The Centenary of the October Revolution and Changing Currents in Historical Literature

The present work seeks to provide readers of Russian history with a brief historiographical synopsis of the Romanov Empire‟s revolutionary years in 1917. I plan to divide my paper into two parts. First, I plan to reflect on major scholarly debates surrounding the root causes of the Russian Revolutions of 1917. Instead of delving into a detailed descriptive analysis, I will focus on certain key moments of the revolution and discuss why the underlying social problems that provoked the revolutionaries in 1917 still puzzle contemporary scholars. Ultimately, I will conclude by looking at historians‟ perceptions of the events of 1917, roughly three decades ago, to explain changing trends in the discipline.