On May 22–23, 2023, the All-Russian scientific conference «The Historian Who Chose the Path of Galileo» was held in Saratov, dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of Professor V.V. Pugachev. It was organized by the Department of Russian History and Archeology of the Institute of History and International Relations of Saratov State University named after N.G. Chernyshevsky (SGU). The conference was attended by historians, philologists, sociologists, archivists, representatives of universities and academic institutions from Saratov, Moscow, Tyumen, Surgut, and Balashov. The extraordinary personality of V.V. Pugachev and his scientific heritage became the starting point of many reports. Pugachev was a great expert on the problems of the history of Russian social thought and the liberation movement from Novikov and Radishchev to Chernyshevsky. The Decembrists, Pushkin, Nicholas I were its main characters. In his book «Historians Who Chose the Path of Galileo», the author presented creative portraits of teachers and fellow humanities scholars who suffered from repression and ideological campaigns of the Soviet era, but did not change their views. The ever relevant problem of relations between power and personality in all its aspects determined the speeches of many conference participants. The biography and works of Pugachev, scientific life and the epistolary heritage of university scientists, domestic and foreign historiography of the Russian liberation movement, historical plots in fiction – such topics were the focus of the speaker’s attention and evoked a lively response from the audience. The qualities that Pugachev possessed – an inner freedom, an original look at the past through the prism of modernity, literary erudition – are still important today for university researchers and attractive to students.
liberation movement; social thought; historiography; V.V. Pugachev; Yu.G. Oksman; Saratov University named after N.G. Chernyshevsky.