In the St. Petersburg art space mArs (Marsovo Pole, 3) on Friday, March 17, at 19:00, a regular meeting of the Discussion Club of Daniil Kotsiubinsky “Why is everything wrong?” will take place.
This time, the participants of the event will try to find an answer whether it was possible to save the Russian monarchy at the beginning of the 20th century. The discussion will unfold between the “civilizational fatalist”, candidate of historical sciences Daniil Kotsyubinsky and a moderate historical optimist who believes that the Russian Empire still had a chance to live even in 1917 – Doctor of Historical Sciences, Deputy Director for Science of the St. Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences Igor Lukoyanov.
What was the year 1917 in Russian history – a historical accident, a consequence of the fatal mistakes of Emperor Nicholas II and his general unworthiness as an autocratic ruler – or was the fateful finale of the last monarchical reign predetermined by the entire previous course of Russian history?
Could the revolution have been prevented in advance? And prevent the political explosion of 1905-07? After 1907, carry out comprehensive reforms and “smoothly transfer” the Russian Empire to constitutional lines, as Prime Minister P.A. tried to do. Stolypin? Or to return back to the unlimited autocracy before the “Manifesto of October 17, 1905”, which was called for by Stolypin’s opponents “on the right” – the Black Hundreds?
And why, when the “progressive public” began to furiously demand from the tsar to meet its aspirations, Nicholas II each time stubbornly stubbornly to the last, or rather, to the revolutionary collapse? Why didn’t he listen to the voice of well-intentioned monarchists and remove from himself the “fatal old man” – Grigory Rasputin, because of whose presence in the palace the authority of the sovereign himself was steadily falling?
Why couldn’t he stop depending on the “bad advice” of his wife, Alexandra Feodorovna, who evoked in the Russian public, especially during the First World War, a burning rejection, up to the suspicions of both her and Rasputin, of “German espionage”? Why did the emperor stubbornly continue to rely on the ministers, whom almost the entire educated class considered puppets in the hands of the “dark forces” – the “dissolute old man” and the empress, supposedly completely subject to him? And why didn’t Nicholas II stubbornly appoint a “cabinet of trust” of “anti-Rasputin” ministers?
Participants of the Discussion Club will try to give answers to these and other questions.
Tickets for the event can be purchased on TimePad or at the box office before the event.
Source: Rosbalt
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