Karpovich, Mikhail Mikhailovich

Karpovich, Mikhail Mikhailovich (1888-1959) - historian, essayist, memoirist, editor of the New York 'New Journal'. History of got carried away, when I was a schoolboy in Tiflis. At the same time he joined the revolutionary movement, approached the Social Revolutionaries, promoted their views. In 1905 he was arrested, was sitting in Mtskheta castle. Later on their hobbies eserovskih said: 'Not in earnest: by accident'. In 1906 he entered the Moscow University, he attended lectures V. Kljuchevskogo, participated in seminars Petrashevsky D.. In 1907-1908 attended the Sorbonne. In December 1907 met the then living in Paris, Osip Mandelstam, which many years later wrote memoirs. In 1914 he graduated from Moscow University and was left at the department of history. The topic of his master's thesis - "Alexander I and the Holy Alliance". Worked in the Historical Museum. In 1916 he was mobilized and sent to serve in the Ministry of Defense, Acting Secretary of the Special Meeting zemstvos.
In the spring of 1917 arrived in Washington as a diplomatic Secretary Russia's ambassador Bakhmetev. Participated in the Paris Conference that drafted the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, was a member of the Political meeting, defends the interests of Russia. When emigration is believed that the Bolsheviks from Russia rescue intervention, Karpovich wrote perceptively: 'Bolshevism in Russia will end only when it will be obsolete by the Russian people, is the only way, even if it were needed for decades'.

The spring of 1924 the embassy in Washington was closed. Karpovich moved to New York, speakers. In life earns selling books. In 1927 he was invited to Harvard, the most prestigious American university, where Karpovich had to work out for thirty years. In 1949-1954 he was dean of the Faculty of Slavic. Lectured on the course "Introduction to the history of Russia, on the West-European history, Russian literature of the nineteenth century. and developed the course "History of the ideological trends in Russia," never in America was not taught. The main chronological framework of the History of ideological currents "- from Peter the Great to the collection 'Landmarks'. Karpovich invited to other universities. In the early thirties, he worked briefly with the historian AA Kiesewetter in Prague. In 1932 came the English-language book Karpovich, Imperial Russia, on which generations of American students studying. This book shows Karpovich, . that over two hundred years 'Russian imperial regime has done considerable evolution and has undergone great changes', . that these changes are 'forward movement, . not back ', . that in the early twentieth century, Russia is rapidly developing and that the revolution was not inevitable,
. This is based on the analytical and Comparative Approach conclusion coincides with the general position nondeterministic Karpovich historian. 'It is my deep conviction - recalled his disciple Mark Raev - Comparative approach was the most distinctive and valuable feature of his interpretation of Russian history'.

Karpovich was one of the few university professors who created the scientific school. Who knew him Kerensky spoke of his' exceptional abilities of the teacher: When Karpovich 70 years old, . Twenty-seven of his outstanding students, . already become professors, . offered him a collection of his essays: in reverence, . love and gratitude '(' New Journal ', . 58, . 1959, . with,
. 7).

For years, Karpovich was intimately connected with the 'new magazine' - first as a writer, since 1943 as co-editor (along with Mikhail Tsetlin, replacing the departed with the editorial office Aldanova MA), and after death Tsetlin became editor in chief. When it 'New Journal' took its present shape. 'As the editor of MM. was, of course indispensable, - recalled R. Goul. - And this indispensability, not only in his great intellectual and spiritual culture, but also in spiritual properties. Complete tolerance to any opinion, if it is only a serious and genuine cultural level: and therefore always a wide diapason of staff magazine '. Karpovich himself spoke about the problems as a quarterly publication of, . in which 'there can be no room for the deniers of freedom and the preachers of intolerance: our magazine provides its employees every opportunity to express a variety of socio-political, . philosophical and aesthetic views: Mindful, . that the maintenance of cultural traditions and the recognition of the autonomy of culture is a necessary condition of spiritual health and one of the most powerful tools in the fight against totalitarian barbarism ',
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In the 'new journal', he has published more than seventy of his articles and reviews. He wrote, inter alia, the 'big people', his contemporaries. Article IV of Hesse, . politician and publisher 22 volumes of the Archives of the Russian Revolution, . Karpovich said the conversion of Russian liberalism of the currents of thought into an organized political force and claims, . that 'the idea of law itself does not lead to political liberalism, . nor to a constitutional democracy ',
. In the article "PNMilyukov as a historian," Karpovich proves its commitment to 'historical synthesis'. According to him, 'work is widely synthetic character in the historical literature naperechet'. In his review of a collection of speeches 'knight of legality' VA Maklakova Karpovich shares his view on the appointment of the State, consisting in the fact that 'for people to create conditions in which it can flourish free activity'. Reviewing historical novel MA Aldanova Origins, "Karpovich said that history is important for the writer 'is not in itself, but only insofar as it affects the fate of people and especially people' unhistorical '. And for the most Karpovich 'trial story' is more important than the court of history. Historical analysis, he believed, inevitably involves a moral proposition. Those historians who claim to complete objectivity, 'render such a proposition too, just do it smuggled themselves often unwittingly'.

An important part of the heritage Karpovich-publicist - his "Comments", printed in the 'New Journal' from 1951 to 1958. In some of the "Comments" disclosed Karpovich views on the nature of the historical process. In Philosophy of the case, "he said of dogmatism deterministic approach: destroying determinism, we open the opportunity for reasonable human intervention 'in the blind course of events' - the possibility of conscious struggle with chance. Applied conclusion from this theoretical idea is to Karpovich in united humanistic efforts against 'the growth of inhumanity in the world'. Thematic wide diapason Comments. This problem of nationalities in Russia, and Russia-US relations and the role of emigration in the preservation of cultural heritage. On the range of topics can give you an idea headlines, . occurring in these "Comments": Philosophy of compromise, . Price revolution, , . On the Russian messianism, . To dispute about Dostoevsky, . The problem of artistic freedom in Soviet Russia, . A few thoughts on the historical novel, . After Stalin: Russia, . After Stalin: the West, . The difficulties of the western world, . Regarding the U.S. election, . Immigration and politics,
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Karpovich's views on emigration described in 1959 Alexander Kerensky: "In an environment in which the Russian emigration is thought Karpovich, for the real political struggle, which requires a precise division of the contending parties, there is no place. Its task is different: to preserve within ourselves the main religious, intellectual and cultural values, matured by the Russian people for many centuries ... To maintain the emigration of high cultural and spiritual level, . which was already Russia before the war in 1914, . save it for the future foundation of this culture, . this task and pursued Karpovich, . and this was his office of Russia, and so he took in exile among such a special place '(' New Journal ', . 58, . 1959),
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Proceedings Karpovich in Russian and English languages, published in several editions. One of the most representative articles - a study of the two directions of Russian liberalism in the face of its leaders - B. Maklakova and P. Milyukov (collectively, the collection of Changes and Continuity in the Russian Thought). Karpovich himself closer to the way Maklakova, seeking to improve the state system, based on the principles of liberalism and the rule of law from a balanced combination of individual liberties and public order. Karpovich was, according to R. Gulya, 'man, to think independently, widely and freely'. In his study of attitudes Milyukova and Maklakova not counterposed, but shown as complementary. He also wrote the chapter on Russia in the collective collection "The Economic History of Europe". Westerners and a liberal, he saw Russia as an integral part of Europe. Highly valued by Russian cultural and ecclesiastical heritage, . But he emphasized not share, . and combining features of ethnic groups, . a European civilization, . and claimed, . that the history of the West without the inclusion of Russia's history in general can not be understood,
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Karpovich died in Boston in 1959.