Russian captivity of 1914-1922 in the newest Russian historiography: contexts, constructs, stereotypes

The article analyzes the intermediate results of contemporary Russian studies of the phenomenon of Russian captivity in 1914-1922. The author argues that the newest national historiography of the captivity, emerged in the 1990s, like all post-Soviet historiography has revealed the tendency to distance itself from its predecessors. However, Russian historians have failed to achieve this goal. «Provincialization» of research and gravitation towards «universal narrative», refinement of old stereotypes and formation of new ones, as well as predominantly empirical nature of the latest works, prevented the newest historiography from qualitative upgrade. Whereas Russian captivity of 1914–1922 has already lost «satellite» status and been turned into an independent object of exploration, its studies often fail to overstep the limits of entertaining local history ( kraevedenie ). But at the same time, the efforts of broad contextualization of captivity as well as of hierarchization of its intrinsic institutions and practices, have just strengthened stereotype notions without provoking full-fledged debates among Russian historians. In this connection, the main task for the national historiography of the 1914-1922 captivity in the long term should be the overcoming of its isolation and including into the processes relevant to the global intellectual market.