The First World War in Contemporary Russian Histography - New Areas of Research

Abstract

For a long time in Soviet (Russian) historiography, the First World War (WWI) was known as the “forgotten war”. Therefore it can be said that during Soviet times, the history of WWI was in many respects only studied informally. Over the last 15 to 20 years, however, this topic has experienced something of a renaissance in Russia. This can be seen in the publication of a considerable number of sources and in the expansion of the perspectives of modern historiography – historians have begun to study topics that had, until recently, almost never been examined. The centenary of WWI no doubt has had an influence on the growth of interest in research regarding the war – at the state level, we notice an attempt to revive the historical memory of events that happened a century ago. In this article, the major trends of contemporary Russian historiography of the First World War will be examined and analysed