The Search for Historical Continuity in the Assesment of the Civil War in Russia

Abstract

A century has passed since the beginning of the tragic events of the deadly Civil War in Russia in the early twentieth century, which not only dramatically changed the country, but also affected (albeit to a lesser degree) nearly all regions of the world. It is obvious that the debates among historians and scholars of neighboring disciplines on various aspects of the Civil War will not be resolved any time soon, and that many lacuna within this study remain to be filled in. We still lack a consensus on the answers to fundamental questions in the history of the Russian Civil War and its meaning. This work presents the views of Elena Iur`evna Prokofieva – Candidate of Science (History), Professor in the Russian History and Public Records Department at the Belgorod National Research University – regarding several key aspects of the Civil War, including the transformation of the term “civil war” in the context of the traumatic developments of 1917–1922 (there are also other variants of their chronology), the reasons why the “third force” became insolvent over the course of this acute civil conflict, and the conflict’s periodization.

Keywords

• civil war in russia
• early twentieth century
• debates among historians