The Great French Revolution in Russian conservative journalism in the second part of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries

The purpose of the study is to identify the possibility of continuity of the views of Russian conservative leaders of the era of Alexander II and conservative publicists of the period of social and political upheavals of the early 20th century on the history of the Great French Revolution. This choice is explained by the fact that turning to its history was an important part of their views and active journalistic activity, but at the same time, the experience of understanding the revolutionary events in France by representatives of the conservative camp of the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries has not been sufficiently studied in historiography. The sources of the article were the works of conservative publicists of the era of "Great Reforms" and the representatives of the conservative part of the social and political movement of the early XX century. Among the first are the works of V.I. Gerrier, E.M. Feoktistov and N.A. Lyubimov; among the second - the works of T.I. Butkevich, holy righteous Ioann Kronstadtski and N.D. Zhevakhov. The authors were selected for their publications, in which they devoted considerable attention to the analysis and evaluation of the events of the French Revolution. The article discusses in detail the main problems related to the history of the Great French Revolution that the conservative leaders of the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries were concerned about. The article considers what was particularly important for them in connection with this event, and analyses the conclusions they reached. In the process of research, the authors came to the conclusion that for all of them, one way or another, the appeal to the history of the revolution in France was only practical. First of all, they were interested in the experience of the Great French Revolution. What is more, they were treated mostly extremely negative about this experience in relation to Russian reality of that period. They tried in every way to prevent its implementation. However, in the presence of common points, there are important differences in the works of conservatives from different periods of Russian history. The conservative leaders of the Alexander II era were firstly interested in the political aspect of the history of the French Revolution, so they focused on the issues of power and, making their generalizations, tried to warn against the reiteration of such scenarios of political development in Russian reality. In turn, the conservative publicists of the early 20th century, mainly of the "chernosotentsy", in addition to political issues, paid great attention to the issues of a religious part. For many of them, the revolution was associated with eschatological sentiments that made it not only a socio-political evil for them, but also a crime against God and his covenants. The authors consider the main difference between Russian conservatives of the early 20th century and conservatives of the middle and second half of the 19th century in their understanding of the history of the French Revolution. The authors declare no conflicts of interests.

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