Ostrovsky Alexander Vladimirovich - a famous domestic writer and historian, professor, doctor of historical sciences, author of several popular books on the recent history of Russia related to events that took place in the country in the 20th century.
Writer Biography
Ostrovsky Alexander Vladimirovich was born in 1947 in the Kalinin region. He was born in the small village of Ulin in the Zapadnodvinsky district. The future scientist graduated from high school in Velikiye Luki, near Pskov.
At 18, Ostrovsky Alexander Vladimirovich entered the Pskov Pedagogical Institute. He began to study at the Faculty of History. After graduation, he graduated with honors from graduate school at the Institute of History of the USSR Academy of Sciences, located in Leningrad. Its direct scientific supervisor was the Soviet historian Valentin Dyakin, known for his detailed study of the crisis of autocracy at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and the author of the fundamental work “The Crisis of Autocracy in Russia”.
Having received an initial scientific degree, Ostrovsky Alexander Vladimirovich taught at pedagogical institutes, first in Vologda, and then in Yaroslavl, for almost 10 years. At this time, he worked diligently on his own scientific works, in particular, he defended his thesis. The topic of his research was the coup in Russia on June 3, 1907, which led to the early dissolution of the second State Duma.
Teaching career
Ostrovsky Alexander Vladimirovich, whose biography was closely connected with history, since 1984 taught at the Electrotechnical Institute of Communications in Leningrad.
Since 1997, he worked at the Humanitarian Institute of Trade Unions in St. Petersburg. He headed the department of history. He spent four years in this institution. In 2001, he entered into an open conflict with the rector Alexander Zapesotsky. By the way, Zapesotsky is still leading the university. Since 1991 Today he is the oldest rector in Russia in terms of tenure. As a result of the conflict, Ostrovsky Alexander Vladimirovich, whose photo is in this article, left the post of head of the department. And five years later he was completely dismissed from the university.
He did not reconcile with his dismissal, challenged him in court and won. A year later, the servants of Themis canceled the dismissal order, Ostrovsky was reinstated.
Soon, the hero of our article left this university on his own, going to work at the Bonch-Bruyevich Telecommunications University, also located in the city on the Neva. He currently heads the Department of History and Regional Studies at the Faculty of Humanities at this university as a professor.
Scientific work
After defending the Ph.D. historian Ostrovsky Alexander Vladimirovich began work on his doctoral dissertation. In 1982, he made a study on the capitalist restructuring of agricultural production in the European part of Russia, which happened in the late XIX - early XX centuries. In his work, Ostrovsky tried to refute the notion that existed at that time about the exclusively agrarian system in pre-revolutionary Russia.
The first time I failed to defend my dissertation. She was sent for processing. In December 1983, he introduced an updated version, this time called "Grain Production in European Russia at the Turn of the 19th-20th Centuries." But this work was not accepted by the scientific community.
Defense of the thesis
Ostrovsky managed to defend his doctoral dissertation only the third time. The work was published in an even more truncated version. Ultimately, it formed the basis of his book on agriculture in the European North of Russia, starting with the abolition of serfdom and ending with 1914.
For more than 10 years (from 1992 to 2005), Ostrovsky edited the popular science almanac From the Depth of Time. Over the years, 13 issues have been issued, an average of one per year.
Books by Ostrovsky Alexander Vladimirovich
One of Ostrovsky’s most monumental works is the novel “Who stood behind Stalin? Secrets of the revolutionary underground”. In it, the historian made the main emphasis on previously unknown documents, most of which were not even published. Ostrovsky considered his task to expose Stalin's secret ties with representatives of the Armenian and Georgian aristocracy.
In his work, the author carefully followed the path of the future generalissimo, beginning in March 1917, when Joseph Dzhugashvili returned from Turukhansk exile and again began to actively engage in the revolutionary movement, soon gaining popularity under the pseudonym Stalin.
Examining previously unknown archival information, Ostrovsky reveals a lot of mysterious details from the pre-revolutionary biography of the leader of the Soviet people. At the same time, he manages to prove that before the October Revolution he could not cooperate with the tsarist secret police, as some historians accused him. But the writer Ostrovsky Alexander Vladimirovich demonstrates the essence of the revolutionary underground, proving that it had its representatives at all levels of government, even in the police department and the immediate environment of the emperor.
Books on the history of modern Russia
In 2000, Mikhailov’s publishing house published Ostrovsky’s textbook, History of Civilizations. In it, he argues that the history of society is closely connected with the history of the economy, because in production, to one extent or another, even now more than half of the country's able-bodied population are employed. Therefore, he comprehensively analyzes the economy, education, the struggle of parties, classes and peoples in the development of civilizations.
In 2004, another of his important works, Solzhenitsyn: Farewell to Myth, was published. The book was dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the return of the writer and the Gulag prisoner to their homeland. In the book, Ostrovsky traces the entire life path of the Nobel laureate. Particular attention is paid to the inconsistency of his nature. Calling in his novels to live not according to lies, Solzhenitsyn himself often did not adhere to these principles. In connection with this, many facts of his biography look very different.
The death of the USSR
Several books of the historian are devoted to the collapse of the Soviet Union. The book “1993: The Shooting of the White House” was published in 2008. It contains the memoirs of those who defended the White House, as well as those who shot him. They curse each other, make excuses, and many deliberately keep silent about some facts. The author is studying archival materials, checks the testimony of participants, literally every minute restoring the course of events.
In 2010, Ostrovsky publishes a study, "Who set Gorbachev?" In it, he is trying to open the veil of secrecy of the coming of the last Secretary General of the USSR to power. For many, it really remains surprising how he managed to deal so easily with all his opponents in 1985. According to Ostrovsky, this is a real political detective story, the details of which he is trying to figure out.