Anzhelika Vitalyevna Petruk as an Intellectual History Researcher: A Review of the Dissertation “Vladimir Arsenyev: An Intellectual Biography”
Sergey V. Lyubichankovskiy, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor
Orenburg State Pedagogical University, Orenburg, Russia, svlubich@yandex.ru, https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8349-1359
Abstract
The review article examines the dissertation by Anzhelika Vitalyevna Petruk “Vladimir Arsenyev: An Intellectual Biography”, completed in specialty 5.6.1 “National History” and devoted to a comprehensive interpretation of Vladimir K. Arsenyev as a researcher, writer and popularizer of science in the context of the history of the Russian Far East and Russian intellectual history of the late 19th — first third of the 20th centuries. The author consistently implements the format of an intellectual biography, combining biographical, textual and contextual analysis, introduces into scholarly use a considerable array of previously unpublished archival and museum documents, ego-documents, and formulates the concept of Arsenyev as a “genius loci” and a symbolic resource for the region. Special attention is paid to the source base of the dissertation, its methodological toolkit (historical-anthropological and cultural-historical approaches, the biographical method, elements of hermeneutic and discourse analysis), as well as to the assessment of the scientific novelty associated with the interpretation of Arsenyev’s prose as “literature of personal experience” and with the study of practices of memorializing the scholar’s legacy. The review highlights the strengths of the research — conceptual coherence, the breadth of its empirical base, and its clear integration into the problematic field of intellectual history — and formulates debatable remarks concerning historiographical positioning and further elaboration of the notions of a “symbolic resource” and “literature of personal experience”.
Keywords
Vladimir Klavdievich Arsenyev, intellectual biography, intellectual history, Russian Far East, symbolic resource of the region, literature of personal experience, public history, dissertation.
For citation:
Lyubichankovskiy S. V. Anzhelika Vitalyevna Petruk as an Intellectual History Researcher: A Review of the Dissertation “Vladimir Arsenyev: An Intellectual Biography”. Vestnik of Orenburg State Pedagogical University. Electronic Scientific Journal, 2026, no. 2 (58), pp. 253—260. DOI: https://doi.org/10.32516/2303-9922.2026.58.15.
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