Abstract
The article deals with the problem of concepts’ changing of early Greek tyranny in the Russian historiography. On the basis of the analysis of the 19th and 20th centuries works, the author comes to the following conclusions. First conception of early Greek tyranny was formed in the works of 19th century scientists and kept its scientifi c relevance till the middle of the 20th century. Within the framework of this concept the tyranny was characterized as a stage of formation of Greek democracy. As a result of struggle for political power between nobility and demos a tyrant, supported by masses, becomes head of polis. This tyrant carries out a series of measures aimed at the development of crafts, trade and support of the small peasantry. The fall of the tyranny was assessed in different ways. In pre-revolutionary historiography the overthrow of tyrants was explained by their personal qualities. In Soviet studies, however, became fi rmly established the viewpoint that the demos did not need tyrants after the aristocracy had been weakened. In the 1960s, an alternative conception began to take shape. In this concept, tyranny is seen as a result of a struggle between aristocratic groups. The policy of the tyrant is interpreted as a set of measures aimed at legitimizing personal power. Tyranny does not refl ect the interests of the demos, but has to reckon with them. This transition is connected with changes in world and domestic historiography, since in the 1960s-1970s a new conception of the socio-economic and political essence of archaic Greece was gradually established. Nevertheless, in modern Russian historiography we can fi nd supporters of both the updated and improved concept of democratic tyranny and those researchers who see tyrants as only a particular manifestation of aristocratic conflicts of archaic times.
Keywords
Historiography, Archaic Greece, polis, Early Greek tyranny, Athens, Peisistratus.
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