The article is devoted to the historical research of political elite in the Weimar Republic carried out by means of a collective biography method appeared at the junction of history and social and political sciences. As historical narrative of a biography can be oriented to a description standard set by a concrete science, the authors proceeded from intersubject connections between history and politology. The subject of the research is biographies of Reich chancellors of Weimar Germany as representatives of the ruling political elite. The Weimar chancellors' collective portrait is presented in three aspects: social; institutional and legal; practical and political. The research of the political biographies was oriented to these three aspects. During the Weimar period a generational change took place in the political elite, which lead to substantial changes in the social elite in common. The biographical analysis of Weimar chancellors' work shows that their political typology: the so-called "aussenseiters", "forced republicans" and "neo-traditionalists", depicted the fragmentation character of the whole political elite. Though a traditional segment of the political elite's structure is still the nobility, there are new social, ethnic and confessional, party and political groups in it. Individual socialization character and professional background of the majority of the new elite oriented it not to getting the so-called status rent and privileges but to effective solution for practical issues by means of education, communication and personal characteristics. It was a functional elite to a large extent. The main field of struggle for the political elite's various groups was decision-making process during which the demarcation of party and group interests and national interests became obviously evident. The chronological order of Weimar chancellors' figures revealed a characteristic tendency of the evolution of the political elite in Germany in the interwar period. The results of the Reichstag elections showed that the number of supporters of democracy decreased sharply after every elections and democratically oriented elite started to lose its electorate. Because of constant contradictions between party and national interests, the representatives of the ruling political elite came into conflicts with their own parties, not to mention their oppositional parties. In that situation the fundamental base of the Weimar elite, its open character, became subject to revision. Transition from an open to a close elite, from party representatives to non-party administrators revealed itself also during the forming of cabinets of ministers and election of Reich chancellors as their heads. The variant of the characteristic of the political elite in the Weimar Republic presented in the article, which model is a biographical analysis of personalities making a representative group, let us positively assess the possibilities of a collective biography method in the historical research.

Представлен опыт исторического исследования политической элиты Веймарской республики при помощи метода «коллективной биографии». Авторы исходили из межпредметных связей истории и политологии. Предметом изучения являются биографии рейхсканцлеров Веймарской Германии как представителей правящей политической элиты. Коллективный портрет веймарских канцлеров дается в трех ракурсах: в социальном; институционально-правовом; практическиполитическом.