Kirill Aleksandrov is a Russian historian, journalist, whose scientific works and publications devoted to General Vlasov, the anti-Stalinist movement in the USSR, the Soviet-Finnish war, each time caused a wide public response. Aleksandrov is considered a scandalous person, accused of antipatriotism and attempts to rehabilitate Nazism. But who is he really and why does he look at historical facts from a completely different angle?
Biography
The date of birth of Kirill Mikhailovich Alexandrov is September 18, 1972. Hometown - St. Petersburg. The father of the future historian served in the navy. At school, Aleksandrov studied in a class with a historical bias. His teacher was Gustav Aleksandrovich Boguslavsky, a wonderful storyteller and a wise man who managed to instill in young Kirill a love of history.
Having received a certificate, in 1989 he joined the People's Labor Union of Russian Solidarists. This organization unites politically active representatives of the Russian emigration. Since then, he has maintained close relations with representatives of the Russian emigration.
He began his career in 1990 as a correspondent for the Russian service on Radio Lithuania and the newspaper Sodeystvie in Vilnius. In 2002-2005 he worked as a teacher of social studies and history at school No. 154 in St. Petersburg. From 2005 to 2009, he held the position of Senior Research Fellow at the Encyclopedic Department of the Institute for Philological Research, St. Petersburg State University.
Paying tribute to the interest in the White movement, from the early 90s to the mid-2000s, Aleksandrov participated in the movement of young scouts. He served as the head of a detachment of young scouts, named after Major General Drozdovsky, the commander of a division of the Volunteer Army. Together with his associates, he spent over 40 camps.
About Kirill Alexandrov's personal life, it is only known that he is married and has two sons.
Higher education and academic degrees:
- 1995 - Diploma of the Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, Faculty of Social Sciences.
- 1998 - full-time postgraduate study at the Voznesensky St. Petersburg State University of Economics and Finance, Department of History of Russia and Foreign Countries.
- 2002 - candidate of historical sciences, dissertation on the topic “Armed formations of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia in 1944-1945. The problem of operational characteristics”.
- 2016 - Doctor of Science, dissertation on the topic "Generals and officers of the armed formations of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia 1943-1946." Due to the ambiguous assessment of the historical facts presented in the scientific work, on July 26, 2017, the Minister of Education Trubnikov canceled the decision to award Aleksandrov a doctorate.
Historical and journalistic activities
The main sphere of Aleksandrov's professional interests is the history of Russia in the first half of the twentieth century, in particular:
- anti-Stalinist resistance of the 30-40s;
- historical aspects of the Second World War;
- study of the Russian Liberation Army;
- history of the White emigration.
For a comprehensive study of the above topics, Kirill Aleksandrov works a lot in the archives of Russia, the USA, and Germany. For example, in 1994, while preparing for the filming of a German film about General Vlasov, he studied 24 volumes of this resonant case. The historian lamented that he did not get access to the remaining five volumes. Even the big money paid by German filmmakers did not help.
Kirill Aleksandrov is the author of the books Against Stalin: Collection of Articles and Materials, Army of General Vlasov 1944-1945, Russian Soldiers of the Wehrmacht. Heroes or traitors. " Books published in co-authorship: "Soviet-Finnish War 1939-1940", "History of Russia in the XX century", "Two Russia in the XX century."
Aleksandrov's journalistic activities include about 300 articles on Russian history and over 200 materials on other topics. He collaborates with newspapers and magazines Posev, White Guard, Rodina, World of Bibliography, Clio, Notes of the Russian Academic Group in the USA. In 2003-2009 he worked as his own correspondent for the newspaper "Russian Life", which is published in San Francisco. Aleksandrov is a member of the editorial boards of the St. Petersburg magazine "Russian Past" and the Moscow edition of the Military Historical Archive. In the military-historical magazine Novy Chasov, he is deputy editor-in-chief.
On the topic of occupation policy during World War II, Aleksandrov talked with eminent foreign historians. In 1993, he interviewed German military historian Joachim Hoffmann, and in 1995 - with Stanford University professor Alexander Dallin. Kirill Aleksandrov actively participates in domestic and foreign conferences on history.
Other activities
Kirill Aleksandrov took part in the filming of the documentary series “The Second World War. Day by Day”,“The Great and Forgotten”about the First World War and“Winter War”about the Soviet-Finnish War. He can also be seen in a number of episodes of the "Serving the Fatherland" program on Channel One. At the radio station "Grad Petrov", which has a church orientation, Aleksandrov conducts historical programs.
Scandals
As already mentioned, in July 2017, Kirill Aleksandrov was deprived of his doctorate, which he received a year earlier. To all the accusations about the dissertation, he calmly remarked: “It is just that the historian should not serve the truths that are considered unshakable. The historian states, not evaluates, as the outstanding medievalist Mark Blok said. The historian's task is to describe events in the first place, and to a lesser extent, although this cannot be avoided, to analyze them from the point of view of evaluative categories. And everything else is a policy of incontinence of pseudo-patriotic feelings on some common wave that we are all experiencing now."
Around the same time, the court became interested in his article in Novaya Gazeta on the topic "Bandera and Bandera: who they really were." SPbU experts came to the conclusion that the author of the article distorts historical facts and, using false arguments, approves of the crimes. By decision of the Leninsky District Court, the material was declared extremist.
Novaya Gazeta appealed against this decision, but the St. Petersburg City Court upheld the verdict.
