Historiography of the secret police in Russian Empire in the late XIX-th and early XX-th centuries

The article analyzes Russian (pre-Revolutionary), Soviet and post-Soviet (modern) historical literature devoted to the history of the secret police of the Russian Empire in the late XIX early XX centuries. The article contains an extensive review of scientific and popular scientific research on the secret police of the Russian Empire. The authors examined various methodological approaches to the historical study of the secret police, assessing the achievements and shortcomings, and also analyzed the development of the historiography of the secret police. Having studied the existing scientific works in this field, the authors identify various approaches and interpretations, highlighting the main topics and arguments used by researchers. The key issues of concern to historians who study Russian law enforcement agencies are summarized. The authors share the opinion of the majority of experts who claim in their works that the importance of the secret police always increases many times at the “sharp turns of history”, during acute crises in the development of relations between power structures and democratic institutions, which was observed in imperial Russia in the late XIX early XX centuries. The article concludes that the historiography of the secret police of the Russian Empire of the late XIX early XX centuries is an important and versatile area of modern research. The authors emphasize the importance of studying the secret police as an important tool of political control in Russia in the late XIX early XX centuries and its influence on the development of relations between the state and society in this period. The article will be useful for historians, as well as for anyone interested in political repression and the history of the Russian Empire.

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