Kizevetter, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich

Kizevetter, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich 

Born May 10 (22), 1866, in St. Petersburg; died 1933 in Prague. Russian historian. A leader of the Constitutional Democrat (Cadet) Party.

Kizevetter graduated from Moscow University in 1888 and was a privatdocent from 1898 to 1909 and a professor from 1909 to 1911 at Moscow University. Kizevetter supported the idea of a constitutional-democratic monarchy. He joined the League of Liberation in 1904 and was elected to the central committee of the Cadet Party in 1906. He was a deputy from Moscow to the Second State Duma. Kizevetter wrote for the journals Russkie vedomosti (Russian Gazette) and Russkaia mysl’ (Russian Thought). He was hostile to the October Revolution and was expelled from the USSR in 1922 for counterrevolutionary activity. Kizevetter was a professor of Russian history at Prague University during his years in exile.

As a historian, Kizevetter allotted the principal role in Russian history to the political factor, limiting history to the actions of state power. His chief works dealt with the 18th and early 19th centuries. Kizevetter also wrote a number of journalistic essays on the 1860’s, in which he idealized the actions of the Russian tsar. He frequently wrote for the White émigré press.

REFERENCES

Lenin, V. I. Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 12, pp. 309–10, 316–22; vol. 15, pp. 24–25; vol. 41, pp. 380–87.
Slovar’ chlenov obshchestva liubitelei rossiiskoi slovesnosti pri Moskovskom universitete. Moscow, 1911. (List of Kizevetter’s works.)
Shapiro, A. L. Russkaia istoriografiia v period imperializma. Leningrad, 1962.