Alexandra Lublinskaya versus Boris Porshnev: what was wrong in the book «Popular uprisings in France before the Fronde (1623-1648)»
Kondratyev Sergey, Kondratyeva Tamara
The authors of article considers the dramatic discussion on the book by the prominent Soviet historian Boris Porshnev « Popular Uprisings in France before the Fronde, 1623–1648 ». on the eve of its nomination in 1948 for the Stalin prize. After the first positive or even complimentary reviews, the Leningrad historian Alexandra Lublinskaya gave a sharply negative response to the monograph. There were no personal motives in her criticism. Estimating this book she has been guided strictly by professional standards. In the theoretical part she was not satisfied by Porshnev’s interpretation of the bourgeoisie and of the social characteristics of the absolutist state which he considered to be « bourgeois » in the social structure of the rulers, « noble » and even « feudal » in its essence. Lublinskaya was not agree that the uprisings scared absolutism, and that the Fronde was an unsuccessful bourgeois revolution. But the main object of criticism was the methods of Porshnev’s work with the manuscripts. Basing on numerous examples, she showed that the author of the book not only misinterpreted sources, but even wrongly translated them. Such analysis allowed Lublinskaya to make a general conclusion on the book's unreliability as a whole. Undoubtedly her criticism undermined the author's reputation among professional historians.