military community, the ideas about the unrealized model of the “army of the armed people”, the absence of genuine civic patriotism in the country and the failure of the modernization policy of the tsarist regime are reconstructed. The author reveals a deep semantic and political distance between the White emigrants’ and Soviet narratives, pointing to the liberal-democratic orientation of the political views of the emigrant officers, which is often extremely distorted in the official historiography of the USSR.