[The Great restoration: Post-Communist transformations from the viewpoint of comparative historical sociology of restorations]

ENIt is not very common in the field of historical research to come across ambitious works offering new theories. In this study, however, Zenonas Norkus suggests creating a new direction in comparative historical sociology, comparative restoration studies, and lays its foundations by presenting a theory for the research and assessment of post-revolutionary restorations, including possible research methods. With this aim, he used a comparison of the restorations that followed the two great revolutions of the modern age, the revolutions in 1789 in France and in 1917 in Russia. From the outset, identifying the changes that occurred after the collapse of the USSR as a restoration is rather unusual in itself, as political scientists and sociologists usually speak of a transition from the command to the market economy, from a non-democratic party-state to democracy, whereas restoration applies to the reinstatement of political independence in only some of the republics of the USSR (first and foremost the Baltic States). Even more surprising is the comparison of these events with the post-Napoleonic restoration. The occurrence of a number of proofreading oversights somewhat dampens the impression of this work, and reflects badly on the Brill publishing house, especially the incorrect dates in numerous places. Bearing in mind the importance of statistics in this work, I hope the proofreading errors did not affect other figures. [p. 284].