Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2020 number

The article focuses on the historical concept and contribution to the Decembrist movement studies by G. P. Shatrova, a prominent researcher of the mid-XX century. Special attention is paid to the role of memoir sources in the scientific analysis carried out by the scholar, to the significance of memoir heritage in elaborating the Decembrism concept by Shatrova, and effect of ego-documents on the development of such important trends of the Decembrist studies as: the Decembrists in Siberia, the Decembrism’s evolution during the period after the uprising, Decembrist biographies, as well as the history of United Slavs Society. Shatrova proved the enlightening character of this secret society exactly based on the memoirs. She laid down the main scientific approaches to the analysis of Decembrist memoirs as the most important basis to study Decembrists. Shatrova’s works are imbued with references to memoirs, making the story of the Decembrist movement personalized, lively and compelling as presented by the author. The principle of working with sources and their selection by G.P. Shatrova lies in the fact that it is the memoir heritage that is taken as a basis, and the materials of office work and investigation play a subordinate role. When characterising the Siberian period of Decembrism, memoirs become nearly the main source for the scholar, and this approach to the source base brings its positive results. Shatrova successfully investigated the problem of the Decembrist uprising’s defeat and its lessons on the basis of memoirs. Shatrova used the Decembrists’ memoirs especially wide in her historical and biographical works. In her study on D. I. Zavalishin, Shatrova brilliantly solved the difficult task of criticizing the Decembrist’s memoirs, which made it possible to involve them in the research. Shatrova clarified the important issue of the “Notes” authorship by I .I. Gorbachevsky. This article traces Shatrova’s vision of memoirs, her interpretation and application of them to crate the ideas. It shows Shatrova’s method of using the Decembrists’ memoir heritage as the priority source to characterize the Decembrist ideology and movement as a whole, and to create a scientific biography.