SAMPLE PROPOSAL
Remember, this is just a sample--don't treat it as a template or as a model that you must follow blow by blow.
The important point is that it has the 5 elements that must be in your proposal:
1. The precise question you will address in your research
2. How your question relates to issues raised/discussed by other historians who have worked on similar/related topics (what do the secondary sources say?)
3. Why this question is worth answering (from an historian's viewpoint)
4. What primary sources you will use to answer this question
5. What methods of analysis will you use to draw answers out of the primary sources.
This sample proposal does not have a bibliography--your proposal must include a bibliography (see the instructions in the syllabus!). Also, I have formatted this so that it reads more easily on line; YOUR paper must follow the formatting guidelines in the syllabus.
This is a research
proposal
Memory,
Paper Trails, and the Strength of a Good Story:
How Smolensk Got Its “October”
Michael
C. Hickey
Telling the story of Russia's October 1917 Revolution was an important
instrument in the legitimation of Soviet power.
As early as the Revolution's first anniversary, a highly politicized
process of myth-making had emerged. Central
to this process were the recollections of participants in the Revolution, whose
stories emphasized the Communist Party's "heroic" leadership of the
working class. The importance of
memoirs to revolutionary mythology has begun to draw historians' attention.
I propose to look into how a "master narrative," or put another
way, an "official historical memory" of the October Revolution emerged
from memoir literature in one Russian city, Smolensk.
Published memoir sources on
the 1917 Revolution
in Smolensk paint a starkly different picture than that depicted in archival and
contemporary press materials. Based upon
my own archival research, for instance, it is clear that soldiers loyal to the Smolensk Soviet battled
troops loyal to the municipal council for control over the city on 30-31 October
1917, that the fighting
ended in a draw, and that the two sides formed a coalition that ruled Smolensk
through December. Yet in
memoir literature--and as a consequence in Soviet era historical writing--the events
of 30-31 October 1917 became transformed.
Already by
1921, recollections of Communist functionaries had morphed this indecisive clash
into a heroic victory of the proletariat over the forces of counter-revolution,
which resulted in the immediate consolidation of Soviet power locally. In
1922 the local Communist Party Historical Commission (Ispart) began collecting
and disseminating such remembrances. In
1926 Istpart drew up a
program for the compilation of memoirs in preparation
for the Revolution's 10th anniversary; the task of collecting participants' accounts
continued through the 1930s. From
these efforts emerged a dominant master narrative--a way that the story was
supposed to be told--one function of which was to legitimize Soviet
rule. This master narrative had such power
that even today it structures accounts of local historians who, having rejected
Communism, seek to discredit Smolensk's October as the birth of totalitarianism.
This project addresses three issues:
the function of memoirs and official historical memory in the
legitimation of Soviet power, the importance of local contexts in shaping master
narratives, and the malleability of historical memory.
Only one other study has addressed the function of revolutionary memoirs in
legitimizing Communist rule,
Fred Corney's 1997 Columbia University dissertation. But
Corney does not investigate the role of official historical memory in asserting
Soviet authority in the Russian provinces, where the Party's hold was often
quite shaky. Moreover, studies of
Soviet historiography have focused almost exclusively on how national
politics and official ideology influenced historical writing and have ignored
local contexts. Local issues, though, often were critical in shaping the
myth history of the October Revolution in the provinces.
To understand how the story of Smolensk's October came into being, I am
looking at local contests over the legitimacy of memory and personal authority
and at gaps in the documentation available to local historians.
Finally, this research fits into broader discussions of the nature and
malleability of historical memory.
Ispart materials in the Center for Documentation of the Recent History of
the Smolensk Region (TsDNISO) make it possible to explore these three issues.
In summer 1998 I worked with local Ispart materials at TsDNISO, as part
of my large project on the 1917 Revolution.
I found more than 50 files containing manuscript drafts of memoirs, as
well as correspondence detailing ongoing conflicts over collecting and editing
memoirs. But I had time to read
only half of these. I intend to complete work in these files on a research trip
to Smolensk in July 1999, during which I will also order microfilm copies of
several memoirs for later review. This
research will involve close reading of manuscript drafts and published versions
of memoirs to determine what sorts of editorial changes were made, when, and by
whom. It will also involve
analyzing Ispart correspondence to determine how directives from above
influenced the collection and publication of historical memoirs, and
scrutinizing internal Ispart correspondence to determine how issues such as the
personality and personal authority of memoirists shaped this process. In particular, I will address the following questions:
What guidelines for the collection and editing of memoirs did Communist
Party officials provide to Smolensk Ispart, and what editorial guidelines were
determined locally? What kinds of
editorial changes did Ispart make to manuscript drafts of memoirs and why?
To what extent did issues of personality and the political authority of
various memoirists influence the Ispart committee's editorial decisions?
How did published memoirs differ from their manuscript versions and what
changes appeared in the course of republication in other venues at other times?
And finally, how did the Smolensk Ispart committee address problems
created by "blank spots" in documentation?
This project involves two components:
research in Ispart archival records, and writing up the results.
I will conduct research in Smolensk during a single week in July 1999.
As I have already worked in local Ispart materials and have the relevant
file (delo) numbers for TsDNISO fond 7 (the Ispart record group),
I can begin work on the project immediately upon arriving in Smolensk. Given the close reading that I am proposing, I will need to
have microfilm copies made of several longer handwritten memoir manuscripts.
Microfilm (about 50 cents per page) is far more cost effective than
photocopying at the archive (a minimum of $2 per page).
I have good relations with local archivists, and access to materials and
provision of microfilm copies is assured. The
archive will deliver microfilms to me via the International Research and
Exchanges Board in Washington DC, as it has routinely over the past five years. I will begin writing in September 1999, and I am scheduled to
deliver a version of this paper at the American Association for the Advancement
of Slavic Studies conference in November 1999.
I will then revise the paper for submission to the journal Revolutionary
Russia in January 2000.
REMEMBER that you must include a bibliography that follows the guidelines in the syllabus and the follows the bibliography format in the Rampolla book!