On March 8-13, 1976, the Soviet-Swedish Historians ' Symposium was held in Stockholm. It was organized by the Royal Academy of Humanities, the Swedish Institute for Cultural and scientific relations between Sweden and other countries, and the National Committee of Historians of the Soviet Union on the Soviet side. The Soviet delegation consisted of: Academician E. M. Zhukov (head of the delegation), corresponding member. Academy of Sciences of the USSR Yu. A. Polyakov, acad. A. A. Drizul, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences of the Latvian SSR. Kakhk, E. I. Agayan, V. I. Buganov, Yu.V. Kudrina, G. A. Nekrasov, V. V. Roginsky, S. S. Khromov, O. V. Chernysheva. Swedish participants of the forum represented various research centers: the universities of Stockholm, Gothenburg, Lund, as well as the Royal Swedish Academy of Humanities.

At the official opening of the symposium, the report of the former Swedish Ambassador to the USSR G. Jarring "Culture of Swedish prisoners of war in Siberia in the first half of the XVIII century"was heard. The speaker elaborated on the research activities in the field of geography, ethnography, and linguistics of Siberia of Swedish prisoners of war, among whom were many educated people who were exiled by the tsarist government during the Northern War to settle in Tobolsk province. When they returned home after the Peace of Nystad in 1721, the publication of materials about their research helped to arouse interest in the study of Siberia. G. Yarring especially noted the merits of F. I. Stralenberg ¹ (whose 300th birthday will be celebrated in Sweden this year), who published a map of Russia and the "Great Tartary" in 1730. the book "Historical and geographical description of the northern and eastern parts of Europe and Asia".

The works of F. I. Stralenberg, K. G. Shulman, I. G. Renat and others on ancient Turkic texts, the Kalmyk language, and their creation of maps of Central Asia stimulated and encouraged European researchers in the 19th and early 20th centuries to study the peoples of Asia.

During the working sessions, 10 reports were heard. Three of them were devoted to various aspects of the situation of the peasantry and peasant movements in the Middle Ages and modern times in Sweden and Russia. In the report of S. U. Palme "On the peasantry. Social situation of the Swedish peasantry in the Middle Ages" it was shown that in the XII-XIII centuries.among the free rural population of Sweden, Sturmans - feudal lords, bonds - peasants who own land, and landbu - peasants who rented land were distinguished. These categories of the rural population differed in their property and legal status. Having considered the Swedish regional laws of the 13th century, the speaker noted that a number of aspects of these laws, indicating the equality of peasants, no longer corresponded to reality. In his opinion, these aspects were introduced into Swedish regional laws under the influence of Roman law, and not German traditional ideas about freedom.

V. I. Buganov (Institute of History of the USSR, Academy of Sciences of the USSR) made a report on peasant movements in Russia during feudalism. He described the main stages of the peasants ' class struggle, the causes of peasant revolts, the driving forces of these movements, the views and demands, the ideology of their participants, the causes of defeats and the historical significance of these revolts, as well as the similarities and significant differences between peasant wars in Russia and the countries of Western and Central Europe. The report emphasized that the class struggle of the peasants against the feudal system throughout Europe

¹ See M. G. Novlyanskaya. Philipp Johann Stralenberg. His works on the study of Siberia, Moscow, 1966.

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It played a major historical role in the socio-economic and political development of many countries, in the transition from the feudal formation to the capitalist one. In his report, Kakhk touched upon the problems of typology and quantitative study of peasant movements in Russia in the XVII-XIX centuries. He elaborated on the experience of research conducted by Estonian historians on the classification of feudal actions of Baltic peasants in the 17th century. The Swedish historian A. Loit, who spoke on the report of Yu. Y. Kakhka, highlighted the problem of the interdependence of peasant movements and feudal rent, the correlation of peasant movements and urban unrest.

A number of reports were devoted to Russian-Swedish relations. Associate of the Historical Institute of Stockholm University K. Petersson devoted his report to the history of the Naval Charter of Peter I (1720). According to Petersson, the adoption of the charter was the result of the activities of a commission specially formed for its development, and not personally Peter I, whose role in creating the charter in literature is greatly exaggerated. The Naval Charter of 1720, the speaker emphasized, was based on the charter of Louis XIV.

V. I. Buganov and G. A. Nekrasov (Institute of History of the USSR, Academy of Sciences of the USSR) took part in the discussion of this report. V. I. Buganov noted that the government of Peter the Great, during the course of administrative reforms, widely referred to the experience of European countries, including Sweden, but treated it critically, creatively and in all cases put on the first place is occupied by the needs of the Russian state. G. A. Nekrasov emphasized the same idea in his speech, pointing out the creative contribution of Peter I to the creation of the Naval Charter of 1720.

Reports on relations between Russia and Sweden in the first half of the 19th century were presented by M. Metcalf (Historical Institute of Stockholm University) and V. V. Roginsky (Institute of General History of the USSR Academy of Sciences). In his report "On the line of 1812 in Swedish politics before the Crimean War", Metcalf tried to prove that Russian-Swedish relations received a completely different content after the establishment of universal peace in Europe in 1815. According to M. Metcalf, Russian-Swedish cooperation expressed the limited aspirations of both conservative dynasties in the period from the European revolutions of 1830 to the end of the Crimean War of 1856.

V. V. Roginsky's report "The Union of Russia and Sweden in 1812" showed that the rapprochement and union of Russia and Sweden in 1812 were not only the result of a set of circumstances, as stated in the Metcalfe report, but also a natural consequence of the previous development and final victory of the peace-loving, good-neighborly trend in Swedish foreign policy. The speaker emphasized that the Union of 1812 was a turning point in relations between Russia and Sweden of the new era.

Two reports were presented on the problems of modern history. O. V. Chernysheva's report (Institute of General History of the USSR Academy of Sciences) "State-monopoly capitalism in Sweden during the Second World War" examined the relationship between state power and the private economy of Sweden, the role of state regulation of economic life, and new forms of state intervention in the economy. during the war years, it occurred in parallel with the growing influence of the monopolistic bourgeoisie on public administration, which was reflected, in particular, in the mass involvement of representatives of the bourgeoisie in the administrative apparatus of wartime. The report emphasized that increased state regulation during the war years did not prevent the growth of monopolies ' profits and increased capital investment, and thus served to strengthen capitalist relations.

The head of the sector at the Institute of Economic History of the University of Gothenburg, M. Fritz, when defining the concept of "state-monopoly capitalism", supported the Marxist point of view. He described the role of state regulation in the field of foreign trade and prices during the Second World War and the importance of Swedish exports, in particular iron ore, to Germany. M. Fritz elaborated on Swedish research projects on the Swedish economy in the XX century (at Gothenburg and Uppsala Universities). Y. V. Kudrina addressed the questions raised by O. V. Chernysheva and M. Fritz

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(Institute of General History of the USSR Academy of Sciences). It addressed issues of state regulation in the field of foreign trade, primarily in the field of Swedish-German trade during the Second World War. Yu. V. Kudrina touched upon the nature of the Swedish-German trade turnover, the significant share of Germany and the countries occupied by it in Swedish imports, the issue of Swedish corporate loans to Germany, and focused on the evolution of relations between Sweden and Germany, which occurred under the influence of a radical change in the course of the war caused by the victories of the Red Army.

L. Samuelsson, a lecturer at Stockholm University, spoke about the results of his research on the development of planning in the USSR in the 1920s on the example of the North-Western region. He stressed that the study of the Soviet planning experience is of great interest due to the growing Soviet-Swedish economic relations in recent years. Corresponding members also spoke on the report. Yu. A. Polyakov noted the great importance of the study devoted to the first-ever experience of scientific planning of the economy, as well as the importance of regional works for studying the economic development of the country as a whole. At the same time, he drew attention to the fact that the report does not reflect the class orientation of planning in the USSR. In the 1920s, when the victory of socialism was not yet achieved, planning was carried out in a mixed economy. There was a struggle going on between the socialist sector, on the one hand, and the private capitalist sector, on the other. The state's policy was focused on the full development of the socialist sector. The planning carried out by state organizations, of course, was subordinated to the solution of this problem. Khromov positively assessed the problem statement and the objectivity with which L. Samuelsson considers the issues put forward, supported the high assessment of the GOELRO plan given by the Swedish historian, and noted the wide source base of the report. He further pointed out the need to take into account the fact that planning itself became possible due to the victory of the socialist revolution in the USSR and the creation of a socialist sector in its economy, that planning is a pattern of development of the socialist economy, which was not paid attention to in the report. The history of planning the economy of each region should be covered in direct connection with the history of planning on a national scale, S. S. Khromov emphasized.

G. A. Nekrasov made a report on "The History of Sweden in the works of Russian pre-revolutionary and Soviet historians". He noted that interest in the history of Sweden has a fairly long tradition in Russia, due not only to the geographical proximity of the two countries, but also to the long-term economic, political and cultural ties between them that go back centuries. The report showed how the history of Sweden was studied in pre-revolutionary Russia and the USSR, analyzed the topics and identified the contribution of Russian and Soviet scientists to the study of Swedish history. The speaker noted that in Soviet historiography, this country is given more space than other Scandinavian countries; there are certain achievements in developing a general concept and periodization of the history of Sweden, problems of the recent history of political and economic relations between the two countries, as well as the early history of Scandinavia, craft and trade of medieval Sweden, agrarian relations of the second half of XVIII century and others. However, these results, according to G. A. Nekrasov, should be considered only as the beginning of an in-depth study of the history of Sweden in the light of Marxist-Leninist teaching.

Acad. A. A. Drizul of the Academy of Sciences of the Latvian SSR spoke in detail about the study of the history of the Baltic countries in scientific institutions of the republic. He noted that the events of the political history of the 17th century made it necessary for modern researchers to comprehensively study the foreign and domestic policies of the Baltic states, and in particular Sweden, in order to analyze the historical development of Latvia and Estonia. This is especially true of the so-called "Baltic question", agrarian relations and the situation of the Latvian and Estonian peasantry. A. A. Drizul pointed to the works of Soviet historians of Latvia, who, rejecting the thesis of bourgeois historiography about the "good Swedish times", came to the conclusion that the Swedish government, relying on the local German nobility, developed a new approach to the development of the Baltic State. a special system of measures that provided him with

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the vast possibilities of military-feudal exploitation of possessions in the Eastern Baltic States, that the main burden of state taxes fell on the shoulders of the peasants and every year feudal-serf exploitation increased.

In his report "On the Marxist periodization of History on the example of Sweden", K. Garner, Master of Philosophy at Lund University, made an attempt to prove the inconsistency of the approach of Soviet historians to the periodization of social formations. This position was criticized by Academician E. M. Zhukov, who characterized the Marxist philosophical principles of periodization of history, as well as the relationship between the logical concepts of "general", "special" and "individual" in application to the historical process. E. M. Zhukov emphasized that the consistent change of socio-economic formations is the logic of history, its main component. It is shown on a world-historical scale that the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of socio-economic formations is derived from the analysis of the development of humanity as a whole. The concrete historical path of individual countries is complicated by a lot of accidents, but the periodization of the history of one country cannot be separated from world history.

A joint decision was made to hold the next symposium in spring 1978 in Moscow. Sample topics for discussion include: 1. The role of the nobility in the era of feudalism; 2. The genesis of capitalist relations in Russia and Sweden; 3. Soviet-Swedish relations. Soviet historians got acquainted with the Slavic department of Stockholm University and visited Uppsala University, where a meeting with historians was organized; Professor S. Lindruth introduced the guests to the collection of rare books of this oldest university in Sweden. In general, the symposium was a success and was useful for strengthening scientific ties between Soviet and Swedish historians.

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