The Pugachev uprising in the historiography of Central and Western Europe in the first quarter of the 21st century

For thirty years now, the history of the Pugachev uprising has been experiencing a rapid process of rethinking the analytical categories and interpretations that had been used in historiography seventy years before. This process of rethinking has gone so far as to completely overturn achievements traditionally considered firmly established, with a consequent fragmentation of the theoretical foundations on which they rested. New interpretations, developing at different times, in different ways and with different goals, stemmed from a common beginning - criticism of the Marxist interpretation of the uprising. Revisiting the Soviet interpretation of the Pugachev uprising as a class war between peasants and nobles, English-language and European writers outside Russia emphasized other aspects of the uprising, especially when it came to the movement to restore Cossack autonomy and the protest of peripheral ethnic groups and nationalities. This article aims to demonstrate how this thesis of the peripheral revolt has shown in recent years that it still leaves several places open for further thought, and what its recent updates have been in the historiography of Central and Western Europe.

Pugachev, uprising, historiography, cossacks, popular movements, Catherine II