Russian history in the most concise sketch

At the very beginning of the book, Pokrovsky mentions that he is writing a work, "which appeals to the same reader as Comrade" The ABC of Communism " Bukharin ”-“ to every worker and peasant ”,“ whose brains are not dislocated by school history textbooks with their countless kings and ministers ”. He says that he writes this book because "the conscious worker <...> needs to know what Russia is."

In “Russian History in the most concise essay”, references and a bibliographic list are completely absent. Pokrovsky refers to the comments of a certain “observer” who “was a factory inspector,” the words “the doctor who described all this,” “the Vladimir factory inspector,” “another foreigner.” Nowhere are the names and surnames of people whose evidence served as the basis for the textbook, nor are specific documents mentioned. The usual wording is "... the Moscow inspector wrote in his report ...".

MN Pokrovsky widely uses means of artistic expression, using not scientific, but rather journalistic, places and openly spoken language. For example, Alexander III is called the "father" of Nicholas II . The use of an unscientific style of speech is explained not by the incompetence of the author, but by his orientation towards the audience. The book was addressed to an unprepared worker who was supposed to take a Marxist view of history. Therefore, the work must certainly have been written in an interesting, understandable, living language. The historian V. B. Kobrin wrote: “Pokrovsky was a brilliantly gifted person: his works are written vividly and even in places, are bored, read easily and with interest, they often feel a non-standard living thought. But he was never a strict researcher: starting as a popularizer, he immediately proceeded to the creation of concepts, broad generalizations ” ^[2] .

The attitude to the works of M. N. Pokrovsky and, in particular, “Russian history in the most concise outline” was a kind of “litmus test” of the political situation in the country. In the 1920s this book was the only official history textbook. Since the mid-1930s, after Pokrovsky’s school was defeated, it stopped being published, and all copies published earlier were removed from libraries or transferred to special stores. After that, it was published only once, in 1967, and then again forgotten. The attitude to this book has always depended strongly on the political, social, and cultural context.