American Historical Association

131st Annual Meeting (January 5-8, 2017)

January 05 - 08, 2017

The year 2017 marks 100 years since the fall of the Romanov monarchy and the beginning of the revolution that resulted in the emergence of the Soviet regime. The story of the revolution and the civil war, which lasted until 1921, has been told many times. While the Soviet Union still existed, native scholars were constrained in their approach by the official ideology, while access to documents was limited both for domestic as well as foreign researchers. Western scholarship also reflected the heavily politicized issues at stake. Since 1991, the documentary base has expanded and old patterns of thinking have been challenged by colleagues on both sides of the border. The lead-up to the centenary of World War I has also produced a rash of new scholarship. The purpose of the panel is to consider new ways of thinking and writing about the revolution, in the broadest sense, in light of the changed political and scholarly context.