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Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky (Russian: Василий Осипович Ключевский; January 28 [O.S. January 16] 1841 in Voskresnskoye Village, Penza Governorate, Russia – May 25 [O.S. 12 May] 1911, Moscow) dominated Russian historiography at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. He is still regarded as one of three most reputable Russian historians, alongside Nikolay Karamzin and Sergey Solovyov.
A village priest’s son, Klyuchevsky, of Mordvinian ethnicity, studied in the Moscow University under Sergey Solovyov, to whose chair he succeeded in 1879. His first important publications were an article on economic activities of the Solovetsky Monastery near the old Russian town of Belozersk (1867) and a thesis on medieval Russian hagiography (1871).
Kluchevsky was one of the first Russian historians to shift attention away from political and social issues to geographical and economical forces. He was particularly interested in the process of Russian peaceful colonisation of Siberia and the Far East. In 1882, he published his landmark study of the Boyar Duma, whereby he asserted his view of a state as a result of collaboration of diverse classes of society.
In 1889, Klyuchevsky was elected to the Russian Academy of Sciences. Although his lectures were highly popular, he published but a handful of biographies of “representative men”, including Andrei Kurbsky, Afanasy Ordin-Nashchokin, Feodor Rtishchev, Vasily Galitzine, and Nikolay Novikov.
The last decade of his life was spent preparing the printed version of his lectures. He also became interested in politics, and joined the Constitutional Democratic party.
“Курс русской исторiи” проф. В. Ключевскаго. Часть IV. Москва, 1915
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