M. N. Pokrovsky Pioneered Russia’s Marxist School of History
M. N. Pokrovsky was the first scholar to present a Marxist view of Russian history. He became a very influential figure after the 1917 revolution, but the rise of Stalinism meant that he was posthumously written out of the history books.
Classes at the Mikhail N. Pokrovsky Workers’ Faculty at Moscow State University, 1920. (Universal History Archive / Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Mikhail Nikolaevich Pokrovsky was the leading Soviet historian during the 1920s. He is credited with being the first person to present the history of Russia from a Marxist perspective. He was responsible for establishing the main academic institutions of the Soviet era, and for founding the leading historical journals.
However, the Soviet authorities denounced Pokrovsky’s writings after his death in 1932, branding them as schematic and anti-Marxist. It was not until Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953 that Pokrovsky was rehabilitated and his chief works were republished.
Education
Pokrovsky was born in 1868 in Moscow, the son of a senior civil servant. He studied history at Moscow University, where the eminent scholars Vasily Klyuchevsky and Paul Vinogradov taught him. Klyuchevsky lectured on Russian history, while Vinogradov tackled ancient and European history.
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