“History of everyday life” in the context of modern historiography

Abstract

The article analyzes a new direction of historical science, called “the history of everyday life”. At the same time, a distinction is made among the understanding of “everyday life” by historians, ethnographers and sociologists. It highlights the complex nature of everyday life. Methodologically, the history of everyday life is closely connected with the traditional history of events. For a researcher of everyday life, vital issues, their comprehension and reflection in the minds of people are important. The history of everyday life is aimed at studying the transitional stages of social development, periods of increased socio-political tension. The subject of analysis is the forms and methods of people’s survival during wars, revolutions, epidemics, famine and devastation. Thus “history from below” was constructed, which as its subject saw the individual in his everyday concerns with his feelings and experiences. Works on the history of everyday life cover small periods of time and tend to regionalization. The study of the tactics and strategies for the everyday existence of an ordinary person in society, when referring to ego sources, can be framed into a general picture of the individual’s daily practices. The presented explanatory model of everyday practices as a “story of a little man” is a space of adjustments and adaptation and testifies to a new level of creative understanding of modern intellectual technologies by Russian historical science.