Political and Ideological Campaigns of the Late 1940s – Early 1950s and Higher Education in History in Sverdlovsk

Abstract

This article analyses the influence of the political and ideological campaigns of the second half of the 1940s and early 1950s on the development of higher education in history in Sverdlovsk. Based on annual departmental reports and minutes of meetings of party organizations, it examines the mechanisms of ideological control that determined the directions of research and educational activity within the History Department of Ural State University. The study demonstrates that the tightening of party supervision led to a revision of research topics, adjustments to academic courses, and a greater emphasis on ideologically significant subjects, substantially narrowing the problem field of research in the humanities. The political and ideological campaigns were accompanied by personnel changes: some faculty members were criticized, demoted, or ‘relieved of their assignments’ in connection with methodological, ideological, or administrative complaints. The most significant episodes of ideological pressure involved M. A. Gorlovsky, M. Ya. Syuzyumov, N. A. Finkelstein, K. B. Gadashevich, B. A. Divinsky, S. G. Livshits, N. M. Katerinochkin, and others. The article establishes that, despite the absence of the mass repressions characteristic of the 1930s, the political mobilization of the second half of the 1940s and early 1950s substantially undermined the institutional stability of the History Department of Ural State University, led to a shortage of personnel, and slowed its scholarly and pedagogical development. At the same time, some faculty members avoided the negative consequences of ideological pressure owing to the support of regional and Moscow-based scholars. The study clarifies the specific ways in which the campaigns of late Stalinism affected regional scholarly and pedagogical communities in higher-education institutions and reconstructs the changes they brought about in the system of higher education in history in Sverdlovsk, as well as their long-term consequences.