Reflections on the Union of October 17 Review of Soyuz 17 oktyabrya. Politicheskii klass Rossii: vzlet i padenie [Union of October 17. Russian political class: Rise and fall], by K.A. Solov'ev (Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2023)

Abstract

The reviewer considers the popular science work by Kirill A. Solov'ev, a professor at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, dedicated to the Union of October 17, one of the leading parties in Russia in the early twentieth century. The book under review is a successful attempt to bring the key problems of the interaction between power and society during the period of the Duma monarchy to a wide range of readers in a popular science way with special reference to the activities of the Octobrist Party. The work is based on a wide range of different sources and takes into account the established historiographical tradition of studying the Octobrists. The author examines the controversial issues of the Octobrists’ political identification, the peculiarities of interaction between the deputies of the State Duma and the government, the problems of forming the political culture of imperial Russia, etc. Emphasis is placed on the serious contribution of the work under review to the understanding of the controversial problems of the political development of Russia in the early twentieth century.

Keywords

• russian liberalism
• union of october 17
• political parties
• parliamentarism
• state duma
• government