Life and death of a Soviet French studies specialist. Nina Sidorova (1910–1961)

Nina Aleksandrovna Sidorova (1910–1961) holds a reputation as the «evil genius of Russian medieval studies», embodying the Stalinist style of scholarship and characterized by excessive ambition; her works are often denied any scholarly significance. This view was shared even by those Russian medievalists of the early 21st century who fervently disagreed with one another in their assessments of the past of our academic community. Yet, it remains little known that in an obituary published in 1963 in the journal Annales, Jacques Le Goff expressed warm appreciation for Sidorova and highly praised her approach to studying 12th–13th-century French culture. At the same time, Le Goff enjoyed unquestionable authority precisely among those medievalists who viewed Sidorova’s contribution to scholarship with such skepticism. This article attempts to comprehend the reasons for this contradiction through a comprehensive study of Sidorova’s biography, academic and organizational activities within the context of her time. It examines her behavioral strategies and career choice strategies, adopting positions during the ideological campaigns of late Stalinism, as well as her practices of scientific management when she was the head of the Department of Medieval History at the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1952–1961). Particular attention is devoted to the analysis of her monograph and articles dedicated to the study of early urban culture in France. This approach makes it possible to identify the stylistic peculiarities of Sidorova’s organizational, scholarly, and pedagogical activities

Contradiction · Genius · Historiography · Ideology · Obituary · Reputation · Scholarship · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · Historical and Political Studies · Soviet and Russian History