Presnyakov, Alexander Evgenievich

Born in the family of Evgeny Lvovich Presnyakov, engineer-railway engineer, member of the boards of various railways, author of articles on the economics of railways.

He graduated from the gymnasium in Tiflis ( 1889 ), the historical and philological faculty of St. Petersburg University ( 1893 ; author of the work “The Royal Book, its Composition and Origin”). Pupil S.F. Platonov , was left at the department of Russian history of the university to prepare for a professorship. Master of Russian History ( 1909 ; thesis: “Princely Law in Ancient Rus”). Doctor of Russian History ( 1918 ; thesis: "The formation of the Great Russian State. Essays on the history of the XIII-XV centuries").

He taught at private schools of Tagantseva and Stoyunina , at the Catherine’s Orphan Institute, at the Pedagogical courses at St. Petersburg girls’ gymnasiums. Since 1907, he has been a privat-docent, and since 1918, a professor at the Department of Russian History at St. Petersburg (then Petrograd, Leningrad) University. He also taught the history of Russian law at the Higher Women's Courses , was one of the organizers of the Women's Pedagogical Institute . He was a professor at the Institute of Red Professors (since 1927 ), Pedagogical Institute. A.I. Herzen .

The main topics of Presnyakov’s scientific interests in the pre-revolutionary period are the history of political relations in Russia until the sixteenth century, source studies of the annals of the sixteenth century, and the history of social thought in the nineteenth century. Rejected the theory of "ancestral princely possession" in Kievan Rus , believing that the basis of princely property is "family, homeland law." He worked out the history of “princely law”: he believed that one of the most important areas of activity of the Old Russian princes was the creation, next to customary legal unions, of the tribe members of a special “princely defense alliance”, which included both the prince's squad and the population of princely villages. He believed that princely defense was "a common historical phenomenon among all European peoples."

He investigated the centralization process in close connection with the whole range of international relations of North-Eastern Russia; the process of unification of Russian lands from the perspective of the internal history of not only the Moscow Grand Duchy, but also the specific ones - of Tver, Ryazan and Nizhny Novgorod. He was an opponent of a sharp contrast between the history of Kiev and Vladimir-Suzdal Rus. He proved that family-patrimonial sections of volosts-princes in Vladimir-Suzdal Rus were always only a continuation of family-patrimonial divisions of Kievan Rus. After 1918 he continued his research in the field of the history of medieval Russia, in particular, he was engaged in theoretical issues of feudalism in Russia. But at the same time, he paid considerable attention to the history of the 19th century, the author of historical portraits of Russian emperors, a thorough study of the history of the Decembrist movement, based on sources. In works on historiography, Presnyakov was one of the first to formulate the concept of the “St. Petersburg historical school” as the school of “restoring the right of source and fact regardless of the historiographic tradition” as opposed to the Moscow (historical-sociological in nature).

Presnyakov was one of the organizers (in 1921) and the director (since 1922) of the Historical Research Institute at the University of Petrograd (the institute actually existed until 1925). Then he was director of the Leningrad branch of the Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1927–28). Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (since 1920).

The most famous students of A. E. Presnyakov are B. A. Romanov , S. N. Chernov .

• Presnyakov, A.E. The Royal Book, its Composition and Origin. - St. Petersburg, 1893.
• Presnyakov, A.E. Princely law in Ancient Russia: essays on the X-XII centuries. - St. Petersburg, 1909 (new edition - M., 1993). - 316 p.
• Presnyakov, A.E. The Governing Senate during the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna and Pyotr Feodorovich / History of the Governing Senate. - St. Petersburg, 1911.
• Presnyakov, A.E. Moscow kingdom . - PG., 1918.
• Presnyakov, A.E. Formation of the Great Russian State: Essays on the History of the XIII — XV Centuries. - PG., 1918 (new edition - M., 1998).
• Presnyakov, A.E. Alexander I. - Pg., 1924.
• Presnyakov, A.E. Apogee of autocracy. Nicholas I. - L., 1925.
• Presnyakov, A.E. December 14, 1825 M. - L., 1926.
• Presnyakov, A.E. Lectures on Russian History. t. 1-2. - M., 1938-1939. (T. 2, issue 1)
• Presnyakov, A.E. Russian Autocrats / Compiled, author of the preface and annex Dr. ist. Sciences A.F. Smirnov ; Ed. A. N. Kazakevich; Artist B. A. Lavrov. - M .: Book , 1990 .-- 464 p. - 200,000 copies. - ISBN 5-212-00489-6 . (region)
• Alexander Evgenievich Presnyakov: letters and diaries, 1889-1927. - St. Petersburg: Dmitry Bulanin, 2005.
• Presnyakov A.E. Western Russia and the Lithuanian-Russian state: Course of lectures. - M.: Summer Garden, 2018 .-- 320 p .: ill. - ISBN 978-5-98856-310-5 .

• Chirkov S.V. Alexander Evgenievich Presnyakov / Portraits of historians. Time and fate. T. 1 / holes ed. G. N. Sevostyanov . M.-Jerusalem, 2000;
• Brachev V. S. "Our University School of Russian Historians" and its fate. St. Petersburg, 2001;
• Brachev V.S. Russian historian A.E. Presnyakov (1870-1929). SPb., 2002;
• Rostovtsev E. A. V. O. Klyuchevsky and historians of the St. Petersburg school (S. F. Platonov, A. S. Lappo-Danilevsky, A. E. Presnyakov) // V. O. Klyuchevsky and problems of Russian provincial culture and historiography. Materials of the scientific conference. Penza, June 25-26, 2001 / Ed. ed. S.O. Schmidt . M., 2005. Prince. 1. S. 340-370;
• Brachev V.S.A. E. Presnyakov and St. Petersburg School of History. SPb., 2014.

• Presnyakov Alexander Evgenievich // Great Soviet Encyclopedia : [in 30 vol.] / Ch. ed. A.M. Prokhorov . - 3rd ed. - M .: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1969-1978.
• Profile of Alexander Evgenievich Presnyakov on the official website of the RAS