ABSTRACT
The uses and abuses to which the ostensible record of the Russian past can be put deserve a more comprehensive examination than can be attempted here. The stress on distinctive and unchanging characteristics of Russian history has appealed to, and has been particularly compatible with the views of, those who see the Soviet regime as beyond the pale and perhaps beyond redemption. Russian historians have written their self-serving patriotic versions from medieval times, and foreign scholars, journalists, and statesmen have used both fact and fiction to make their case and have perpetuated a centuries-long legacy of forgeries and fabrications. The role of the state as the principal source and instrument of change, as well as its paternalistic function as dispenser of welfare, have “objective” historical causes. The paucity of secondary, voluntary associations mediating between state and individual has been remarked upon more than once.
