Sokolov Boris Vadimovich - Russian literary critic, historian, literary critic. The results of his literary work cause a lot of controversy. What is remarkable about his books and why did he become objectionable to the Russian authorities? His life path and creativity will be discussed in this article.
Biography: Boris Sokolov
Boris was born in Moscow on January 2, 1957. In 1979 he graduated from Moscow State University (Faculty of Geography), and later, in 1986, he defended his thesis and received a Ph.D. in history from the Institute of Ethnography of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1992, he became a doctor of philological sciences, defending work at the same MSU.
He worked as a professor at the Department of Social Anthropology at the Russian State Social University. Boris Sokolov is a member of the Russian PEN Center and AIRO-XXI, columnist of the newspaper "Jewish Word" and a regular author of the site "Grani.ru", the author of about 100 articles and 60 books on Russian literature and history of the USSR. His works are presented not only in Russian, they are also translated into English, Japanese, Polish, Estonian and Latvian. For a long time he was a member of the Free Historical Society Boris Sokolov.
Books of literary critic
The work of Russian literary critic covers many works, including: the books “Secrets of Russian Writers”, “Decrypted Bulgakov: Secrets of the Masters and Margarita”, “World War II: Versions and Facts”, “100 Great Wars”, “Occupation: Truth and Myths” "," Secrets of the Finnish War "," 100 Great Politicians "," The Great Gandhi. The Righteous of Power ”,“ Wolf Messing ”,“ Secrets of the Second World War ”,“ My book about Vladimir Sorokin ”, the encyclopedia“ Gogol ”and“ Bulgakov ”and others.
Boris Sokolov also described biographies of great personalities: Sergei Yesenin, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Peter Wrangel, Winston Churchill, Lorenz Beria, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Boris Pasternak, George Zhukov, Nadezhda Krupskaya, Konstantin Rokossimsky, Henry Tchaikovsky, Henry Seeds of Budyonny, the soothsayer Vanga, etc. Many of the author's works give completely unpredictable answers to questions regarding the biographical data of his characters.
“Did Saakashvili lose?”: Opinion of B. Sokolov
In 2008, after the publication of the article “Did Saakashvili lose”, he completed his cooperation with the Russian State Social University. Sokolov in his publication argued that Russia would in any case have found a reason for a military operation against Georgia. The government of the Russian Federation would play another scenario and capture Tbilisi in a day, even if there was no Georgian strike on Tskhinval.
The author of the article in his publication called the actions of Saakashvili not only "rational, but also the only right ones to save his land." Sokolov believes that Mikheil Saakashvili decided to start the war on the first day of the Olympics, where the Russian Prime Minister was present (the president was on vacation on the Volga at that time) in order to forestall a potential enemy. Russian troops had to fight off Tskhinval for several days, instead of immediately invading Georgian territory. Boris Sokolov assures that this plan was developed in advance, and he considers Georgia to be the undisputed winner in this conflict, since “she now has chances for joining NATO as never before.” But Russia, according to the author, lost.
After the publication of the publication, Sokolov was asked to write a letter of resignation of his own free will. According to him, this happened after a call to the administration from the Presidential Administration. The article was immediately removed from the newspaper’s website.
Accusation of the historian of incorrectness
Boris Sokolov acted as an expert in the film The Soviet Story, which caused numerous controversy and allegations of fraud and manipulation. In 2010, he signed an appeal from the opposition that Putin should leave. In 2015, he commented on the accession of Crimea to the Russian Federation as follows: “Russia has taken the territory, which, in fact, it does not need. A territory that does not bear any value for the country - neither cultural, nor economic, nor military-strategic. ” Due to such frank statements, in May 2016 he was accused of incorrectly quoting other people's works, inappropriate handling of sources and expelled from the Free Historical Society.
Data inaccuracies: randomness or falsification?
Some writers claim that Sokolov’s works contain many errors and inaccuracies. Many publicists, sociologists and historians consider the data on the losses of the Red Army during the Second World War, which Sokolov cites in his publications, considered unreliable. In the book “Price of Victory” Sokolov counts the dead soldiers of the USSR and Nazi Germany. However, the methodology by which he does this is quite inaccurate and, as was proved later by other researchers, significantly distorts the real numbers. In particular, when Sokolov was counting the losses of Russian soldiers.
Academician of the RAS Osipov Gennady says that Boris Sokolov is a historian, so he should only operate on verified facts, and he is not clear on what. He called all his calculations absurd, and himself “an indefatigable professional falsifier." Nevertheless, Sokolov’s work is worthy of attention. In his books the reader will find a lot of interesting and new things, will discover historical chronicles on the other hand, and will solve many riddles of the great works of world literature.
Instead of a conclusion
In any case, reader, will you get acquainted with the work of Boris Sokolov or someone else, draw conclusions not based on the opinions of others and stereotypes, but on the basis of your own analysis and experience.