A New Work on the History of Russian Historical Science

Abstract

The article is a review of a new book by the Israeli historian Vera Kaplan, “Historians and Historical Societies in the Public Life of Imperial Russia”, which examines the participation of professional historians in the activities of various public organizations engaged in the formation and the popularization of historical knowledge in the Russian Empire. As a theoretical basis for her research, the author uses the concept of “public sphere” proposed by the modern German philosopher J. Habermas. This approach, which makes it possible to form a new view on the object of research, seems very productive. The author of the monograph reconstructs the activity of historical societies in the public sphere on the basis of a fairly representative source base. Beginning from the first decades of the 18th century, the author describes the process of forming communities of this type, focusing especially on the activities of public organizations of historical orientation of the second half of the 19th — early 20th centuries. These are, first of all, such organizations as the Imperial Russian Historical Society and the Society of Zealots of Russian Historical Enlightenment. The researcher analyzes in detail the process of the genesis of these societies, their ideological foundations, composition and structure, the main forms of their activity for studying the past and popularizing historical knowledge. At the same time, the article point out a number of polemical remarks concerning the aspects that remain beyond the attention of the author of the monograph under review.