Sage under the Sultans

One of the main historians of the 20th century has died

On the last day of February, at the age of 90, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., one of the most famous historians of the 20th century, died of a heart attack. However, calling this extraordinary American only a historian is the same as calling, for example, Mikhail Lomonosov a chemist. This scientist can be characterized more as a public figure, since it is extremely difficult to separate his scientific ideas and active work outside of traditional academic institutions.

Schlesinger was able to make a career, so to speak, as a “secular scientist” - a specialist who is known not only by his professional corporation, but also by the public. He almost never dealt with narrow - purely academic - problems: such work can create a reputation as a brilliant researcher among his colleagues, but remains completely unknown outside university departments. Arthur Schlesinger was a practicing historian , even if the expression seems like an oxymoron. He not only studied history, he to some extent did it.

The peak of Schlesinger's career can apparently be considered his work as an adviser to President Kennedy. This period did not last very long, only a couple of years - the scientist did not get along with the successor of the murdered president, Lyndon Johnson, and resigned. However, it was during this period that Schlesinger realized a kind of dream of many scientists - he got the opportunity to communicate his expert opinion face to face with the powers that be. However, such a status as a “sage under the Sultan” does not always benefit the adviser or ruler; the difference between the logic of a politician and the thinking of a scientist is too great.

But Schlesinger was clearly never intimidated by this and even seemed to be attracted to it, since from the very beginning of his career he was constantly somewhere close to active politics or public service. Just a few years after graduating from Harvard, during the Second World War, the young scientist served in the Office of Strategic Services (the famous CIA later grew out of this service). At the same time, the name of Schlesinger Jr. became recognizable among the intellectual American public: the book “The Age of Jackson”, published in 1945, brought him his first Pulitzer Prize. And after 1946, the scientist again went to Harvard, where, with interruptions for social and political activities, he served as a professor until 1961.

In the second half of the last century, Arthur Schlesinger gradually gained the position of the main American historian and at the same time the main historian of America. He creates his own cyclical scheme for describing how his country developed - from periods of liberalism to more conservative ones and back (“Cycles of American History”, published in 1986 and already translated into Russian in 1992). He publishes more than a dozen large monographic works, in particular a trilogy about the Roosevelt era, published in 1957-1960, as well as, for example, the book “A Thousand Days: John Kennedy in the White House” - a story about the presidency, published in 1965. which Schlesinger observed from the inside. In 1979, he received another Pulitzer for his work “Robert Kennedy and His Times.” Schlesinger Jr.'s books have long become classic works, but the scientist always wrote not only for university libraries, but also for the bookcases of history buffs.

In addition, the historian regularly acted as a columnist, speaking out on issues of current politics. Schlesinger's authority is so great that he was allowed much more than an ordinary commentator or scientist. He also got away with very radical statements that could put an end to the reputations of most public figures (the most famous of Schlesinger’s harsh remarks was a spectacular comparison of the ideology of “Afrocentrism” with the Ku Klux Klan). He also had extremely liberal and anti-communist views and was a "great enemy of the Soviet Union." However, his main interest was always his own country, the past and present of which he studied with equal attention.

Vladimir DZAGUTO