“Critical” historiography of Russian statehood: how and why it was formed

The article examines the reasons for the negative perception of Russia’s image in Western and domestic historiography. It is noted that this trend arose from the moment when Russia revealed itself to the world as a powerful European state that was gaining strength and was laying claim to its own interests and political subjectivity. This fact caused serious concern among leading Western states. In fact, from the moment of its emergence on the historical field, Russia became the object of close attention from the point of view of its political, religious and cultural orientation. When it finally became clear that Russia would not be part of any project – cultural, military or religious, a tendency for a tendentious, negative image of our country was firmly established in Western historiography. The object of criticism, and most often fantasy and outright falsification, were precisely those rulers who strengthened Russian statehood the most. The beginning was laid by Western countries, but within Russian society itself and, most importantly, the cultural and administrative layer a peculiar political fashion was cultivated over a long historical period, the essence of which was to imitate the West, or even to openly submit to its interests. One of the reasons for this is that such educational and upbringing policies were carried out in Russian educational institutions that rather repelled future officials from serving the interests of the country. This trend continues to some extent to this day. In order to reverse this trend, it is necessary to conduct a significant reorientation of the educational and cultural policy of the modern Russian state. Only under this condition will the historiographic model of political and legal knowledge be effective against the distortion of the civilizational development of Russia. A small step in this direction would be the restoration of the history of political and legal doctrines in the system of legal education.