Domestic historiography of the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries on the Peasant Reform of 1861

The article deals with the domestic historiography of the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries devoted to the abolition of serfdom in the Russian Empire. The aim of this study is to analyze the research works about the 1861 Reform. The chronological scope of this article is the years of 1861-1917. A special feature is the presence of the test-era publications that combine the journalistic and research components. This is explained by the socio-political relevance of the agrarian reforms of the 1860s-1880s, the interest of all segments of society in the reforms in the country and a relatively short period of time separating the reform from the date of the publication of works. So, the historiography sources of research were the research and journalistic works on the Peasant Reform of 1861 and its consequences. Gradually, the historiography of the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries formed several directions: conservative-monarchist, liberal and Marxist. Conservatives (A.D. Pazlukhin, P. Ukhtubuzhskiy and others) exclusively glorified the reform, but criticized it for violating the interests of the nobility. The liberal camp was divided: some welcomed the reform (I.I. Ivanyukov, K.D. Kavelin, G.A. Dzhanshiev, A.A. Kornilov and others), others were critical about its consequences (Yu.V. Yanson, L.V. Khodskiy and others). The article analyzes materials of the collections dedicated to the fiftieth anniversary of the abolition of serfdom Velikaya reforma: Russkoe obshchestvo i krest 'yanskiy vopros v proshlom i nastoyashchem [Great Reform: Russian Society and the Peasant Issue in the Past and the Present] and Osvobozhdeniye krest'yan: deyateli reformy [Liberation of Peasants: Activists of the Reform], According to their political and economic views, their authors had liberal and socialist views, They sharply criticized serfdom and absolute monarchy, These public institutions were cited as the main reasons for the backwardness of the country and low living standards, The authors stated that the abolition of serfdom had not made lives of ordinary people better, Marxists (G.V. Plekhanov, V.I. Lenin and others) considered the socio-economic impact of the Peasant Reform and assessed it in the light of the formational theory, All Marxists noted the forced nature of the agrarian reforms, They sharply criticized the reform for its "half-heartedness" and called it "predatory" in relation to peasants, As a result, the domestic historiography of the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries accumulated a large amount of factual material on the Peasant Reform that is still relevant and important, and its assessment depended on the socio-political views of the authors,

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