¹ 6 - 2011
Lapkin V.V.

Modelling of Russian Political History. Introduction to a Theory of Evolutionary Cycles of Autochthnous Development


The author tackles to enlarge the temporal, spatial and structural-evolutionary context, within which problems of conceptualization of Russian development prove to be accessible to solution. These efforts are to a large extent underlain by the author’s dissatisfaction with the cognitive potential of the model of the “reforms – counter-reforms cycles” as applied to investigation of evolutionary cycles of development. Expounded in the article is a different, partly alternative, partly additive model of politico-state development of Rus-Moskovia-Russia – model describing this development as an evolutional sequence of the so-called “spurt” and “relaxation” alternating for the whole extent of many centuries. Within this model of development, the durable 20th century” of the Russian history (according to the author’s dating: 1881 - 2025) is conceptualized as period of the concluding “spurt”, in the course of which Russia faces the choice: either resolute renunciation of the past-time principles of “Russian power”, or, otherwise, break-up.