Terra sebv s acta mvsei sabesiensi s

Bibliometric Analysis in Historiographical Studies 

 

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the main creative form of expression within Russian culture. Literature, in 

its variety of genres, including the philosophical, reflects Russian cultural 

ideals and is the most striking element of the identity of the intelligentsia. 

The intelligentsia can be seen as a kind of “brain of the nation” whose main 

role lies in shaping public consciousness by putting forward ideas. Society 

either accepts or rejects these ideas. Emigration, meanwhile, can be thought 

of as society’s flesh and blood. Issues raised by Russian writers and 

philosophers abroad reflect the future of Russia’s statehood and power, 

attitudes towards religion and social justice, the relationship between the 

intelligentsia and the people, violence and non-violence - all relevant in 

terms of finding ways to overcome socioeconomic and spiritual crises and 

bring about renovation of the country. 

In the period 1980-1993 - during the years of Soviet power - the study 

of Russian (Soviet) emigration was in practice confined to study of the 

theoretical heritage and activities of those abroad. This included studying 

the works of representatives of Russian revolutionary emigration (such as 

G. V. Plekhanov, P. L. Lavrov, S. M. Stepnak-Kravchinski, M. A. Bakunin, 

P. A. Kropotkin, V. I. Lenin, N. P. Ogarev, P. N. Tkachev, A. I. Herzen 

and G. A. Lopatin), Russian emigrant composers (for example, S. V. 

Rachmaninov and I. F. Stravinsky) and works created in exile by Soviet 

writers such as Maxim Gorky and A. N. Tolstoy. As a consequence, the 

number of theses devoted to the life and work of such individuals is 

basically the same as the total number of theses on emigration subjects from 

that period. Of the few theses which did not include the names of émigrés 

in their title, any devoted to the first post-revolutionary waves of emigration 

waves contained negatively-charged emotive words such as “collapse” and 

“defeat.” Thus, the study of so-called white emigration in the Soviet period 

was of an ideologically specified, politicised character. 

In the mid-1990s, along with an increasing number of émigré names 

mentioned in thesis titles, actual study of the phenomenon of emigration 

began to emerge. 

Most researchers looking at the Russian expatriate community 

focused on the first post-revolutionary wave - the “white emigrants” who 

reflected the colour of their country - as the most vivid subject of study, and 

limited their research to the scope of 1917-1939. Out of 903 theses, 666 

works were devoted to the life and work of individual immigrants, and of 

these 595 had names of representatives of the Russian expatriate 

community of 1917-1939 in their titles. 109 out of the remaining 237 theses 

which did not have names of emigrants in their titles, instead contained 

dates or concepts (for example, “first wave”) in their headings that clearly 

indicated the object of study was the first post-revolutionary wave of 

emigration. 

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A. A. Pronin 

 

130

The distribution of thesis research staff (indicated in the headers of 

collected theses) also demonstrated that the primary interest in was in the 

first post-October Revolution wave of emigration: out of 127 émigrés 

whose lives and works were written about in the academic theses examined 

for this study, 97 were representatives of this wave. In theses written in the 

second half of the 1980s-1990, 19 authors referred to those in exile before 

1917, 2 were related to the second post-October wave of emigration, 9 

related to the third wave and 3 were related to emigration in both pre- and 

post-revolutionary waves of emigration (including those on N. Gabo, M. 

Gorky, and V. V. Kandinsky). 

Up until the 1990s, studies were limited almost exclusively to the pre- 

and post-revolutionary first wave of emigration. In 2000-2005, major 

advances were made by philologists in the study of the third post-

revolutionary wave; as a result, the number of theses devoted to this topic 

increased from 2 in the 1990s to 50 in the 2000-2005 period. Indeed, 2000-

2005 saw a significant increase in the number of theses across various fields 

dealing with Russian emigration and the Russian expatriate community in 

recent years (36 in 2000-2005, up from 12 in the 1990s). Though only slight, 

there was also an increase in the number of theses concerning the second 

post-October wave (8 in 2000-2005, compared to 5 in 1990-1999), a period 

still mostly studied by historians. 

Amongst theses dated 1980-2005, 90 papers (10% of 903) were 

devoted to pre-revolutionary emigration; 716 works (79.3%) to the first 

post-revolutionary wave; 14 (1.6%) to second post-revolutionary wave; 52 

(5.8%) to the third wave; and 48 papers (5.3%) to the fourth, contemporary 

wave of emigration. (It should be borne in mind that a number of theses 

examined several waves of emigration.) 

Although contemporary researchers are studying all the waves of 

Russian emigration, attention is still primarily paid to the first post-October 

wave; the creativity of this wave of immigrants is reflected in fact that such 

studies appear in the broadest range of academic branches and specialties. 

The results of this study clearly highlight a tendency towards 

personification within the history of Russian emigration and the Russian 

expatriate community. Of the 903 theses from 1980-2005 collected on the 

subject of Russian emigration, 666 (73.8%) were devoted to the life and 

work of named individuals. 

The breadth of coverage of individual emigrants has also changed. In 

the 1980s, theses identified for this study dealt with the life and works of 23 

Russian emigrants; in the 1990s, 60 individual emigrants were studied; and 

in the six years from 2000 to 2005 inclusive, 101 biographies were written. 

Over the same period, the number of emigrants mentioned in the titles of 

theses during one year increased to an average for 30 individuals per year 

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