Modern approaches to the characterization of the chronological framework of the civil war in Russia

Introduction. The paper examines various approaches of authoritative domestic and foreign researchers to the issues of substantiation and characteristics of the upper and lower chronological boundaries of the Civil War in Russia in the twentieth century, presented by them in scientific publications of the modern period of time. A comprehensive and detailed description of the time of the beginning and end of the Civil War is of great importance for the essential consideration of this extremely complex, contradictory, ambiguous, tragic, but at the same time significant event in the history of our country. Methods and materials. The study used logical analysis, the method of periodization of the historical process in the “historiographic refraction”, the historical-system method and scientific-critical analysis. The sources of this article are scientific studies of domestic and foreign historians of the modern period of time devoted to the issue of the chronological framework of the beginning and end of the Civil War in Russia. Analysis. The article identifies and critically analyzes various points of view of authoritative domestic and foreign researchers on the issues of the time of the beginning and end of the Civil War. The main approaches of historians to the periodization of the time of the beginning and end of the war, which are currentlyshared bythe overwhelming majority of members of the historical scientific community, are characterized. Both general, fully or partially coinciding author’s positions on this issue and completely different approaches of researchers on its characteristics are shown. Objective analysis and scientific criticism have been subjected to the most controversial, from our point of view, views of some domestic and especially foreign historians on these issues, the argumentation of whose positions raises reasonable objections. Results. A scientific and critical analysis of modern historiographical developments of domestic and foreign historians on this issue has shown that there is currently no single, universally recognized point of view on this issue in historiography. This circumstance is due to both the complexity and ambiguity of the justification of the upper and lower chronological boundaries of the Civil War, as well as the existing author’s approaches, each of which has an appropriate scientific theoretical and factual argumentation.