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Michael Confino, Present events and the representation of the past. Some current problems in Russian historical writing. Historical writing is probably not just a re-enactment of the present by other means. Nevertheless, there is something of it in all historical writing. For that reason the real questions are : to what extent do current events influence the historian's work, and is he or she sufficiently aware of this influence and its by-products ?
The recent developments in Russia have had a profound effect on Soviet/Russian historical writing, and a devastating one on Western Sovietology. But they have also put on the agenda of Western historiography new questions, or given an acute topicality to old ones. Is this new turn justified by the organic development of the discipline ? Is it a "paradigmatic revolution" of sorts ? Or does it reflect rather some inadequacies in traditional historiography during the last thirty years or so ? Inadequacies such as deterministic and teleological approaches inspired by the "1917 paradigm" ? In turn, these approaches have generated an hypertrophy of phenomena such as the crisis of the Old Regime, revolutionary processes, and social instability. For how, indeed, could "1917" have happened without such kind of overwhelming phenomena ? But as is well known, historical logic does not always follow the logic of the common sense.
What have we learnt (about the present as well as about the past) from the recurrent and pervading ase of historical analogies as, for instance, between Gorbachev and Alexander I, or Yeltsin and Kerenski ? Do we need the constant evocation of reforms (failed or successful) in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in order to gauge the chances of success of the reforms in today's Russia ? Is Russian history repeating itself, or is there something atavistic in its course ? And is it the historian's task to predict the future instead of explaining the past ?
Are these new problems a symptom of the discipline's growth and maturity ? Or rather non-issues indicating a malaise and perhaps a crisis ?

Michael Confino, À propos de la notion de service dans la noblesse russe aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles.
L'article examine une interprétation courante de la noblesse russe, selon laquelle cette dernière était essentiellement une « noblesse de service », dont le statut et le prestige se définissaient par le čin et non par le lignage, l'hérédité du titre et la notion d'honneur. Or, le comportement de la noblesse montre clairement qu'elle attachait une importance non seulement au service d'État, mais poussait au premier plan hérédité des titres de noblesse, les origines anciennes (et souvent mythiques), le lignage, la distinction et l'honneur des familles et de l'ordre dans son ensemble. La législation et les Statuts de la noblesse, promulgués de Pierre le Grand à Catherine II, confirment explicitement ces normes nobiliaires et leur confèrent la sanction de l'État.
La notion de service jouait-elle en Russie un rôle beaucoup plus grand que dans l'ethos de la noblesse en Occident ? La comparaison avec plusieurs noblesses européennes met en relief deux traits importants. D'abord, la notion de service y tenait une place de premier ordre. Ensuite, sans diminuer pour autant la présence du mythe du sang bleu, de nombreuses familles - même d'ancienne noblesse - tenaient leur titre de la volonté du roi. La pratique des anoblissements était courante aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, et peut-être même plus répandue que dans le passé lointain.
Il s'avère ainsi que sous ces rapports la noblesse russe était très semblable aux autres noblesses européennes et ne représentait nullement un cas sui generis.

Michael Confino, Révolte juvénile et contre-culture: les nihilistes russes des «années 60».
Le nihilisme des années 1860 a été vu dans l'historiographie russe soit comme un phénomène historique appartenant au mouvement des idées de cette époque, soit comme une manifestation de l'« âme russe ». Tout en reconnaissant l'importance de l'apport des nihilistes aux idées sociales et politiques de leur temps, l'article relève le rôle majeur des traits sociaux et psychologiques qui structurèrent ce « mouvement » et qui constituèrent la differentia critique qui le caractérise.
Ces jeunes appartenaient à un même groupe d'âge ; la plupart d'entre eux étaient d'origine noble et avaient rompu les liens avec la maison paternelle. Leur révolte primordiale était contre leur milieu social et contre la famille nobiliaire telle qu'ils l'avaient connue personnellement. Leur rencontre eut lieu dans les villes universitaires, où ils élaborèrent des règles de conduite particulières, des façons de s'habiller et un vocabulaire qui les distinguaient du milieu ambiant. Ils adoptèrent un code (kodeks) et une manière de vivre bien définis, que l'article analyse comme des expressions de la mentalité collective et de la contre-culture nihilistes, et de leur caractère existentiel qui dépasse de loin le seul domaine des idées.

Michael Confino, Ideology and semantics: the political vocabulary of the Russian anarchists.
This article deals with the formation of the political terminology (and of the specific jargon) of the Russian anarchists as expressed in their publications and in their everyday discourse and utterances (speeches, lectures, private letters). This distinctive anarchist terminology was shaped by two main factors: first, by the need of words and terms (of a "language") different from those of their nearest political and ideological adversaries, that is - in the present case - the left in general and the revolutionary groupings in particular.
The continuous debate with the Marxists and the Russian Social Democrats (Bolsheviks and Mensheviks alike) was one of the sources for the formation of an important and significant set of terms reflecting, at one and the same time, the ideological differences between the two movements, and the strong disdain of the anarchists for "state socialists" and all brands of "authoritarian socialism".
Another area which generated an original and interesting constellation of terms and buzzwords was the terrorist action and the "expropriations" (eksy). Finally, the study examines the widespread use of war metaphors in the writings and everyday speech of the anarchists, a linguistic phenomenon rather surprising and paradoxical in a political milieu so strongly committed to combat all and any kind of militarism.
Throughout the article an attempt has been made, whenever possible, to translate the Russian anarchists' terms and jargon words, by French equivalents used during the same period in the anarchist groups in France.

Michael Confino, Peter Kropotkin and the agents of the Okhrana. A study and thirteen unpublished letters of P. Kropotkin to M. Goldsmith and to a Russian anarchist group.
This article deals with two sets of closely interrelated subjects. The first includes the attitudes and activities of the Okhrana towards Russian anarchist groups abroad in general, and P. Kropotkin in particular. In this portion of the study are examined the techniques of shadowing ("external surveillance"), letters' interception (perliustraciia) , the reports of the secret agents infiltrated in the anarchist groups ("internal surveillance"), as well as the collaboration between the Okhrana and the police organizations of other European states, whether within the framework of the "Anti-anarchist International," or outside of it. One of the conclusions that emerges from this analysis is the remarkably wide scope of the Okhrana1 s activity in this area, and the impressive amount of information which it was capable to collect on P. Kropotkin and on the anarchist groups.
The second part of the article is a discussion of P. Kropotkin's attitude, on the one hand, towards this activity of the Political Police and its use of secret agents ("agents provocateurs") in the revolutionary movement, and, on the other hand, towards the infiltration of informants into the Okhrana by revolutionary organizations. In this context are examined several historical types of events such as degaevščina , azefščina, and bogrovščina, as well as the less notorious cases of N. Kletočnikov, N. Pauli and A. Petrov.
Kropotkin had been following directly (as a member of "courts of honor") and indirectly (through his contacts with Vladimir Burcev) these occurrences which were shakening time and again the Russian revolutionary movement. His views on these tactics and techniques give an opportunity for a reassessment of several important aspects of the movement's action, such as political efficiency, revolutionary ethics, and the perennial dilemma of "ends and means."
The article is followed by thirteen unpublished letters of P. Kropotkin, which focus on most of the topics discussed.

Michael Confino, Kropotkine in 1914: the war and the abortive congresses of Russian anarchists. Unpublished letters of P. Kropotkine to Marie Goldsmith. January 11-December 31, 1914.
This publication comprises 14 letters of P. Kropotkine written in 1914 and an introduction to these documents, dealing with the two major problems roused by these letters (and which were also the most important questions on the agenda of the Russian anarchist movement ) .
The first problem is that of the unification of the movement. The article describes the convocation and the development of the First unification Conference of Russian anarchists abroad (Paris, December 28, 1913-January 1, 1914) and analyzes its debates, its decisions and the profile of its composition. This conference took the decision to summon a Congress of anarchist groups abroad and a general Congress of the Russian anarchist movement. Both Congresses were to be held in August 1914 and did not take place because of the beginning of the war.
The secondary questions that have been dealt with are: organization of the movement, presence of the Okhrana agents within the groups and the part played by them, relations between the federations, etc. The second problem is that of the attitude towards militarism and the war, more especially that of Kropotkine. In the light of these documents a new explanation of his position is suggested, and another interpretation of the motives that had incited him to adopt, in August 1914, a "defensist" line, different from that of the majority in the anarchist movement.
Finally, the article as a whole proves, implicitely and explicitely, that the year 1914 was critical and tragic for the Russian anarchist movement. The year starts in the midst of enthusiasm and hope, and finishes in an atmosphere of pessimism due to dissensions provoked by war.

Michael Confino, Russian anarchists, internationalism and the Manifesto of the Sixteen. (Unpublished correspondence of Peter Kropotkin and Marie Goldsmith, January- M arch, 1916).
This unpublished correspondence (which comprises five letters of P. Kropotkin and one of M. Goldsmith) allows us to observe the ideological debate among the anarchists of "defensist" trend at the time of the elaboration and publication of the famous Manifesto of the Sixteen, which constituted the theoretical and political platform of this tendency. The main points at issue were the meaning of the notion of internationalism within the context of the World War; the nature of this war and whether it was necessary to strive for an immediate peace within the conditions existing at the beginning of 1916. The exchange of the thereto unpublished letters between P. Kropotkin (who wrote and signed the Manifesto) and M. Goldsmith (who did not sign it) contributes to define the position of these two prominent Russian anarchists and reveals the tensions and ruptures that occurred between Russian anarchist emigre groups since the beginning of the war.

En réalité, ni la psychologie de nos psychologues contemporains n'a de cours possible dans le passé, ni la psychologie de nos ancêtres, d'application globale possible aux hommes d'aujourd'hui.(L. Febvre, « Histoire et Psychologie », Combats pour l'Histoire, Paris, 1953, p. 213.)L'historiographie s'enrichit soit en défrichant des domaines restés jusque-là non explorés, soit en réinterprétant à l'aide de concepts nouveaux des zones de recherche qui semblaient bien connues et profondément labourées. L'histoire de la noblesse russe appartient un peu à ces cas, apparemment contradictoires. Elle a été sérieusement étudiée, mais elle a besoin aussi d'interprétations fraîches, faites à la lumière des progrès récents des sciences sociales, et en premier lieu de la sociologie et de la psychologie.Dans l'historiographie de ce sujet, une des premières tentatives — hardie, brillante et spirituelle — de peindre un tableau des structures mentales de la noblesse fut celle du grand historien russe Vasilij 0. Ključevskij, effectuée vers la fin du xixe siècle.