P.M. Golovachev. The Far East in the thoughts of the historian

Abstract

The  author  of  the  article  makes  an  attempt  to  analyze  the  views  of  Russian  historian  Peter  Mikhailovich  Golovachev.  Those  views  concerned  issues of Russian policy in the Far East in the late 19th – early 20th century. The basis of the article is analyzing P.M. Golovachev’s treatise “Russia in the Far East”. The author of the article intends not only to research different aspects of Russian Far Eastern policy raised in that treatise. The analysis of intellectual  context  has  an  equal  significance.  The  author  makes  an  attempt  to represent specific features of Russian public thought at the turn of the ages. Researching of P.M. Golovachev’s views enables to identify several intellectual transformations concerned Russian society’s visions of the Far East.  The  author  of  the  article  emphasizes  that  historical  knowledge  allowed  P.M. Golovachev having an unconventional approach to the consideration of issues of interest to the Russian public. The latter was expressed, in particular, in criticism of well-established ideas and concepts.  The  author  concludes  arguing  that  P.M.  Golovachev’s  work  was  the  great  example of the Far East development project. The emergence of such projects became  the  forerunner  of  the  sphere  of  knowledge,  which  later  became  known  as “geopolitics”.