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On the eve of the World War I, members of the Russian right deeply differed in their visions of the status quo and the means of its proper reconstruction. The war further differentiated the Right. The rightists, regardless of the ideological nuances, perceived the war as a chance for political revival. The outburst of patriotism in July and August 1914 became the most serious argument in favor of political reform. Their opponents, on the contrary, saw in it a chance to get rid of democratic institutions and practices. While the more moderate rightists leaned towards consensus, with liberals looking at political dialogue as the most effective instrument for securing social stability, the extreme ones concluded that strict control from above was a more adequate instrument for achieving this goal. All this aggravated the pre-war conflicts within the Right and led to its disintegration on the eve of the Revolution of 1917.

This essay examines a variety of popular engagements with history made possible by new technologies, namely the Internet and video games. We term these nondisciplinary appropriations of history parahistorical. Parahistory is an international phenomenon, but it is articulated differently in various national contexts. Russian parahistorical pursuits provide insight into both the phenomenon at large and the peculiarities of the Russian state's and population's attitudes toward history and historical memory. On the basis of a contextualized survey of Russian parahistory, we argue that historians cannot afford to ignore these uses of history beyond the academy which can teach us a great deal about the nature and broader implications of our discipline.