ON THE QUESTION OF THE “BEGINNINGS” OF HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE RUSSIAN SCIENCE OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY

Abstract

The paper presents the results of the study on the importance of the historiographical component in the Russian science of universal history at the beginning of the second half of the XIX century. Special attention is paid to the study by Russian historians of the European science of universal history, which had a significant impact on the formation of the Russian science of universal history, starting with the university lecture courses by T.N. Granovsky and P.N. Kudryavtsev in the middle of the XIX – the beginning of the XX century. Special attention is paid to the first historiographical works by Mikhail Nazarovich Petrov (“The Latest National Historiography in Germany, England and France”) and Vladimir Ivanovich Guerrier (“Essay on the Development of Historical Science”), due to whom the European historiography of universal history turned into a research field. These two works, one of which was published in Kharkov in 1861, and the other – in 1865 in Moscow, laid the “beginnings” of historiography per se, i.e. historiography as an independent scientific discipline with its own research subject, methods, methodology, etc. In fact, there was rethinking of historiography as a historical phenomenon, and consequently, there was a need to find the “point” where knowledge about the history of science acquired its internal logic and thus turned from historiographical experience into systematized knowledge. The essence of this “point” (or moment) is that a system or organized knowledge (in other words, a concept) appeared in historiography, which turned knowledge about the history of science into a scientific discipline. The questions when and how this happened remain open. In any case, M.N. Petrov and V.I. Guerrier were the first Russian historians who sought to turn the “beginnings” of historiography into a scientific discipline. The question of the priority of the first Russian professional historiographer is still unresolved. V.E. Illeritsky expressed an opinion that it belongs to S.M. Solovyov, according to R.A. Kireeva – to M.O. Koyalovich.