Publishing Memoirs of Russian Historians of the Late 20th – Early 21st Century: Practices and Issues

Abstract

The article reviews the memoirs of historians written and published at the end of the 20th – the beginning of the 21st century. Among the large number (about a hundred) of texts, it selects about twenty that meet the following criteria: 1) written by specialists in the history of Russia, who continued their research work in the last third of the 20th century; 2) created and published after the early 1990s; 3) published as separate books. The research aims to analyze the current practice of publication, identify the main editorial, ethical and legal problems, and ways to solve them. Selected texts are divided into two groups: fifteen were published by the authors themselves and four – by other persons. Publications of the second group meet the requirements of edition archaeography to a greater extent, especially in the correct usage of the academic systems for referring to references. The first group does not always show a clear dependence between the nature of the publication and the qualifications of the publisher. The publications of both groups contain critical opinions about contemporaries and even mention specific names. Ethical and legal issues examined in this research include the publication of similar information, the chronological interval between the creation and publication of texts, and the admissibility of a text with omissions. The article discusses different opinions of well-known experts and their arguments in favor of various solutions. The article concludes by arguing that the publishers of other people's memoirs usually consider the copyright holder's opinion. At the same time, established practice and scientific discussions show that there are still unresolved issues. It emphasizes a need for considering these issues, complying with the norms of the law, and reasonably compromising.