The First Monograph on the History of the State Conference of 1917 Review of Gosudarstvennoe soveshchanie 1917 goda: sozyv, sostav, deyatel'nost' [The State Conference of 1917: convocation, composition, activities], by А.B. Nikolaev (St Petersburg: Asterion, 2022)

Abstract

The monograph under review is the first experience in researching the history of the preparation and conduct of the State Conference held in Moscow on August 12–15, 1917. A. Nikolaev is the first to introduce a significant number of archival sources related to the subject into scholarly discourse. The published work pays special attention to the various concepts of the conference and to the struggle of political forces around that national forum. For the first time in historiography, it closely examines the important issues of the participants in the State Conference and the mechanism of its convocation. The review notes A. Nikolaev’s criticism towards the main historiographical myths connected with the subject: the central role of the State Conference in the preparation of the Kornilov affair and non-participation of the Bolsheviks in the forum. The monograph fills one of the largest gaps in the history of the revolutionary year of 1917.

Keywords

• state conference of 1917
• provisional government of russia
• state duma of the russian empire
• srs
• kadets
• bolsheviks
• a. kerensky
• l. kornilov