The Decembrists in the socio-political discourse of the USSR in the mid-20th century

Abstract

The article deals with the perception of the Decembrists in the USSR in 1975, the year of the 150th anniversary of the Decembrists’ revolt. It notes that fifty years before that the Decembrists were hardly mentioned, and considers the gradual return of the Decembrists to historical science and into public consciousness. The author also focuses on the bifurcation of the traditional “myth” about the three stages of the revolutionary movement in Russia, the first of which, according to V.I. Lenin, was the Decembrists’ revolt: on the one hand, dissidents associated themselves with the Decembrists; on the other hand, officials of the Brezhnev’s era also tried to claim their kinship with the Decembrists. It is concluded that the 150th anniversary of the Decembrist revolt was accompanied by a sudden upsurge in activity – and, unlike the centenary of the uprising, the anniversary in 1975 was supervised by the USSR Ministry of Culture. It is quite likely that the interest in the 150th anniversary of the revolt on the part of not only society but also the state is connected with its ideological opposition to dissidents.