Belazarovich V.A.

«BUNDISM» AS A HISTORIOGRAPHIC PHENOMENON
IN THE HISTORICAL SCIENCE OF BELARUS

DOI: 10.22281/2413-9912-2021-05-04-07-14

The article highlights the formation of a separate trend in the historiography of the Byelorussian SSR, called «Bundism». Jewish historians-Marxists in the 1920s – early 1930s were actively involved in the process of scientific understanding of the revolutionary events and socialist transformations at the turn of the XIX–XX  centuries. This scientific phenomenon requires a separate study, since the views of the Jewish intelligentsia on the concept of national history had a strong impact on the scientific community of the BSSR. In Belarusian historiography, the problem received incomplete coverage in the works of V.N. Mikhnyuk. The purpose of the article is to reveal the main conceptual approaches of Jewish historians-Marxists on the current trends in the history of Belarus in the late 19th – early 20th centuries. The research is based on written sources presented by published scientific works. The texts of unpublished sources are taken from the National Archives of the Republic of Belarus. On the basis of historical-comparative, historical-genetic methods and the method of retrospective analysis, the main works of representatives of Jewish historiography are identified, biographical data of a number of researchers little-known for modern science are revealed, and the degree of politicization of the historical science of the BSSR is determined. The scientific problems of the national historiography were expanded by the matters of the history of the labor movement, social democratic organizations, party (Bolshevik) and Komsomol organizations, the civil war in Belarus. The position of Jewish Marxist historians was based on a national platform, which contradicted the official concept of the history of the CPSU (b). The leadership of the BSSR considered the scientific views of Jewish authors to be a manifestation of the Bundist and Zionist ideology. A campaign of criticism and eradication of Jewish nationalism in the historical science of the Byelorussian SSR followed. Revealing the degree of scientific development of the problem, determining the personnel potential of the science of the BSSR, assessing the nature of the author’s approaches and ideas allows us to actualize the problem of forming the concept of the history of Belarus in the 1920s – early 1930s. The results obtained can be applied in the educational and scientific activities of higher school lecturers in the process of teaching academic disciplines, in the development of topics of national historiography.

Keywords: historiography, historical science, the concept of Soviet history, Jewish historians, Bundism, Zionism, Istpart, Institute of Party History.

Yanka Kupala State University of Grodno

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