Historical and comparative method - I. K

BASIC METHODS OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH.

Keywords

Approaches: abstract and concrete, logical and historical, inductive and deductive, analytical and synthetic, dynamic and static, descriptive and quantitative, genetic, typological, comparative, systemic, structural, functional, informational, probabilistic, model. Principles: the principle of analogy, the principle of typology, the principle of historicism. General methods of studying historical reality. Special scientific methods. Methods are specifically problematic. Time and historical causality. Chronology and periodization. Forecast in history. "Historical memory". Principles of historical knowledge: the principle of historicism, the principle of objectivity, a systematic approach, value approach, assessment, axiomatic method.

Issues for discussion

The principle of historicism and the historical method.

Historical-genetic method.

Historical-comparative method [Comparative (critical) method]

Historical-typological method.

Historical-system method.

Ideas about the nature of historical knowledge in foreign historiography.

Why are there no facts historical in nature?

What is probabilistic knowledge? Why is the definition of science through law not quite legitimate?

Why is history predominantly a mediated science, and why is its method an indirect method based on inference?

Why is a layman right when he recognizes a historical text by the presence of dates in it?

Why is making a prediction in itself a change? Is it possible to accurately predict the future development of society based on the study of its history?

Why is one historical time never equal to another, even of equal duration?

Is a monocausal explanation acceptable in historical science?

Criticism of historicism by Karl Popper.

Direct-activity and scientific-cognitive practical needs and the formulation of a scientific problem.

General methods of studying historical reality: historical-genetic, historical-comparative, historical-typological and historical-systemic. Advantages and weaknesses.

The concept of principle in historical science. Basic principles of historical science and their essence.

Interpretation of principles in historiography.

When studying this topic, it is recommended to pay attention first of all to the works of I.D. Kovalchenko 1 , K.V. Tail 2 , M.F. Rumyantseva 3 , Antoine Pro 4 , John Tosh 5 , revealing its current state to a sufficient extent. You can study other works, depending on the availability of time and if this work directly relates to the topic of the student's scientific research 6 .

Under the "historical", "history" in scientific knowledge in a broad sense is understood everything that in the diversity of objective social and natural reality is in a state of change and development. The principle of historicism and the historical method have a common scientific value. They apply equally to biology, geology or astronomy as well as to the study of the history of human society.

This method allows you to know reality through the study of its history, which distinguishes this method from the logical one, when the essence of the phenomenon is revealed by analyzing its given state. The methods of historical research are understood as all general methods for studying historical reality., i.e., methods related to historical science in general, applied in all areas of historical research. These are special scientific methods. On the one hand, they are based on the general philosophical method, and on one or another set of general scientific methods, and on the other hand, they serve as the basis for specific problematic methods, that is, methods used in the study of certain specific historical phenomena in the light of certain other research tasks. Their difference lies in the fact that they must be applicable to the study of the past according to the remnants that remain of it.

Special-historical, or general-historical, research methods are some combination of general scientific methods aimed at studying the object of historical knowledge, i.e., taking into account the features of this object, expressed in the general theory of historical knowledge.

Historical reality is characterized by a number of common features, and therefore it is possible to single out the main methods of historical research.

According to the definition of academician I.D. Kovalchenko, the main general historical methods of scientific research include: historical-genetic, historical-comparative, historical-typological and historical-systemic. When using one or another general historical method, other general scientific methods are also used (analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, description and measurement, explanation, etc.), which act as specific cognitive means necessary to implement the approaches and principles underlying basis of the leading method. The rules and procedures necessary for conducting research (research methodology) are also developed, and certain tools and instruments are used (research technique) 1 .

Any research process begins with the formulation of a problem, a research problem and the definition of goals for its solution.

The infinite variety of phenomena of objective reality necessitates the definition of a specific aspect of the study and its objectives. Without this, no research can be fruitful. The formulation of this or that problem is determined by practical needs, directly-active and scientific-cognitive, and its essential content is determined by the existing scientific knowledge 2 .

Formulation of the problem is a complex research procedure, not only in assessing the practical significance of the problem, but also in revealing that a certain problem exists at all. Here, an analysis of the existing knowledge is required to identify the consequences that follow from it, as well as to what extent this knowledge fits into the existing general scientific picture of the corresponding sphere of objective reality and how this system of knowledge (theory) correlates with other theories that characterize the circle under consideration. phenomena, etc. Revealing antinomies (logical contradictions) and paradoxes in existing knowledge, opposing or competing theories and hypotheses leads to the formulation of new research problems 1 .

The method includes the cornerstone premises that form the basis and characterize the essence of scientific research. Such parcels are an approach and principle. The approach determines the main way of solving the set research problem. He reveals the strategy behind this decision.

There is a whole set of approaches to solving research problems. These approaches were formed as a result of the generalization of research practice, and therefore have a general scientific character, that is, they are used in all or many sciences. Such approaches as abstract and concrete, logical and historical, inductive and deductive, analytical and synthetic, dynamic and static, descriptive and quantitative, genetic, typological, comparative, etc. have long been known in science.

In modern science, a number of new general scientific approaches – systemic, structural, functional, informational, probabilistic, model and others. Each of these approaches characterizes one of the possible ways of conducting research.

An approach, outlining the main perspective of the study of the object in the light of the task, determines only the most general feature of a particular method. The specific content of the method is expressed by the principles inherent in the corresponding approach. In defining what a principle is, there is a wide variety of opinions among philosophers. Principle consider, as a rule, a means, a method, an essential judgment, a law, a foundation, an initial position, etc. its knowledge (epistemological and methodological principles).

According to its functional place in the method, the principle is an epistemological and methodological means of implementing the corresponding approach. So, for example, one of the principles on the basis of which a comparative approach can be implemented is principle of analogy. The implementation of this principle requires taking into account the qualitative uniformity of the compared phenomena, i.e., their structural and functional relationship and stage differences in their development, which, in turn, requires comparable in content characteristics of the phenomena. Another principle for implementing the comparative approach can be principle of typology. It requires that the types of objects in the aggregates being compared be distinguished on the basis of common general criteria and specific indicators.

The research approach and principle are closely interconnected and intertwined and can, as it were, change places. So, genetic approach based on historicism principle. The historical approach, on the contrary, requires the genetic principle of considering the phenomenon. At first glance, they are one and the same. But in reality, this is not so, because the history of an object or phenomenon and their genesis are not identical.

The theory of method, for all its undoubtedly defining role, does not in itself yet allow for research. The principles of acquiring new knowledge, substantiated in the theory of the method, are practically implemented in "techniques and logical operations, with the help of which the principles ... begin to work" 1 . The set of rules and procedures, techniques and operations that make it possible to put into practice the ideas and requirements of the principle (or principles) on which the method is based form the methodology of the corresponding method. Methodology- the same indispensable structural component of the method, as well as its theory.

Finally, rules and procedures, techniques and operations (i.e., the methodology itself) can be put into action if certain tools and tools are available. Their totality constitutes the third structural component of the scientific method - research technique.

It is only necessary to add that the level of theoretical knowledge about reality should be the basis for distinguishing the levels of methodology. With regard to social phenomena, as indicated, there are four such levels: general philosophical, philosophical and sociological, special-scientific and concrete-problem. In methodology, as well as in theory in general, these levels are closely interconnected, and the leading one, which has a decisive influence on others, is the general philosophical one. In turn, it synthesizes the results of the development of other levels of methodology.

Logic is a powerful means of scientific and cognitive activity due to the fact that its concepts and categories, laws and principles are an adequate reflection of the objective in the subjective consciousness of a person.

Philosophical methods of scientific knowledge, revealing the general ways (approaches) and principles of cognition of reality, are universal, characterize the course of the research process as a whole and are applicable in the study of all manifestations of reality 2 .

Another category of research methods is formed by general scientific methods of cognition. They are used in all or many sciences and, unlike general philosophical methods, cover only certain aspects of scientific and cognitive activity, they are one of the means of solving research problems. Thus, induction and deduction express different approaches to revealing the essence of the phenomena being studied, and analysis and synthesis are different methods of penetrating this essence. Descriptive and quantitative methods are means and forms of expressing information about the phenomena under study, and modeling is a method of formalized representation of knowledge inherent in higher levels of scientific knowledge.

In the practice of scientific research, the appeal to one or another general scientific method is determined by the nature of the phenomena being studied and the research task set 1 .

Special scientific methods are based on philosophical and general scientific methods. These are the methods that are used in a particular science as a whole. Their theoretical basis is the theories of a special-scientific level. The role of these ontologically directed theories in the formation of special scientific methods is that they determine the nature of those methodological principles and regulatory requirements that constitute the theory of the method. The specificity of these principles and requirements is determined by the characteristics of the object of knowledge of the corresponding science. For example, what distinguishes historical science from other social sciences and the humanities is that it studies the past. This led to the development of methods that are characteristic of historical research.

The lowest level is formed problem-specific methods. They are aimed at studying specific phenomena that characterize certain aspects and phenomena of reality, which constitute the object of knowledge of the corresponding science. The essence of these phenomena is expressed in theories of a specific problem level. They determine the specifics of the methodology (theory) of specific problematic methods, i.e., the principles and requirements on which these methods are based. If, for example, the course of the economic development of a country in a given period of time is being studied, then the indispensable principles and requirements for such a study and its methods should be to show the production and economic (formational) essence of this development, its stage level, the conditionality of its pace the nature of the correlation of productive forces and production relations, etc. In other words, this development must be presented as an objective, regular, and internally conditioned historical process. And if some kind of ideological social phenomenon is being investigated, then here an indispensable principle and requirement for analysis will be the reduction of the individual to the social and the disclosure of the essence of the ideal through the material, i.e., showing the essence of the subjective on the basis of the objective. It is clear that the research methods in the first and second cases will be different.

How does a historian act who wants to understand or explain in the usual, non-scientific sense of the word, some historical phenomenon? As a rule, he tries to reduce it to phenomena of a more general order, or to find deep or accidental causes that cause it. Thus, the causes of the Great French Revolution were the economic situation, the development of social thought, the rise of the bourgeoisie, the financial crisis of the monarchy, the poor harvest of 1787, etc. 1 From the point of view of logic, the explanation of the historian does not differ from the explanation of the ordinary person. The mode of reasoning used in explaining the causes of the French Revolution is no different from that in which a man in the street explains the causes of a traffic accident or the results of an election. Basically, this is the same intellectual technique, only refined, improved taking into account additional factors 2

All this is tantamount to stating that the historical method as such does not exist. There is, of course, a critical method for rigorously establishing the facts in order to assess the validity of the hypotheses put forward by the historian. But a historical explanation is an explanation that is practiced daily. The historian explains the railroad strike of 1910 with a reasoning no different from that used by a pensioner in his account of the 1947 strike. He applies to the past those types of explanations that have allowed him to understand the situations or events he personally experienced 3

The historian argues by analogy with the present, it takes you to the past ways of explaining, which have proven their usefulness in the everyday experience of each and every one. This, by the way, is one of the reasons for the success that history enjoys with the general public: in order to delve into the content of a history book, no special preparation is required from the reader.

Historical-genetic method.

Historical-genetic method is one of the most common in historical research. It consists in the consistent discovery of the properties, functions and changes of the studied reality in the process of its historical movement, which makes it possible to get as close as possible to recreating the real history of the object. Cognition goes (should go) sequentially from the individual to the particular, and then to the general and universal. By its logical nature, the historical-genetic method is analytical and inductive, and by the form of expressing information about the reality under study, it is descriptive. Of course, this does not exclude the use (sometimes even wide) of quantitative indicators. But the latter act as an element of describing the properties of an object, and not as a basis for revealing its qualitative nature and constructing its essential-content and formal-quantitative model 4 .

The historical-genetic method makes it possible to show causal relationships and patterns of historical development in their immediacy, and to characterize historical events and personalities in their individuality and imagery. When using this method, the individual characteristics of the researcher are most pronounced. To the extent that the latter reflect a social need, they have a positive effect on the research process.

Thus, the historical-genetic method is the most universal, flexible and accessible method of historical research. At the same time, it is also inherent in its limitations, which can lead to certain costs in its absolutization.

The historical-genetic method is aimed primarily at the analysis of development. Therefore, with insufficient attention to statics, i.e. to fixing a certain temporal reality of historical phenomena and processes, there may arise danger of relativism.

Reasoning from the positions of relativism is given in the work of the French historian Henri Marrou, published in 1954 ("On historical knowledge"):

“... Theory, that is, the position, conscious or unconscious, that the historian takes in relation to the past - the choice and turn of the topic, the posing of questions, the concepts used and especially the types of connections, the systems of interpretation, the relative value recognized for each of them. It is the personal philosophy of the historian that dictates to him the choice of a system of thought in accordance with which he will recreate and, as he believes, explain the past.

The richness and complexity of the nature of anthropological facts and, consequently, historical reality makes the latter […] practically inexhaustible for efforts aimed at discovery and understanding. Being inexhaustible, historical reality is at the same time ambiguous: there are always so many different aspects in it, so many acting forces that intersect and overlap each other at one point in the past, that the historian’s thought will always find in it that specific element that, in accordance with his theory, will turn out to be decisive and act as a system of intelligibility - as an explanation. The historian chooses what he needs: the data for his proof will be found, and they can be adapted to any system, he always finds what he is looking for 1 ... "

The weak side of relativism is due to the fact that objective reality is considered one-sidedly. It takes into account only changes and ignores the fact that, along with them, objective reality is also characterized by a certain stability, arising from the fact that any qualitative certainty corresponds to one or another range of its quantitative expression. Therefore, while continuously occurring changes are only quantitative in nature and do not lead to the emergence of a new quality, all objects, phenomena and processes of reality are stable. In this regard, the identification of a measure of the quantitative certainty of the corresponding qualities is of paramount importance.

The historical-genetic method, with excessive attention to concreteness and detail, can lead to the protrusion of the individual and the unique, obscuring the general and natural. In the study, as they say, the forest can disappear for the trees. Therefore, in its completed form, the historical-genetic method should organically include the characteristics of the individual, particular and general.

The historical-genetic method tends to be descriptive, factographic and empiricist. This is largely due to the fact that in historical research very often great efforts and time are required to identify, collect and initially systematize and process specific factual data. As a result, either the illusion arises that this is the main task of the study, or there is not enough time left for a thorough theoretical analysis of the revealed facts. In order to prevent factographism and empiricism, one should proceed from the fact that, no matter how many facts there are and no matter how bright they are, “empirical observation by itself can never sufficiently prove necessity,” i.e., the regularity of a given state or development . This can only be done on the basis of a theoretical analysis of the facts. Such an analysis is rejected in principle by positivism, which limits its cognition to the empirical stage.

The historical-genetic method, for all its antiquity and breadth of application, does not have a developed and clear logic and conceptual apparatus. Therefore, his methodology, and, consequently, his technique, are vague and uncertain, which makes it difficult to compare and bring together the results of individual studies 1

Historical-comparative method.

The historical-comparative method has also long been used in historical research. In general, comparison is an important and, perhaps, the most widespread method of scientific knowledge. In fact, no scientific research can do without comparison. The logical basis of the historical-comparative method in the case when the similarity of entities is established is analogy. Analogy is a general scientific method of cognition, which consists in the fact that on the basis of similarity - some features of the compared objects, a conclusion is made about the similarity of other features 2 . It is clear that in this case the range of known features of the object (phenomenon) with which the comparison is made should be wider than that of the object under study.

In general, the historical-comparative method has broad cognitive capabilities. Firstly, it allows revealing the essence of the studied phenomena in those cases when it is not obvious, on the basis of the available facts; to identify the general and repetitive, necessary and natural, on the one hand, and qualitatively different, on the other. Thus, the gaps are filled, and the study is brought to a complete form. Secondly, the historical-comparative method makes it possible to go beyond the phenomena under study and, on the basis of analogies, to come to broad historical parallels. Thirdly, it allows the use of all other general historical methods and is less descriptive than the historical genetic method 1 .

It is possible to compare objects and phenomena both of the same type and different types that are at the same and at different stages of development. But in one case, the essence will be revealed on the basis of identifying similarities, and in the other - differences. Compliance with these conditions of historical comparisons, in essence, means the consistent implementation of the principle of historicism 2 .

Revealing the significance of features on the basis of which a historical-comparative analysis should be carried out, as well as the typology and stages of the compared phenomena most often requires special research efforts and the use of other general historical methods, primarily historical-typological and historical-systemic. In combination with these methods, the historical-comparative method is a powerful tool in historical research.

But this method, of course, has a certain range of the most effective action. This is, first of all, the study of socio-historical development in a wide spatial and temporal aspect, as well as those less broad phenomena and processes, the essence of which cannot be revealed through direct analysis due to their complexity, inconsistency and incompleteness, as well as gaps in specific historical data. 3

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It makes it possible to reveal the essence of the phenomena under study both by the similarity and difference of their inherent properties, and also to make comparisons in space and time, i.e., horizontally and vertically.

The logical basis of the historical-comparative method is analogy - this is a general scientific method of cognition that, based on the similarity of some features of the compared objects, a conclusion is made about the similarity of other features.

In this case, the range of known features of the object (phenomena) with which the comparison is made should be wider than that of the object under study. Possibilities of the historical-comparative method:

It allows you to reveal the essence of the phenomena under study in cases where it is not obvious on the basis of the available facts;

Identify the common and repetitive, necessary and regular and qualitatively different;

To go beyond the studied phenomena and on the basis of analogies to come to broad historical generalizations and parallels;

Allows the use of other general historical methods and is less descriptive than the historical genetic method.

Methodological requirements for its use:

Comparison should be based on specific facts that reflect the essential features of phenomena, and not their formal similarity;

Consideration should be given to the general nature of the historical epochs in which the compared historical events took place;

It is possible to compare objects and phenomena both of the same type and of different types, located at the same and at different stages of development. But in one case, the essence will be revealed on the basis of the identified similarities, and in the other - differences.

Disadvantages of the historical-comparative method:

This method does not aim at revealing the reality in question;

It is difficult to use it when studying the dynamics of social processes.

Historical-typological method

Typologization - as a method of scientific knowledge, has as its goal the division (ordering) of a set of objects or phenomena into qualitatively defined types (classes) on the basis of their common essential features. This is a method of essential analysis. The entire set of objects acts in this case as a generic phenomenon, and the types included in it - as species of this genus.

Historical-system method

Its use is due to the deepening of historical research, both from the point of view of a holistic coverage of the cognizable historical reality, and from the point of view of revealing the internal mechanisms of the functioning and development of various socio-historical systems.

System methods of analysis are structural and functional analyses. The system under study is considered not from the side of its individual aspects, but as a holistic qualitative certainty with a comprehensive account of both its own main features and its place and role in the hierarchy of systems.

From the point of view of specific content, the solution of this problem is reduced to the identification of backbone (systemic) features that are inherent in the components of the selected system. These include signs, the relationship between which primarily determines the essence of the structure of this system.

After the identification of the corresponding system, its analysis as such follows. Structural analysis is central here, i.e., revealing the nature of the relationship between the components of the system and their properties.

The result of structural-system analysis is knowledge about the system as such. This knowledge is empirical in nature, since by itself it does not reveal the essential nature of the identified structure. The transfer of the acquired knowledge to the theoretical level requires the identification of the functions of this system in the hierarchy of systems, where it appears as a subsystem. This problem is solved by functional analysis, which reveals the interaction of the system under study with higher-level systems.

Recently, the importance of methods that expand the possibilities of historical research and are at the intersection of several disciplines (linguistics, demography, statistics, history of collective psychology and mentality) has been growing. When analyzing a particular method, one should clearly highlight its essence, possibilities of use, requirements for use and disadvantages.

Questions:

1. The problem of interpreting the concept of "historical source" in domestic and foreign source studies:

a) in the concepts of representatives of historical positivism and neo-Kantianism (E. Bernheim, C.-V. Langlois, C. Segnobos);

b) in foreign source studies (W. Bauer, L. Fevre,
M. Block, D. Collingwood);

c) in the concept of A. S. Lappo-Danilevsky;

d) in Russian historiography (L. N. Pushkarev,
R. M. Ivanov, I. D. Kovalchenko, A. P. Pronstein, M. A. Varshavchik, O. N. Medushevsky).

2. Structure of information of historical sources.

3. Stages of source research:

a) the conditions for the occurrence of the source;

c) source functions;

d) interpretation of the source;

f) source synthesis.

4. The problem of classification of historical sources (schemes of E. Bernheim, A. S. Lappo-Danilevsky, Russian historians - M. N. Tikhomirov, A. A. Zimin, L. N. Pushkarev, S. N. Kashtanova, A. A. Kurnosova, I. D. Kovalchenko).

5. Modern principles and methods of historical research.

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THE OLDEST RUSSIAN CHRONICLES
AND THE TALE OF TIME YEARS

The first dated written sources on the history of Ancient Russia date back to the 11th century. During this period, there was a special species structure of the entire complex of sources. The central place in it belonged to chronicles. Chronicle writing was carried out in Russia from the 11th to the 17th centuries. Like any source, a chronicle can be used by a historian for various research purposes: as evidence, on the basis of which it is possible to establish a specific fact or group of facts, and as a monument of culture and social thought of a certain era.

When preparing for the topic of the seminar, students should clearly understand what the specifics of the annalistic narration are; find out the meaning of the terms: chronicle, annalistic code, secondary chronicle, excerpt, list, protograph, gloss, interpolation. Particular attention should be paid to the compilation nature of the chronicles, their significant territorial and temporal coverage.

One of the most debatable questions that students should try to answer is what is the purpose of creating chronicles. Science has long been dominated by the view of the chronicler as a dispassionate and objective observer who slowly and accurately recorded events. Therefore, the historical function of chronicles was traditionally singled out. However, after the work of A. A. Shakhmatov, such a one-sided approach was overcome. In the author - the compilers of the chronicle, the researchers saw a writer reflecting the interests of this or that prince, an active defender of the views of this or that feudal group or person, his own political and historical concept. Princes and metropolitans actively intervened in the process of writing chronicles, and sometimes they were direct customers of chronicles.

I. N. Danilevsky proposed a hypothesis about the eschatological motives of the most ancient manuscripts, which determined the social function of the chronicles - to record the moral assessments of the historical figures of Russia, which should become the center of the salvation of mankind. This function, according to the scientist, determined the structure of the chronicle narrative.

The student must formulate the concept of authorship. This is one of the most difficult in chronicle studies, since all known chronicles are the result of the work of several generations of chroniclers. Each of them first rewrote one or more previous chronicles in accordance with their social standard.

It is also important to note that the main way of describing events is direct or indirect citation of authoritative texts. For the chronicler, the Bible was a timeless and real value. Therefore, he widely resorted to analogy with already known events (researcher I. N. Danilevsky devoted an interesting article to this problem “The Bible and the Tale of Bygone Years.” On the problem of interpreting chronicle texts. See references).

The foundations of modern chronicle studies were laid by A. A. Shakhmatov, who developed a method for studying chronicle lists and chronicle codes. This method involves a comprehensive, comparative-historical, textual study of the annals, in which discrepancies and common places inherent in the annals are revealed. The analysis carried out allows the researcher to single out editions and trace discrepancies. Using this method makes it possible to identify the protograph, the time and purpose of its occurrence.

A. A. Shakhmatov demonstrated his method most clearly and convincingly in the analysis of The Tale of Bygone Years, the central monument of ancient Russian chronicle writing. Comparing all the known lists, the scientist grouped them into three editions and tried to explain the reasons for their appearance. Students should have a clear understanding of the main editions of the PVL, the time and circumstances of their compilation. The scheme of A. A. Shakhmatov in our time is shared by most historians, although some (M. N. Tikhomirov, D. S. Likhachev, L. V. Cherepnin) expressed a number of clarifying and concretizing provisions. It is necessary to understand: what is the essence of the differences.

An important problem is the question of the sources of PVL. Among them we see foreign writings, works of a sacred nature, the most ancient chronicles. Students should be able to highlight the features of the internal structure of the PVL, the genre characteristics of individual parts of the annals, the main ideas of the chronicler, his political and historical predilections. It is necessary to emphasize the idea that so far many of the ideas and spiritual values ​​contained in the PVL remain undisclosed and unthought.

Chronicle of the XII-XIII centuries. came to us in fragments. Among the main centers of chronicle writing of this time are Kyiv, the Galicia-Volyn land, the Vladimir-Suzdal principality, Novgorod. The main ideas of the chronicles was to prove the priority of this or that principality, land among other Russian lands. So, for example, the idea of ​​the transfer of the center of the Russian land from Kyiv to Vladimir was put at the basis of the annals of northeastern Russia.

The chronicle of Novgorod was more focused on internal problems, on the economic and political life of the city.

Chronicle of the XV-XVI centuries. acquires new features. At that time in Russia there was already a single all-Russian chronicle tradition associated with the Grand Duke's office. Some researchers, proving the existence of an independent metropolitan chronicle tradition (M. D. Priselkov), recognized the existence of a single center, chronicle writing that existed already in the 14th century. During this period, chronicles are kept with greater completeness, thoroughness, and obediently respond to changes in state policy. An analysis of the official chronicle should be made on the basis of the Nikon Chronicle (20s of the 16th century), the Resurrection Chronicle (the first half of the 16th century), the Degree Book of the Royal Genealogy, and the Personal Code of Ivan the Terrible. These monuments became the final stage in the unification of Russian chronicles under the auspices of Moscow, which was reflected in their content. Students should identify and analyze the main ideas of these chronicles, the history of their creation.

Unofficial chronicle writing was conducted by private individuals and sometimes opposed the grand ducal vaults. Among its features: an insignificant circle of sources, independence of assessments of the policy of the Grand Duke.

In the 17th century chronographs - works on world history - were widely used. They contained excerpts from Holy Scripture, Greek chronicles and Russian chronicles. It would be more expedient to prepare this question in the form of a report or message, since the literature is not distinguished by a large number of titles and diversity. The speaker must necessarily emphasize that the chronographs included information of a natural science nature, works of ancient literature, Christian apocrypha, and hagiographic materials.

The last question of the topic of the seminar - about miniatures - can also be prepared in the form of a report. The monograph by O. I. Podobedova will serve as the main source for this. The report should pay attention to the fact that almost all chronicles were richly decorated and contained a significant number of miniatures.

A miniature is a picture in the annals, made in paints and by hand. The general evolution of ancient Russian miniatures consisted in the loss of various features of Byzantine art and the partial acquisition of features of Western art. The miniature was an illustration of the content of the chronicle, a schematic drawing that can be "read" only with information about the main symbols and compositional features. There were special techniques for conveying information about the age, social class, heroes of miniatures. Thus, the analysis of the content of miniatures will contribute to a more systematic and in-depth study of chronicle sources.

At the end of the lesson, students should identify the reasons why chronicle is losing priority and is being replaced by new forms of historical narrative.

Questions

1) Chronicles as a historical source. Social, political, historical functions of chronicles.

2) A. A. Shakhmatov and his method of studying chronicles.

3) "The Tale of Bygone Years":

b) internal structure of PVL;

4) Chronicle of the XII-XV centuries:

a) local chronicles of the 12th–13th centuries: main centers, features;

b) annals of the XIV-XV centuries: monuments, centers, contents.

5) All-Russian annalistic codes of the late XV-XVI centuries, official and unofficial annals.

6) Chronographs.

7) Old Russian miniatures as a historical source.

Sources

1. Tale of Bygone Years: In 2 hours - M.-L., 1950. - 556 p.

2. Complete collection of Russian chronicles.- L., 1989.

3. Reader on ancient Russian literature/ Comp. N. K. Gudziy. - M., 1973. - 347 p.

Literature

1. 1. Buganov V.I. Domestic historiography of Russian chronicles: A review of Soviet literature. - M., 1975. - 344 p.

2. 2. Vovina V. G. The New Chronicler and Controversial Issues in the Study of Late Russian Chronicles // Patriotic History.– 1992.– No. 5.– P. 117–130.

3. 3. Gudziy N.K. History of ancient Russian literature. - M., 1966. - 319 p.

4. 4. Danilevsky I. N. The Bible and the Tale of Bygone Years (on the problem of interpreting chronicle texts) // Domestic History. - 1993. - No. 1. - P. 78-93.

5. 5. Danilevsky I. N. The idea and title of the Tale of Bygone Years // Domestic History. - 1995. - No. 5. - P. 101-109.

6. 6. Eremin I.P. Lectures and articles on the history of ancient Russian literature. - L., 1987. - 327 p.

7. 7. Ipatov A. N. Orthodoxy and Russian culture - M., 1985.

8. 8. Kloss B.N. Nikon's code and Russian chronicles of the 16th-17th centuries - M., 1980. - 312 p.

9. 9. Klyuchevsky V. O. A course of lectures on source studies // Works: In 9 vols. - M., 1989. - T. 7. - P. 5–83.

10. 10. Klyuchevsky V. O. The course of Russian history. - T I. - Ch. I. - M., 1987.

11. 11. Koretsky V.I. The history of Russian chronicle writing in the second half of the 16th - early 17th centuries. / Rev. Ed. V. I. Buganov. - M., 1986. - 271 p.

12. 12. Kuzmin A. G. The initial stages of ancient Russian chronicle writing. - M., 1977. - 406 p.

13. 13. Kuskov V.V. History of ancient Russian literature. - M., 1977. - 375 p.

14. 14. Chronicles and Chronicles: Digest of articles. - M., 1984.

15. 15. Likhachev D.S. History of Russian literature of the X-XII centuries. - M., 1980. - 205 p.

16. 16. Likhachev D.S. Russian chronicles and their cultural and historical significance. – M.–L., 1947.– 499 p.

17. 17. Lurie Ya. S. Two stories of Russia in the XV century. - St. Petersburg, 1994. - 240 p.

18. 18. Lurie Ya. S. Mikhail Dmitrievich Priselkov and questions of the study of Russian chronicles // Patriotic history. - 1995. - No. 1. - P. 146-160.

19. 19. Lurie Ya. S. On the chess methodology for the study of chronicles // Source study of national history. 1975. - M., 1976.

20. 20. Lurie Ya. S. Russia of the 15th century: reflection in early and independent chronicles // Questions of history.– 1993.– No. 11–12.– P. 3–17.

21. 21. Lvov A. S. Lexicon "The Tale of Bygone Years". - M., 1975.

22. 22. Mirzoev V. G. Epics and chronicles are monuments of Russian historical thought. - M., 1978. - 273 p.

23. 23. Muravieva L. L. Trinity Chronicle in the scientific circulation of the 18th - early 19th centuries. // Source study of national history. 1989.– M., 1989.

24. 24. Nasonov A. N. History of Russian chronicle writing in the 11th - early 18th centuries: Essays and research. - M., 1969. - 555 p.

25. 25. Podobedova O. I. Miniatures of Russian Historical Chronicles and the History of Russian Facial Chronicles. - M., 1965. - 334 p.

26. 26. Pronshtein A.P. Source study in Russia. The era of feudalism. - Rostov on / D. 1989. - 419 p.

27. 27. Rybakov B. A. From the history of culture of Ancient Russia. - M., 1984. - 219 p.

28. 28. Sapunov B.V. The book in Russia in the XI-XIII centuries. - L., 1978.

29. 29. Special courses/ Ed. V.L. Yanina. - M., 1989.

30. 30. Curd O. V. Chronographs of Ancient Russia // Questions of History. - 1990. - No. 1. - P. 57-72.

31. 31. Tikhomirov M. N. Russian chronicle. - M., 1979.

32. 32. Froyanov I. Ya. Historical realities in the annalistic legend about the calling of the Varangians // Questions of history. - 1991. - No. 6

33. 33. Schmidt S. O. The Russian State in the Middle of the 16th Century: The Tsar's Archive and the Chronicles of the Time of Ivan the Terrible / Ed. ed. D. S. Likhachev. - M., 1984. - 277 p.

34. 34. Shchapov Ya. N. Ideas of peace in Russian chronicle writing in the 11th–13th centuries. // Patriotic history.– 1992.– No. 1.– P. 172–179.

LEGISLATIVE ACTS

Legislative acts are a special kind of historical sources, emanating from the supreme power and having the highest legal force in a certain territory. In historical research, legislative sources are most often used, selected thematically in accordance with the research problem. This group of sources is distinguished by reliability and accuracy in covering issues of the social, economic and political development of the state. When working with monuments of legislation, it should be remembered that compliance with a particular law did not always become a general rule. The Russian state for a long time did not have the opportunity to control the implementation of laws due to the insufficient development of its apparatus.

The analysis of legislative acts involves the study of the activities of state institutions, the most important function of which was the issuance of laws, the formulation of new norms for the life of society. It is important to find out: who owned the right of legislative initiative, what was the mechanism for discussing, adopting and approving the law, how the document was promulgated, in what form and in what collection it has reached the present day

Legislative acts reflected the main stages in the history of the Russian state, so the appearance of each monument should be explained by specific socio-economic and political reasons.

Considering the process of the birth of law in the Old Russian state, it is necessary to analyze its sources. At the same time, it should be noted that, unlike Western Europe, in ancient Russia the role of customary law or tradition was especially great. Among other sources - princely legislation, treaties of Russia.

The central written monument of the law of the ancient Russian state is Russkaya Pravda, known in three editions - Short, Long and Abbreviated. Despite more than two hundred years of its study, there are still debatable problems today. Among them - the question of whether "Russkaya Pravda" is a single monument or its editions are independent sources, interconnected. The next problem is: what are the historical conditions for the appearance of individual parts and editions of Russkaya Pravda. Each edition consists of several parts that did not arise simultaneously, but in connection with certain historical events. Students should be able to isolate these reasons. When analyzing the content of Russkaya Pravda, it is important to trace the change in legal norms, to characterize the sources of this legislative monument.

The question of the canon law of Ancient Russia should be considered from the very concept of "canon law". It is necessary to understand that it was a set of church-legal norms binding on representatives of a certain denomination. Church legal norms were contained in the apostolic rules, decrees of ecumenical and local councils, canons of the church fathers, which have come down to us as part of the Pilot Books and the Measure of the Righteous.

Unlike Russkaya Pravda, the Pskov Judicial Charter is one of the least studied legislative monuments of the 14th-15th centuries. So, the origin of this source is still controversial. The letter has several editions, which reflected the process of codification of the current law of northwestern Russia. It gives an idea of ​​the world of the city, village, their socio-economic development. The most important information is contained in it on the history of Pskov.

The first all-Russian experience of codification was the Sudebnik of 1497. Students must analyze the reasons for its appearance, the history of its adoption, sources, internal structure.

According to a similar scheme, one should analyze the Cathedral Code of 1649, which became the final stage in the formation of the legislation of the unified Russian state. It is important to give an external criticism of the Cathedral Code of 1649, emphasizing that it was a column of enormous length - 309 m. The manuscript of the monument was compiled according to all the rules of that time. The student in his answer must formulate them. Revealing the structure of the Cathedral Code, one should emphasize its more complex nature in comparison with other legislative monuments.

In the XVIII century. legislation acquires a number of specific features. This may include the desire of state power to regulate in detail the life of society and the private life of citizens. As a result, there was an intensification of lawmaking and an expansion of the scope of legislative regulation and the scope of legislation. An important feature of the legislation of the new time was the regulated publication of legislative acts. In Russia, a system of publishing laws was taking shape, which involved sending decrees to the provinces and governors, printing them in a typographical way, reading legislative acts in churches after services, etc. As a result, no other source of the 18th century. cannot be compared with legislation in terms of prevalence.

The most important qualitative characteristic of legislative acts of the XVIII century. there was a change in the ratio of custom and law as sources of law. Until the beginning of the XVIII century. Custom was the main source of law. The nominal decree of April 17, 1722 "On the preservation of civil rights¼" finally approved the priority of the law. Students should find out the content and meaning of this decree, given that it formalized the main elements of lawmaking: approbation of the decree by the sovereign, publication, etc. At the end of the 18th century. a new requirement is also being formulated - the accuracy, literalness of the reproduction of laws and quotations from legislative acts.

The difficulty of working with legislative acts lies in the fact that in Russia in the 18th century and later, criteria for separating the law from other orders of the supreme power were not developed. One of the main reasons for this was the lack of separation of legislative, executive and judicial powers. Therefore, the main feature of the law in Russia was the presence of the emperor's signature and a certain procedure for adoption.

The period under review is distinguished by a wide variety of legislative acts: manifestos, decrees, charters, regulations, institutions, and regulations. It is important to highlight the differences of one type from another, for example, what was the difference between personal decrees, Senate decrees, announced from the Senate. These differences concerned mainly the legal role, nature and extent of the action. In general, the entire XVIII century. characterized by vigorous lawmaking, therefore, all attempts to codify Russian legislation, undertaken since the beginning of the 18th century. turned out to be unsuccessful. This problem was solved in the 19th century.

The development of lawmaking in the XIX century. continues mainly along the path of fixing the legislative procedure. Students should understand such issues as: what is the legislative power, who was its bearer, who had the right to initiate legislation, etc. At the same time, one should especially dwell on the changes in the structure of the state administration of the Russian Empire that occurred at the beginning of the 19th century. It is important to analyze the functions and structure of the newly created governing bodies.

In the 19th century Codification efforts continued. They were embodied in the creation of the Code of Laws of the Russian Empire and in the Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire. The work on the compilation of the Code of Laws (CZ) was headed by M. M. Speransky, and carried out by the II department of His Imperial Majesty's own chancellery. The Code includes the current legislative norms, systematized thematically. It included 8 main sections distributed over 15 volumes. The code was published in 1832, the second edition was published in 1842, and the third - only in 1857. Subsequently, it was published in separate charters.

The Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire (PSZ) was a chronological systematization of legislative norms, was prepared by a special commission headed by M. M. Speransky and published in 1830. This edition still remains the most complete publication of legislative acts from 1649 to 1825. However, it should be noted that the PSZ was not completely complete: it did not include laws of a secret nature and it did not sufficiently represent the legislation of the 17th - early 18th centuries.

The PLC had three editions: the first collection included legislative acts from 1649 to 1825; in II - from 1825 to 1880; in III - since 1881. The PLC remains the main source of legislative acts for modern historians.

Legislation XIX - early XX centuries. marked by an extraordinary variety of acts. Among them there are already existing ones - manifestos, regulations, decrees and new laws - the highest approved opinions of the State Council, the highest commands. It is necessary to determine the structure, functions of all varieties of legislative acts of the 19th - early 20th centuries.

At the beginning of the XIX century. in government circles, the ideology of constitutional changes is being formed. Students must define the concept of a constitution, assess the real possibilities of its emergence and existence in autocratic Russia, analyze the causes and conditions of constitutional ideas at the beginning of the 19th century. One of the first monuments of governmental constitutionalism was the "Charter to the Russian people". The main ideas and problem of authorship of this source should be analyzed. The next monument was the plan of political reforms by M. M. Speransky "Introduction to the Code of State Laws", which suggested a system of separation of powers and a change in the status of the monarch. An attempt to create a national constitution was the "State statutory charter of the Russian Empire." It is important to consider the history of its preparation, consideration, substantive and ideological connection with the Polish constitution. The political programs of the Decembrists, government projects for the political transformation of Russia in the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries, the ideas of noble representation, populists, it is advisable to consider in the form of small messages, designed for 5-7 minutes.

Questions

1) Sources of law of the period of feudalism: customary law, princely legislation, treaties of Russia.

2) Monuments of law of the XI-XVII centuries:

a) "Russkaya Pravda" (editions, lists, source studies problems of study);

b) canon law of Ancient Russia;

c) Pskov Judicial Charter - a code of law of the XIV-XV centuries;

d) the first attempt to codify the all-Russian legal norms - the Sudebnik of 1497;

e) Cathedral Code of 1649

3) Legislation of the 18th century;

a) principles and qualitative features of the legislative process of the new time;

b) varieties of legislative sources of the XVIII century.

4) Legislation of the XIX - early XX centuries:

a) legislative power: content, carrier, functions;

b) codification of laws in the first half of the 19th century. General characteristics and comparative analysis of the "Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire" and "Code of Laws of the Russian Empire";

c) basic state laws: concept, structure, functions;

d) alternative interpretations of state laws (projects by M. M. Speransky, Decembrists, Narodniks, political parties of Russia in the beginning of the 20th century).

Sources

1. 1. Legislative acts of the Russian state second half of the 16th - first half of the 17th century. Comments / Ed. N. E. Nosova. - L., 1986. - 264 p.

2. 2. Pravda Russian/ Ed. B. D. Grekova. - M.-L., 1940-1963.- T. 1-3.

3. 3. Pskov Judicial Charter/ Ed. K. V. Sivkova. - M., 1952. - 160 p.

4. 4. Russian legislation of the X-XX centuries.: Texts and comments: In 9 volumes / Under the general. ed. O. I. Chistyakova.– M., 1984–1994.– T. 1–9.

5. 5. Cathedral Code of 1649: Text, comment / Prepared. text by L. I. Ivina; hands A. G. Mankov. - L., 1987. - 448 p.

6. 6. Sudebnik XV-XVI centuries./ Under the total. ed. B. D. Grekova. - M.-L., 1952. - 619 p.

Literature

1. 1. Alekseev Yu. G. Pskov Judicial Letter and Its Time: The Development of Feudal Relations in Russia in the 14th-15th Centuries. / Ed. K. N. Serbina. - L., 1980. - 243 p.

2. 2. Antonova S. I. Materials of the legislation of the period of capitalism as a historical source. - M., 1976. - 271 p.

3. 3. State institutions of Russia XVI-XVIII centuries - M., 1991.

4. 4. Degtyarev A. Ya.

With all the variety of research approaches, there are certain general research principles, such as consistency, objectivity, historicism.

The methodology of historical research is the technique by which methodology is implemented in historical research.

In Italy, during the Renaissance, the scientific apparatus of research began to take shape, and the system of footnotes was first introduced.

In the process of processing specific historical material, the researcher needs to use various research methods. The word "method" in Greek means "way, way". Scientific research methods are methods of obtaining scientific information in order to establish regular connections, relationships, dependencies and build scientific theories. Research methods are the most dynamic element of science.

Any scientific and cognitive process consists of three components: the object of cognition - the past, the cognizing subject - the historian and the method of cognition. Through the method, the scientist learns the problem, event, era under study. The scope and depth of new knowledge depend primarily on the effectiveness of the methods used. Of course, each method can be applied correctly or incorrectly, i.e. the method itself does not guarantee the acquisition of new knowledge, but without it no knowledge is possible. Therefore, one of the most important indicators of the level of development of historical science is research methods, their diversity and cognitive effectiveness.

There are many classifications of scientific research methods.

One of the most common classifications involves dividing them into three groups: general scientific, special and private scientific:

• general scientific methods used in all sciences. Basically, these are methods and techniques of formal logic, such as: analysis, synthesis, deduction, induction, hypothesis, analogy, modeling, dialectics, etc.;
• special methods used in many sciences. The most common ones include: functional approach, systemic approach, structural approach, sociological and statistical methods. The use of these methods makes it possible to reconstruct the picture of the past more deeply and more reliably, to systematize historical knowledge;
• private scientific methods have not universal, but applied value and are used only in a specific science.

In historical science, one of the most authoritative in Russian historiography is the classification proposed in the 1980s. Academician I.D. Kovalchenko. The author has been fruitfully studying this problem for more than 30 years. His monograph "Methods of historical research" is a major work, in which for the first time in Russian literature a systematic presentation of the main methods of historical knowledge is given. Moreover, this is done in organic connection with the analysis of the main problems of the methodology of history: the role of theory and methodology in scientific knowledge, the place of history in the system of sciences, historical source and historical fact, the structure and levels of historical research, methods of historical science, etc. Among the main methods of historical knowledge Kovalchenko I.D. relates:

• historical and genetic;
• historical and comparative;
• historical and typological;
• historical-systemic.

Let's consider each of these methods separately.

Historical-genetic method is one of the most common in historical research. Its essence lies in the consistent disclosure of the properties, functions and changes of the studied reality in the process of its historical movement. This method allows you to get as close as possible to reproducing the real history of the object of study. At the same time, the historical phenomenon is reflected in the most concrete form. Cognition proceeds sequentially from the individual to the particular, and then to the general and universal. By nature, the genetic method is analytical-inductive, and by the form of information expression it is descriptive. The genetic method makes it possible to show cause-and-effect relationships, patterns of historical spillage in their immediacy, and to characterize historical events and personalities in their individuality and imagery.

Historical comparative method has also long been used in historical research. It is based on comparisons - an important method of scientific knowledge. No scientific study is complete without comparison. The objective basis for comparison is that the past is a repetitive, internally conditioned process. Many phenomena are identical or similar internally.

its essence and differ only in the spatial or temporal variation of forms. And the same or similar forms can express different content. Therefore, in the process of comparison, an opportunity opens up for explaining historical facts, revealing their essence.

This feature of the comparative method was first embodied by the ancient Greek historian Plutarch in his "biographies". A. Toynbee sought to discover as many laws as possible, applicable to any society, and sought to compare everything. It turned out that Peter I was the twin of Akhenaten, the era of Bismarck was a repetition of the era of Sparta from the time of King Cleomenes. The condition for the productive application of the comparative-historical method is the analysis of single-order events and processes.

• 1. The initial stage of comparative analysis is analogy. It involves not analysis, but the transfer of representations from object to object. (Bismarck and Garibaldi played an outstanding role in unifying their countries).
• 2. Identification of the essential-substantial characteristics of the studied.
• 3. Acceptance of typology (Prussian and American type of development of capitalism in agriculture).

The comparative method is also used as a means of developing and verifying hypotheses. Based on it, it is possible retro alternative vistics. History as a retro-telling implies the ability to move in time in two directions: from the present and its problems (and at the same time the experience accumulated by this time) to the past, and from the beginning of an event to its finale. This brings into history the search for causality, an element of stability and strength that should not be underestimated: the final point is set, and in his work the historian proceeds from it. This does not eliminate the risk of delusional constructions, but at least it is minimized. The history of an event is actually a social experiment that has taken place. It can be observed by circumstantial evidence, hypotheses can be built, tested. The historian may offer all sorts of interpretations of the French Revolution, but in any case, all his explanations have a common invariant to which they must be reduced: the revolution itself. So the flight of fancy has to be restrained. In this case, the comparative method is used as a means of developing and verifying hypotheses. Otherwise, this technique is called retro-alternativism. To imagine a different development of history is the only way to find the causes of real history. Raymond Aron called for rationally weighing the possible causes of certain events by comparing what was possible: “If I say that Bismarck's decision caused the war of 1866 ... then I mean that without the decision of the Chancellor, the war would not have started (or at least would not have started at that moment)" 1 . The actual causality is revealed only by comparison with what was in the possibility. Any historian, in order to explain what was, asks the question of what could have been. To carry out such a gradation, we take one of these antecedents, mentally assume it to be non-existent or modified, and try to reconstruct or imagine what would happen in this case. If you have to admit that the phenomenon under study would be different in the absence of this factor (or if it were not so), we conclude that this antecedent is one of the causes of some part of the phenomenon-effect, namely that part of it. parts in which we had to assume changes. Thus, logical research includes the following operations: 1) dismemberment of the phenomenon-consequence; 2) establishing a gradation of antecedents and highlighting the antecedent whose influence we have to evaluate; 3) constructing an unreal course of events; 4) comparison between speculative and real events.

If, examining the causes of the French Revolution, we want to weigh the significance of various economic (the crisis of the French economy at the end of the 18th century, the poor harvest of 1788), social (the rise of the bourgeoisie, the reaction of the nobility), political (the financial crisis of the monarchy, the resignation of Turgot) , then there can be no other solution but to consider all these different causes one by one, assuming that they could be different, and try to imagine the course of events that might follow in this case. As M. Weber says, in order to "unravel real causal relationships, we create unreal ones." Such an “imaginary experience” is the only way for the historian not only to identify the causes, but also to unravel, weigh them, as M. Weber and R. Aron put it, that is, to establish their hierarchy.

Historical-typological method, like all other methods, has its own objective basis. It consists in the fact that in the socio-historical process, on the one hand, they differ, on the other hand, the individual, special, general and universal are closely interconnected. Therefore, an important task of understanding historical phenomena, revealing their essence, is to identify the one that was inherent in the diversity of certain combinations of the individual (single). The past in all its manifestations is a continuous dynamic process. It is not a simple sequential course of events, but the change of some qualitative states by others, has its own significantly different stages, the selection of these stages is also

important task in the study of historical development. The first step in the historian's work is the compilation of a chronology. The second step is periodization. The historian cuts history into periods, replaces the continuity of time with some semantic structure. The relations of discontinuity and continuity are revealed: continuity takes place within periods, discontinuity - between periods.

Particular varieties of the historical-typological method are: the periodization method (allows you to identify a number of stages in the development of various social, social phenomena) and the structural-diachronic method (aimed at studying historical processes at different times, allows you to identify the duration, frequency of various events).

Historical-system method allows you to understand the internal mechanisms of the functioning of social systems. A systematic approach is one of the main methods used in historical science, since society (and the individual) is a complexly organized system. The basis for the application of this method in history is the unity in the socio-historical development of the individual, particular and general. Really and concretely, this unity appears in historical systems of different levels. The functioning and development of societies includes and synthesizes those main components that make up historical reality. These components include separate unique events (say, the birth of Napoleon), historical situations (for example, the French Revolution) and processes (the influence of the ideas and events of the French Revolution on Europe). Obviously, all these events and processes are not only causally conditioned and have cause-and-effect relationships, but are also functionally interconnected. The task of system analysis, which includes structural and functional methods, is to give a whole complex picture of the past.

The concept of a system, like any other cognitive means, describes some ideal object. From the point of view of its external properties, this ideal object acts as a set of elements between which certain relationships and connections are established. Thanks to them, a set of elements turns into a coherent whole. In turn, the properties of the system turn out to be not just the sum of the properties of its individual elements, but are determined by the presence and specificity of the connection and relationships between them. The presence of connections and relationships between elements and the integrative connections generated by them, the integral properties of the system provide a relatively independent isolated existence, functioning and development of the system.

The system as a relatively isolated integrity opposes the environment, the environment. In fact, the concept of the environment is implicit (if there is no environment, then there will be no system) is contained in the concept of the system as a whole, the system is relatively isolated from the rest of the world, which acts as an environment.

The next step in a meaningful description of the properties of the system is to fix its hierarchical structure. This system property is inextricably linked with the potential divisibility of the elements of the system and the presence of a variety of connections and relationships for each system. The fact of the potential divisibility of the elements of the system means that the elements of the system can be considered as special systems.

Essential properties of the system:

• from the point of view of the internal structure, any system has a corresponding orderliness, organization and structure;
• the functioning of the system is subject to certain laws inherent in this system; at any given moment the system is in some state; a successive set of states constitutes its behavior.

The internal structure of the system is described using the following concepts: "set"; "element"; "attitude"; "property"; "connection"; "channels of connection"; "interaction"; "integrity"; "subsystem"; "organization"; "structure"; "leading part of the system"; "subsystem; decision maker; hierarchical structure of the system.

The specific properties of the system are characterized through the following features: "isolation"; "interaction"; "integration"; "differentiation"; "centralization"; "decentralization"; "Feedback"; "equilibrium"; "control"; "self-regulation"; "self management"; "competition".

The behavior of the system is defined through such concepts as: "environment"; "activity"; "functioning"; "change"; "adaptation"; "growth"; "evolution"; "development"; "genesis"; "education".

In modern research, many methods are used to extract information from sources, process it, systematize and construct theories and historical concepts. Sometimes the same method (or its varieties) is described by different authors under different names. An example is the descriptive-narrative - ideographic - descriptive - narrative method.

Descriptive-narrative method (ideographic) is a scientific method used in all socio-historical and natural sciences and ranked first in terms of breadth of application. Assumes a number of requirements:

• a clear idea of ​​the chosen subject of study;
• description sequence;
• systematization, grouping or classification, characteristics of the material (qualitative, quantitative) in accordance with the research task.

Among other scientific methods, the descriptive-narrative method is the starting one. To a large extent, it determines the success of work using other methods, which usually "view" the same material in new aspects.

The well-known German scientist L. von Ranke (1795-1886) acted as a prominent representative of the narrative in historical science. began to study history and published a number of works that had a resounding success. Among them are The History of the Romanesque and Germanic Peoples, The Sovereigns and Peoples of Southern Europe in the 16th-17th Centuries, The Popes of Rome, Their Church and State in the 16th and 17th Centuries, 12 books on Prussian history.

In works of a source study nature are often used:

• conditionally documentary and grammatical-diplomatic methods, those. methods of dividing the text into constituent elements are used to study office work and office documents;
• textual methods. So, for example, logical text analysis allows interpreting various "dark" places, identifying contradictions in a document, existing gaps, etc. The use of these methods makes it possible to identify missing (destroyed) documents, to reconstruct various events;
• historical and political analysis allows you to compare information from various sources, recreate the circumstances of the political struggle that gave rise to documents, specify the composition of the participants who adopted this or that act.

Historiographic studies often use:

Chronological method- focusing on the analysis of the movement on scientific thoughts, the change of concept, views and ideas in chronological order, which allows you to reveal the patterns of accumulation and deepening of historiographic knowledge.

Problem-chronological method involves the division of broad topics into a number of narrow problems, each of which is considered in chronological order. This method is used both when studying the material (at the first stage of analysis, together with the methods of systematization and classification), and when compiling and presenting it within the text of a work on history.

Periodization Method- is aimed at highlighting individual stages in the development of historical science in order to discover the leading directions of scientific thought, to identify new elements in its structure.

Method of retrospective (return) analysis allows you to study the process of movement of thought of historians from the present to the past in order to identify elements of knowledge that has been strictly preserved in our days, to verify the conclusions of previous historical research and the data of modern science. This method is closely related to the method of "survivals", i.e. a method of reconstructing objects that have gone into the past according to the remains that have survived and have come down to the modern historian of the era. The researcher of primitive society E. Taylor (1832-1917) used ethnographic material.

Perspective analysis method determines promising directions, topics for future research based on an analysis of the level achieved by modern science and using knowledge of the patterns of development of historiography.

Modeling- this is the reproduction of the characteristics of some object on another object, specially created for its study. The second of the objects is called the model of the first. Modeling is based on a certain correspondence (but not identity) between the original and its model. There are 3 types of models: analytical, statistical, simulation. Models are resorted to in case of a lack of sources or, conversely, sources of satiety. For example, a model of an ancient Greek polis was created in the computer center of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

Methods of mathematical statistics. Statistics arose in the second half of the 17th century. in England. In historical science, statistical methods began to be used in the 19th century. Events to be statistically processed must be homogeneous; quantitative and qualitative features should be studied in unity.

There are two types of statistical analysis:

• 1) descriptive statistics;
• 2) sample statistics (used in the absence of complete information and gives a probabilistic conclusion).

Among the many statistical methods, we can distinguish: the method of correlation analysis (establishes a relationship between two variables, the change in one of them depends not only on the second, but also on chance) and entropy analysis (entropy is a measure of the diversity of the system) - allows you to track social connections in small ( up to 20 units) in groups that do not obey probabilistic-statistical patterns. For example, Academician I.D. Kovalchenko subjected the tables of zemstvo household censuses of the post-reform period of Russia to mathematical processing and revealed the degree of stratification among estates and communities.

Method of terminological analysis. The terminological apparatus of sources borrows its subject content from life. The connection between a change in language and a change in social relations has long been established. A brilliant application of this method can be found in

F. Engels "Frankish Dialect" 1 , where, having analyzed the movement of consonant letters in cognate words, he established the boundaries of German dialects and drew conclusions about the nature of the migration of tribes.

A variation is toponymic analysis - geographical names. Anthroponymic analysis - name-formation and name-creativity.

Content analysis- a method of quantitative processing of large arrays of documents, developed in American sociology. Its application makes it possible to identify the frequency of occurrence in the text of characteristics that are of interest to the researcher. Based on them, one can judge the intentions of the author of the text and the possible reactions of the addressee. The units are a word or a theme (expressed through modifier words). Content analysis involves at least 3 stages of research:

• dismemberment of the text into semantic units;
• counting the frequency of their use;
• interpretation of the results of text analysis.

Content analysis can be used in the analysis of periodical

press, questionnaires, complaints, personal (judicial, etc.) files, biographies, census sheets or lists in order to identify any trends by counting the frequency of recurring characteristics.

In particular, D.A. Gutnov applied the method of content analysis in the analysis of one of the works of P.N. Milyukov. The researcher identified the most common text units in the famous "Essays on the History of Russian Culture" by P.N. Milyukov, constructing graphics based on them. Recently, statistical methods have been actively used to build a collective portrait of historians of the post-war generation.

Media analysis algorithm:

• 1) the degree of objectivity of the source;
• 2) the number and volume of publications (dynamics by years, percentage);
• 3) authors of the publication (readers, journalists, military, political workers, etc.);
• 4) the frequency of occurring value judgments;
• 5) the tone of publications (neutral informational, panegyric, positive, critical, negatively emotionally colored);
• 6) the frequency of use of artistic, graphic and photographic materials (photographs, cartoons);
• 7) ideological goals of the publication;
• 8) dominant themes.

Semiotics(from Greek - sign) - a method of structural analysis of sign systems, a discipline that deals with the comparative study of sign systems.

The foundations of semiotics were developed in the early 1960s. in the USSR Yu.M. Lotman, V.A. Uspensky, B.A. Uspensky, Yu.I. Levin, B.M. Gasparov, who founded the Moscow-Tartus semiotic school. A history and semiotics laboratory was opened at the University of Tartu, which was active until the early 1990s. Lotman's ideas have found application in linguistics, philology, cybernetics, information systems, art theory, etc. The starting point of semiotics is the idea that the text is a space in which the semiotic character of a literary work is realized as an artifact. For the semiotic analysis of a historical source, it is necessary to reconstruct the code used by the creator of the text and establish their correlation with the codes used by the researcher. The problem is that the fact conveyed by the author of the source is the result of choosing from the mass of surrounding events an event that, in his opinion, has a meaning. The use of this technique is effective in the analysis of various rituals: from household to state 1 . As an example of the application of the semiotic method, one can cite the study of Lotman Yu.M. “Conversations about Russian culture. Life and traditions of the Russian nobility (XVIII - early XIX centuries)”, in which the author considers such significant rituals of noble life as a ball, matchmaking, marriage, divorce, duel, Russian dandyism, etc.

Modern research uses methods such as: method of discursive analysis(analysis of text phrases and its vocabulary through discursive markers); dense description method(not a simple description, but an interpretation of various interpretations of ordinary events); narrative story method"(consideration of familiar things as incomprehensible, unknown); case study method (study of a unique object or extreme event).

The rapid penetration of interview materials into historical research as a source led to the formation of Oral History. Working with interview texts required historians to develop new methods.

construction method. It lies in the fact that the researcher works through as many autobiographies as possible from the point of view of the problem he is studying. Reading autobiographies, the researcher gives them a certain interpretation, based on some general scientific theory. The elements of autobiographical descriptions become for him "bricks" from which he constructs a picture of the phenomena under study. Autobiographies provide facts for building a general picture, which are related to each other according to the consequences or hypotheses that follow from the general theory.

Method of examples (illustrative). This method is a variation of the previous one. It consists in illustrating and confirming certain theses or hypotheses with examples selected from autobiographies. Using the method of illustrations, the researcher looks for confirmation of his ideas in them.

Typological analysis- consists in identifying certain types of personalities, behavior, schemes and patterns of life in the studied social groups. To do this, autobiographical material is subjected to a certain cataloging and classification, usually with the help of theoretical concepts, and all the richness of reality described in biographies is reduced to several types.

Statistical processing. This type of analysis is aimed at establishing the dependence of various characteristics of the authors of autobiographies and their positions and aspirations, as well as the dependence of these characteristics on various properties of social groups. Such measurements are useful, in particular, in cases where the researcher compares the results of the study of autobiographies with the results obtained by other methods.

Methods used in local studies:

• excursion method: departure to the studied area, acquaintance with architecture, landscape. Locus - a place - is not a territory, but a community of people engaged in a specific activity, united by a connecting factor. In the original sense, an excursion is a scientific lecture of a motor (mobile) nature, in which the element of literature is reduced to a minimum. The main place in it is occupied by the sensations of the excursionist, and the information is commentary;
• the method of complete immersion in the past involves a long stay in the region in order to penetrate the atmosphere of the place and better understand the people inhabiting it. This approach is very close in terms of views to the psychological hermeneutics of W. Dilthey. It is possible to reveal the individuality of the city as an integral organism, to reveal its core, to determine the realities of the current state. On the basis of this, a whole state is formed (the term was introduced by the local historian N.P. Antsiferov).
• identification of "cultural nests". It is based on a principle put forward in the 1920s. N.K. Piksanov about the relationship between the capital and the province in the history of Russian spiritual culture. In a generalizing article by E.I. Dsrgacheva-Skop and V.N. Alekseev, the concept of "cultural nest" was defined as "a way of describing the interaction of all areas of the cultural life of the province during its heyday ...". Structural parts of the "cultural nest": landscape and cultural environment, economic, social system, culture. Provincial "nests" influence the capital through "cultural heroes" - bright personalities, leaders acting as innovators (urban planner, book publisher, innovator in medicine or pedagogy, philanthropist or philanthropist);
• topographic anatomy - research through names that are carriers of information about the life of the city;
• anthropogeography - the study of the prehistory of the place where the object is located; logic line analysis: place - city - community 3 .

Methods used in historical and psychological research.

Method of psychological analysis or a comparative psychological method is a comparative approach from identifying the reasons that prompted an individual to certain actions, to the psychology of entire social groups and the masses as a whole. To understand the individual motives of a particular position of a person, traditional characteristics are not enough. It is required to identify the specifics of thinking and the moral and psychological character of a person, which determine

which determined the perception of reality and determined the views and activities of the individual. The study touches upon the peculiarities of the psychology of all aspects of the historical process, comparing general group characteristics and individual characteristics.

Method of socio-psychological interpretation - involves a description of psychological characteristics in order to identify the socio-psychological conditionality of people's behavior.

The method of psychological design (experiencing) - interpretation of historical texts by recreating the inner world of their author, penetrating into the historical atmosphere in which they were.

For example, Senyavskaya E.S. proposed this method for studying the image of the enemy in a “border situation” (the term of Heidegger M., Jaspers K.), meaning by it the restoration of certain historical types of behavior, thinking and perception 1 .

Researcher M. Hastings, while writing the book "Overlord", tried to mentally make a jump at that distant time, even took part in the teachings of the English Navy.

Methods used in archaeological research: magnetic exploration, radioisotope and thermoluminescent dating, spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction and X-ray spectral analysis, etc. Knowledge of anatomy (Gerasimov's method) is used to recreate the appearance of a person from bone remains. Girts Prince. "Intense Description": In Search of an Interpretive Theory of Culture // Anthology of Cultural Studies. TL. Interpretations of culture. SPb., 1997. pp. 171-203. Schmidt S.O. Historical local history: questions of teaching and studying. Tver, 1991; Gamayunov S.A. Local history: problems of methodology // Questions of history. M., 1996. No. 9. S. 158-163.

2 Senyavskaya E.S. The history of the wars of Russia of the XX century in the human dimension. Problems of military-historical anthropology and psychology. M., 2012.S. 22.

Anthology of Cultural Studies. TL. Interpretations of culture. SPb., 1997. pp. 499-535, 603-653; Levi-Strauss K. Structural Anthropology. M., 1985; Guide to the methodology of cultural and anthropological research / Comp. E.A.Orlova. M., 1991.

HISTORICAL-TYPOLOGICAL METHOD - one of the main methods of historical research, which implements the tasks of typology. Typology (from other Greek τόπος - imprint, form, pattern and λόγος - word, teaching) is based on the division (ordering) of a set of objects or phenomena into qualitatively homogeneous classes (types) taking into account their common significant features. Typology requires adherence to a number of principles, the central of which is the choice of the basis of the typology, which allows reflecting the qualitative nature of both the entire set of objects and the types themselves. Typology as an analytical procedure is closely related to the abstraction and simplification of reality. This is reflected in the system of criteria and "boundaries" of types, which acquire abstract, conditional features.

In historical science, the historical-typological method is used to study mass historical objects and phenomena, its main task is to identify and analyze socio-economic and socio-cultural historical types, that is, to create a historical typology. The epistemological and methodological possibilities of the method were revealed by ID Kovalchenko.

The following options for applying the historical-typological method can be distinguished: 1) based on the use of the deductive method, that is, by theoretical understanding of the phenomenon under consideration (theoretical typology). A deductive approach to the construction of a typology is possible under the condition of a deep knowledge of the object under study and corresponds to the concept of an ideal type introduced by M. Weber; 2) by applying the inductive method: from the particular to the general (empirical typology). The inductive approach to typology was reflected in the works of G. P. Becker, who substantiated the concept of “constructed” type in relation to sociological research. The difference between an "ideal" type and a "designed" one is in the method of its modeling. The latter is created on the basis of specific information characterizing social reality. The inductive approach to typology often relies on formal techniques (typological grouping, multidimensional statistics methods) and allows taking into account the specifics of the population under study, but cannot go beyond it, i.e., does not have the property of universality; 3) based on a mixed deductive-inductive approach. In this case, the types are determined on the basis of theoretical analysis, and their quantitative characteristics are refined empirically.

L. N. Mazur

The definition of the concept is cited from the ed.: Theory and Methodology of Historical Science. Terminological dictionary. Rep. ed. A.O. Chubaryan. [M.], 2014, p. 156-158.

Literature:

Varg M.A. Categories and methods of historical science. M., 1984. Bocharov AV Basic methods of historical research: textbook. allowance Tomsk, 2006; Weber M. Research on the methodology of sciences. M., 1980; Kovalchenko ID Methods of historical research. M., 1987; Mazur L. N. Methods of historical research: textbook. allowance Yekaterinburg, 2010; Moiseev N. N. Man. Wednesday. Society. Problems of formalized description. M., 1982.; Smolensky N. I. Theory and methodology of history: textbook. allowance M., 2007.

(short description).

The book illustrates the application of the undeservedly forgotten comparative method in global and private historical research. The complex interaction of historical processes of a worldwide nature, such as Westernization, with the characteristics of individual societies, determines the specific morphology of history - the forms of development of societies that we observe. As a result of the morphological study of history, it is found that the psychological characteristics of people change from era to era. Many social, political, economic processes are the result of these mental changes, and it is with them that the periodization of human history is connected. In connection with the natural change in the characters of people and civilizations participating in the historical process, the structure of society also changes at each historical stage. The book examines the interaction of parts of modern society: culture, state, economy. The morphological approach to history allows us to explore the failed versions of history, to characterize those historical opportunities and forks that took place in the past and await us in the future. The book is addressed to historians, philosophers, sociologists, culturologists, political scientists and a wide range of readers.

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The following excerpt from the book Morphology of history. Comparative method and historical development (G. Yu. Lyubarsky, 2000) provided by our book partner - the company LitRes.

Methodology of historical research: comparative method

Comparative method in historical research. - Own time.

The comparative method in historical research has been used, one might say, always. On the other hand, the full-scale application of this method has not been achieved. By the 19th century, the use of the comparative method was taken for granted, in Russian historiography S.M. Solovyov, without any special explanation, distinguished between "identical" and "non-identical" phenomena. In German historiography, Rickert (Rikkert, 1908) and Troeltsch (Troeltsch, 1994) compared the series of historical events were widely discussed. However, at the beginning of the XX century. N.P. Pavlov-Silvansky "rediscovered" this method, applying it with particular perseverance to solving the problem of feudalism in Russia by studying the similarities and differences of historical phenomena. He did not formulate a clear idea of ​​the criteria for the similarity of phenomena, did not develop a complete picture of the comparative method, - "only" pointed out the obvious similarities in the development of Russia and Western Europe, so that the cardinal question of the general nature of Russian history, on which the Slavophiles and Westerners broke spears three- four generations, lead to a state in which this question could receive an objective answer.

Then, however, the literalist school of historians won, believing that a simple presentation of chronicles and other evidence gives the most complete answer to any question that can be addressed to the history of mankind. A story of "scissors and glue" appeared, which was collected from fragments of annals and letters. Such history was declared "only scientific" because it did not recognize speculation and was based on a solid empirical basis. But along with the speculation, the thought left history. The comparative-historical approach migrated from history to sociology. At the end of the XIX century. a very funny situation has developed in history: Max Weber admitted that since childhood he was interested in the morphological side of historical phenomena, he wanted to study the life of large structures, large blocks of history, to consider their influence on people's lives. However, contemporary history was a purely empirical science of literacy. As a result, Weber "understood" that his interests were drawing him into a different scientific discipline, and took up sociology.

As a protest against this situation, in opposition to the historiographic concept of literalism, the Annales school arose in France in the 1930s. Mark Blok, Lucien Febvre and Fernand Braudel drew attention to the complexity of the process of history, recognized the plurality of connections in the social system. In this regard, the mechanical understanding of causality broke down, the idea of ​​the linearity of development collapsed, it became clear that different aspects of the social whole develop at different speeds. New knowledge was obtained not because of the discovery of new chronicle sources; historians have a new idea of ​​what the question "why" means. Previously, they were looking for historical causes and historical consequences, they believed that after the “true cause” was found, the phenomenon can be considered known. However, there were many dozens of such "true reasons", and the very explanatory scheme of history had to change.

The founders of the Annals advocated the use of the comparative method in history, paying special attention to changes in social consciousness, to those changes in the human psyche, within which all historical realities are comprehended. Again the comparative method was "discovered" in the study of history; again it was recognized as the primary method in the study of the phenomena of history. Gradually, in the 1950s and 1960s, the Annales school became one of the most influential, but the lack of an understanding of the general plan for the structure of society and the most important changes in mental life led it to a literal - on a new level - study of certain aspects of the life of people of past centuries. Simply put, in response to the question of how the spiritual life of a person of the Middle Ages differed from a modern person, data are given on how often a person washes in a particular era, what he drinks and how often he prays. These data are undoubtedly of great value. However, in order to describe the development of a historical organism, it is necessary to have a clearer idea of ​​its general morphology, to know how one “organ” of such an organism affects its other parts, to understand which historical phenomena will be only variants of one type, and which ones will represent independent entities. living under special laws.

1. Comparative method in historical research

The comparative method is a necessary component of any scientific research dealing with real objects (and not ideal ones, as in various areas of mathematics). For a scientific description of any subject area, first of all, it is necessary to distinguish between the objects with which the researcher is dealing, find out their similarities and differences, and combine them into classes according to significant similarities. True, in many sciences this methodologically necessary part of the scientific method is reduced - either because of the supposed triviality (as in physics), or due to a lack of understanding of the true structure of the scientific method. Any science that studies real phenomena begins with a morphological method for describing these phenomena. Morphology, in turn, is closely connected with systematics, with the unification of phenomena into classes.

The comparative method serves as the basis for describing the morphology of the object of study. Usually, we do not distinguish objects by features, but immediately grasp the integral image of the object, see what other objects it looks like. But in order for knowledge about an object to become scientific, it is necessary to indicate the signs by which this object is distinguished. Science differs from other areas of cognitive activity by a greater degree of continuity and reproducibility of results. A holistic vision of an object cannot be transferred to another person who is unfamiliar with this object. Only by mentally highlighting some structures, signs, differences in an object, we can tell other people about them and thus make our knowledge accessible to others.

Having studied the morphology of the object, indicating those features on the basis of which the object is similar to some others, and those aspects in which it differs from others, we can correlate the object under study with others, that is, represent and describe the group of objects in which the object under study is included as part (element, aspect). Singling out a group (class) of objects that are similar in some essential respect allows further work not with an infinite set of empirically given objects, but with a limited number of types (classes) of objects. When solving problems, it is assumed that all objects of the same class behave more or less in the same way. If, in this case, objects belonging to the same class behave differently, we re-study the morphology, select other classes that are more suitable for solving this problem.

After identifying the main features of the group of objects that includes the object under study, based on the knowledge of similar objects, hypotheses can be put forward about its properties, behavior, and functioning. This is a very powerful means of cognition - the construction of hypotheses about the yet unknown properties of a given object on the basis of the fact that we know that this object belongs to a given class of objects, and other members of this class have such and such properties. The basis for such hypotheses is the integrity of the objects of study. If we chose as an object of study not a random set of properties, but a truly integral system, then its features are correlated with each other. This means that if we find a certain group of similarities between objects, then our confidence increases that these objects are similar in many other properties. Without such a selection of the typical properties of objects, scientific laws could not be formulated. Scientists don't examine all the water droplets in the ocean to see if their properties are similar; having studied a certain amount of water and concluding that the entire ocean consists of such a substance, we assume in advance that the properties of all its particles are approximately the same.

Such hypotheses are tested either by observing the actual behavior of the object, or experimentally. An experiment is the same observation of the behavior of a natural object, only this observation is carried out in an artificially created and controlled environment. The degree of "creation" and "control" of the environment are very different, so that, in fact, experiments are possible in any science. Having considered the results of observations and experiments, we compare our hypotheses about the behavior of certain properties with actually observed results and, on this basis, refine our understanding of the structure of the object. Scientific research is iterative, it is like a snake biting its own tail: its result is to reach the very beginning of the research, but with new experience, which makes it possible to better describe the system of similarities and differences of the object under study from other objects, redefine the composition of a group of similar objects and continue iterative study procedure. Correcting the hypotheses about the relationship between the properties of an object in accordance with the results of observations and experiments, we single out new properties (their number in any real object is infinite), form new groups of similar objects, and re-investigate the properties of these groups. From here it can be seen that at almost all stages of scientific research we compare the morphological structure of objects with each other and combine similar objects into groups; this operation is the basic operation of the scientific method. In the cyclical process of cognition of reality, the comparative method plays a connecting role.

In history, the foundations of the morphological method are used no less than in other sciences. A beautiful example of the operation of this method is known. Little remains of the sites of prehistoric man, and it is a difficult task to relate these few remains to the movements of tribes and cultures. A well-known English archaeologist developed a key table for stone axes. At first, all axes differed in the shape visible in profile, then in the vertical outline, then in the shape of the blade, details of fastening to the handle, and so on. As a result of passing through this key, it was possible to come to a certain type of stone axes. The result obtained coincided with amazing accuracy with other remnants of the material culture of ancient people: ceramics, types of burials. It turned out that it was enough to find a stone ax in the parking lot, and it became clear what type of crops this parking lot belongs to. This classic result was attempted by scientists studying ancient sites in the Ukraine and southern Russia. In accordance with the local forms of axes, it seemed to them more correct to build the key differently, they first divided all the axes according to the shape of the outline visible from above, then according to the shape of the blade, according to the profile, etc. They also got many well-distinguishable types of stone axes, and each ax could be attributed to a certain type. But when maps of the distribution of axes were superimposed on maps of other phenomena, nothing coherent happened: the selected types of axes did not correlate with either the types of burials or the types of dwellings. This small example of a concrete study shows that morphology in history works continuously, it faces the same tasks as in other sciences. One can cite hundreds of similar studies in other areas of knowledge, which would say, for example, that some groups of insects differ remarkably in wing venation, and knowing this venation, one can accurately indicate the systematic belonging of the insect, while in other groups venation does not work, does not allow one to distinguish meaningful groups of species and genera. In such cases, one has to look for other signs, distinguish other classes of phenomena, and also try to understand why signs that work well within one group are not suitable for another.

In the 20th century, morphology is undergoing a deep crisis, morphological knowledge has "gone out of scientific fashion", most people are interested in beautiful evolutionary pictures, and morphological "literacy" is considered boring. Meanwhile, any evolutionary reconstructions and brilliant evolutionary scenarios are only interpretations of morphological data. For example, accumulating evidence shows that Old World monkeys (so-called narrow-nosed monkeys) and New World monkeys (broad-nosed monkeys) are so loosely related that there is no good reason to group them into one group of animals. There are two independent groups whose common ancestor was not an ape, but which have developed in such a similar way that we, at a glance, say: “Ape!”. Such a deep convergence of groups is a vivid illustration of the direction of the evolutionary process, and at the same time, any judgments about this evolutionary picture come down to a discussion of the “boring” details of the morphological structure of these animals: monkeys differ, in particular, in the structure of the facial part of the skull, they have a different number of holes in the nasal bones. According to some signs, we observe a deep similarity of organisms, and in a number of others we see significant differences, and it is this balance of signs that is expressed by the words "convergence", "directed evolution". In the same way, one can reproduce original and elegant discussions about the convergence of English and Chinese over the past thousand years. But any beautiful arguments about the cultural-philosophical meaning of such a rapprochement will be based on the basis of the most "boring" linguistics, on the jungle of grammatical and lexico-statistical calculations, from which, in fact, it follows that in the English language, which belongs to the Germanic group of languages, in general - synthetic, analyticity grows and the role of inflection falls. At the same time, the true “price” of the similarity between English and Chinese becomes obvious: this is only an extremely superficial rapprochement, which says little about the deep structure of the language.

With the help of the morphological method, all natural (and not only natural) sciences work. The opinion is often expressed that the methods of "ordinary" science are inapplicable to history due to the fundamental uniqueness, disposability of the object of its study. On this occasion, even sometimes two groups of sciences are distinguished - nomothetic, which are looking for laws that describe the behavior of similar phenomena, and ideographic, to which history also belongs. Ideographic sciences, as the supporters of this point of view argue, can only describe what is happening.

This understanding of history is erroneous. There are many reasons for such qualification; here it is appropriate to draw only one line of reasoning. In fact, all natural science disciplines work with unique objects. This is most obvious in relation to geography and related sciences: the object of their study is given in a single copy. But after all, every biological organism and every biological species are unique. The objects studied by physics are also outstanding; each stone thrown from the tower is single. However, physicists easily digress from the singularity of their objects, studying only a very generalized aspect of reality, so that their objects become the same. Sameness(isomorphism) objects is the result of the work of the scientific apparatus, and not a property of reality.

In biology, the degree of individuality (diversity, uniqueness) of objects is much higher than in physics. Therefore, there are special methodologically distinguished areas of biological knowledge - taxonomy and meronomy(simplified - morphology), which are able to present unique biological objects as comparable, in a certain respect the same. With the help of the sciences, one of which (taxonomy) studies groups of organisms, and the other (meronomy) studies the classes of parts of these organisms, it is possible to indicate to what extent we can talk about the essential similarity of various objects, and when the differences are so significant that the compared objects should be placed in different groups (taxa of a certain rank), thereby indicating the degree of their similarity. The developed methodology of biological systematics is a response to the high diversity of the object of study, the world of living organisms.

The objects of history are even more unique than living organisms, and therefore the opinion arose about their incomparability. But after all, any description is essentially a comparison. There are many types of descriptions of objects - according to their functions and roles, through the description of parts, through the indication of origin, and others, but only one type of description cannot be directly reduced to comparison - the ostensive type of description, which consists in pointing a finger at an object: “That's it! ". All other types of description imply a comparison - it does not matter, functions or roles, parts of objects or features that indicate the origin of these objects. The historian-ideographer says that his task is only to describe phenomena, without inventing general laws that do not exist in history. However, naming the parts (aspects, features) of phenomena, naming the phenomena themselves, he thereby already compares. If the word "revolution" refers to the phenomenon that occurred in 1789 in France and the phenomenon of 1917 in Russia, then these phenomena are assumed to be similar, they have much in common. Bringing two different historical events under one concept implies that these phenomena have significant similarities, and their differences at some level of consideration can be neglected. This means that in order to characterize any two events by one concept, you must first compare these events and make sure that they are identical (similar, homomorphic) in some set of properties.

One can often hear the argument that science does not deal with unique objects, and that in history every event is unique; hence, history cannot be a science in the same sense in which, say, physics is a science. Both statements are correct, but the conclusion is wrong. The uniqueness of an object is not its "objective" property, but the result of the comparison operation. Only after comparison can it be argued that a number of phenomena are similar to each other, and some phenomenon differs so significantly from them that we call it unique. The scientific method (in particular, the comparative method) makes real objects similar, comparable, suitable for further study. The comparative method supplies science with its object a real phenomenon, taken in all its material significance, cannot serve as an object of study for science, and therefore science transforms the phenomenon in a certain way, making it cognizable. Any real phenomenon is uppical, and a historical event is unique, and this fall of an apple is also unique. It only means that in order for a particular phenomenon to become a scientific fact, it must be perceived as non-unique. Behind the fall of this, given apple, we must see the general law, behind the appearance of the animal, we must see the type, and behind the similarity of historical phenomena, we must see the idea.

This means that even the objects of knowledge themselves are already saturated with cognitive operations, created by intellectual efforts. These are not images and ideas of objects that are in our thoughts, no - the very concrete objects outside of our skin are produced with the help of our knowledge. If, for the sake of a falsely understood objectivity, we exclude the cognizing subject from the world, there will be no world that anyone could cognize, there will be no colors and forms, there will be no stones and animals. The scientific method implies the recognition of the cognitive activity of the subject of cognition (researcher) as an indispensable condition for cognition of the world. The objectivity of scientific knowledge lies in a completely different, and not incorrect, assertion that a brick lying on the road in its reality does not depend on whether I know it or not. It depends, of course - if there is no cognizing consciousness, there will be no one to single out the brick as an object, it will not be possible to say "the brick lies on the road." The world without knowing consciousness exists, but objects do not.

So, the basis of historical knowledge, as well as any other knowledge in the field of real phenomena, is the comparative method, which is common both to history and to physics and biology. This does not at all imply that history does not have specific research methods in comparison with the natural sciences - say, with biology. We are accustomed to thinking about science as a whole, in accordance with the state of mathematized physics in the 19th and 20th centuries. However, the laws of nature themselves look different in different areas of reality, and, accordingly, in different areas of knowledge. In many branches of physics, we can make a conditional proposition that if such and such conditions are met, then some consequence will always occur. This conditional proposition can be put into mathematical form and is called a physical law. Such a law is universal in nature, that is, whenever the specified conditions are met, the action occurs in accordance with the law.

Biology is different from physics; in addition to physical laws, living beings also have other laws that are unlike physical laws. First of all, these patterns differ in that they are not universal, they are local in their very nature. In this regard, the subject area in which this biological law operates was called a taxon, and the biological law itself, from the content side, looks like a type (archetype) of this taxon. For a physical law, it is not necessary to indicate the area of ​​phenomena where the law is effective, it is enough just to formulate the conditions for the fulfillment of the law. And the biological law is limited by a certain class of objects (taxon), within which the law is fulfilled. The formulation of a physical law, a mathematical formula, in biology can be compared with the type of biological objects, that, to put it simply, the structural plan that all living creatures included in a given taxon have. For example, the statement "animals feed their young with milk" is incorrect; it is necessary to indicate the area in which this is true - mammals, and only they, are characterized by this property.

Such a statement is not tautological, since we can enumerate many more properties that only mammals have (“only mammals are covered with hair”). The taxon "mammals" is the scope of many similar patterns that are manifested in the structure and behavior of animals; From the content side, mammals can be represented as a structural plan, as a structure of properties, which is reflected in the concept of “type”. By studying mammals, we can learn about new properties of these animals, and the fact that these properties will be common only among mammals will be an indicator of the correctness of our taxon hypothesis. The taxon reflects only the scope of the concept, indicates the totality of objects that we call mammals. The type describes the taxon from the content side. The set of true statements about the properties of mammals will not be part of the taxon, but part of the type of mammals. A type is an analogue of a physical law applied to biological material.

We can now return to the concepts of taxonomy and meronomy, which were left unexplained above. Taxonomy studies the hierarchy of taxa, that is, the juxtaposition and subordination of biological laws from their external, extensional side. The fact that the dog belongs to the order Carnivores, and this order belongs to the class Mammals, is a statement from the field of taxonomy. Meronomia describes the structure of types, referring to the inner, intensional side. To tell what a dog is, you can only point out the interaction of the parts of this animal, a description of the features of its behavior. Meronomia is a generalization of the concept of "morphology", which is understood not simply as a description of the data of the external structure of an object, but as a result of a comparison operation, when each detail of the structure is correlated with other similar parts of other objects, so that classes of parts arise - merons. For example, the leg, liver, brain are different merons of a living organism.

The structure of biological knowledge looks in such a completely different way from physics. The history of people and the history of human societies lies still much higher than physics, its laws are embracing not only physical, but also biological laws. Therefore, the structure of historical knowledge is very different from what is customary to see in the sciences of the physical cycle. In the history that describes the behavior of rational beings and their collectives in time, specific types of local laws arise that have only remote analogies in the world of biological knowledge. It is very difficult to compare the history of personalities, the influence of personalities on the historical process, which represent the very heart of historical science, with concepts derived from biology.

It is from this heart that today's historical science is very far away. This state of affairs is quite natural. Physics is abstract, mathematical, not unduly distant from the physics of real things; mathematized biology is much farther away from the reality of the phenomena of life. From today's mathematicized edifice of biological science, the future contours of real biological knowledge are barely visible. On the next level of the sciences, in the field of humanitarian and historical knowledge, the gap between the available methodologies and methods arising from the very subject of research is even greater. The real history, the history of human personalities, the history of their interactions, has not yet been done at all. What we have today in the form of biographical studies does not at all approach the standard of knowledge required by history. Today's methodology of science can work only with much more abstract layers of history, expressed in the history of societies and states, the history of cultures and economic phenomena.

The presence of biological laws does not interfere with the action of physical laws on living beings. Moreover, the search for universal laws in the living world is fruitful. From the point of view of biology, such universal (and thus similar to physical) laws will be a description of the structure and behavior of a higher type, including all living organisms. These universal laws will consist of more local laws corresponding to the main types of living things. History can be studied in a similar way, searching for and describing in it local laws concerning the structure and behavior of human communities and the fruits of their activities.

Just as it is done in biological morphology and systematics, one should consider the world of historical phenomena, single out similar ones among them, combine them into taxa, that is, classes of subordinate phenomena. Among the holistic historical formations - no matter what is meant by this, a special cultural style or a political institution - one should single out the functional elements (merons) that make up this formation and compare them. Only after these operations have been carried out does it make sense to speak of a constructed system of historical knowledge; and even after such a study, the question of personality in history will remain completely untouched. The history that is created by the activity of specific people falls out of morphological research. The morphology of history can only describe a more general (and less specific) layer of phenomena.

So, the comparative method in history should work, as in all areas of knowledge that study reality. The comparative method does not exhaust the methodology that historical science needs, but even this well-known method is still not fully used in history. In this case, it makes sense to briefly formulate the general "rules of inference" that work within the framework of the comparative method and apply them to historical phenomena.

The comparative method examines the similarities of phenomena using the so-called criteria homology, which can also be called generalized similarity criteria. These universal similarity criteria are found empirically; the first attempts to formulate them belong to Aristotle and Theophrastus, they received their final form in the works of Goethe, Oken and Saint-Hilaire. Initially, they were formulated for the needs of biological morphology. However, the morphology of living beings is the richest known area of ​​morphological knowledge, and therefore the criteria developed for this area have universal applicability. When we want to indicate that two objects are similar, we necessarily refer to one of the homology (similarity) criteria.

There are only three such criteria. The first is the criterion of a special quality: if two phenomena have a common characteristic feature, these phenomena are similar, homologous. The other is the criterion of position: if two phenomena occupy the same place within the framework of a more general phenomenon, then these phenomena are similar, homologous. Finally, the series criterion: if a continuous series of transitions can be built between two phenomena, these phenomena are similar, homologous. The series criterion is dependent (we establish the similarity between any two members of the series by the first two criteria), so we can assume that two independent criteria are sufficient. These two criteria are universal and are the basis of human knowledge. There are no other ways to establish the similarity of phenomena. Simply put, the criteria for homology in a clear form reveal the meaning of the concept of "comparison". If we compare something with each other, then we consciously or unconsciously use the criteria of homology.

The similarities obtained as a result of the comparison operation are divided into homologies (essential, important similarities) and analogies (side, secondary, insignificant, false, etc.). When considering the structure of the fin of a shark and a dolphin, one finds a significant similarity between the two phenomena. However, when studying other structural features of these animals (the structure of the respiratory, circulatory, excretory, reproductive and other organ systems), it turns out that from the point of view of the general structural plan, the similarity of the fins is superficial, secondary, and the difference between these animals is significant, so that the dolphin is closer, say, to the dog, not to the shark. Then they say that the similarity of fins is an analogy, a shark and a dolphin are similar, and a dolphin and a dog are homologous, although not too similar. But this judgment is true only if the point of view from which the comparison is made is given. If our goal is to establish the degree of relationship of animals and thereby clarify their place in the genealogical classification, then the similarity of a shark and a dolphin is an analogy, and a dolphin and a dog is a homology. If we study the adaptations of various animals to living in water, then the similarities between sharks and dolphins will be significant, homologous, and those groups of similarities that unite the dolphin and the dog will fade into the background, become insignificant, similar.

Exactly the same appears in historical research when we compare, for example, the discovery of gunpowder by the Europeans and the Chinese. If we consider only the history of inventions, we ask the question: “How many times has mankind discovered gunpowder?”, Then the answer is at least two (and even more, even by the Arabs in the 7th century). The discovery of gunpowder by the Chinese (in the 11th century) and Europeans are here treated as homologous (we will not touch on the complex issue of the borrowing of gunpowder by Europeans from the Chinese through the Mongols). If we are interested in the general history of civilization and the discovery of gunpowder acts as an indicator of transformations in military affairs, changes in the nature of warfare, the degree of competitiveness and advanced ™ of this or that civilization, then these discoveries become similar, since the Chinese did not use gunpowder in military affairs, but let with it, colorful fireworks. And then we can say that gunpowder in this sense was discovered only once, other countries borrowed it (in its given meaning) from Europeans, and the discovery of gunpowder by the Chinese cannot be considered a homologous phenomenon, this is just an analogy, and very distant, European discovery.

The discovery of gunpowder, understood as the most important element in the transformation of military affairs, entails many consequences in the historical process. The relations of the colony and the mother country, the possibilities of conquest and resistance to conquerors are changing. After all, the discovery of gunpowder resulted in the European conquest of America, which had a profound effect on world history. However, history is not driven by technology: there is evidence that the Arabs used gunpowder in the 7th century. to undermine the fortifications, in the XII century. Spanish Muslims invented personal firearms. And yet this discovery did not make the world Arab, Muslim. In the XIII century. The Mongols elicited the secret of gunpowder from the Chinese and for the first time guessed to use it in military affairs, for throwing stone cannonballs. And yet the influence of Mongolian civilization on history is difficult to compare with the influence of European civilization. In the hands of the Europeans, gunpowder became a powerful weapon that turned the fate of many civilizations upside down and brought the world to the feet of the Europeans. And already from the Europeans, these weapons were borrowed with extreme speed. Since the 14th century, when gunpowder began to be widely used in Europe, its use in weapons became the subject of borrowings in many regions of the world. The history of "European gunpowder" begins in 1308, when the Castilians used cannons during the siege of Gibraltar. In the XV century. a ship's cannon with a movable carriage was created, and pirate and military ships flooded the seas.

In the East, the military use of gunpowder did not continue, but the history of gunpowder in Europe is known. It is clear that the use of firearms greatly affects the combat capability of the state: if you are late with such a change, you will lose. Europeans developed handguns around the 14th century. In 1542, the first batch of arquebuses from Portugal was brought to Japan, and in 1575, Odo Nobunaga utterly smashes Takeda Katsuyori, massively using arquebusiers in battle. The disadvantage of the arquebus was the slow reload. To compensate for this, Nobunaga lined up three thousand arquebusiers in three rows, which fired volleys in turn. The best cavalry of Katsuyori was swept away (the final scene of A. Kurosawa's film "Shadow of a Warrior"). Since then, even recognized sword masters in Japan have recognized that the sword is a personal, additional weapon, and in battle, firearms decide the matter.

With the introduction of gunpowder, a number of phenomena of military and political transformations are associated, homologous to each other, although differing in some details. For example, in France, a new type of army with firearms was introduced - musketeers, elite noble units. In Russia, new military formations with fiery combat also appeared - archers (created by Ivan the Terrible in 1550), an unprivileged army recruited from the "black" and townspeople, in terms of "prestige" inferior to the boyar (and noble) cavalry militia. This noble cavalry in Russia loses its significance in the 17th century. (1632 - in addition to archers and gunners, Reiter, dragoon and soldier regiments appear) and disappears in the 18th century, under Peter. In Germany, the noble cavalry was forced out by regular troops after the Thirty Years' War, disappearing at the very end of the 17th century.

In this way we can compare series of dated events; in this case, such a series reflects the emergence in different countries and regions of a new type of regular troops with firearms. You can study the characteristics of this series: the morphological specifics of the elements (musketeers - archers - Japanese arquebusiers = samurai of lower ranks), regional features (prestige, elitism / non-prestige), the speed of propagation of the "event wave" (a series of homologous events ordered by dates or localities), mutual influence different series (for example, the appearance of firearms and the colonial policy of European countries).

Naturally, the examples given and others like them are the ABC of historical knowledge, and such mental constructions are used automatically, without lengthy discussions about the methodology of science, the place of the comparative method in it, and so on. However, automatism of thinking and forgetfulness of methodology can lead to serious mistakes. The comparative-historical method of research was forgotten before it began to work in full force. The subject of the study of history is the causes of certain events. That is, the historian, as a result of his work, must point to the chain of causes that led to the appearance of this event. Historical schools, in fact, differ only in the kind of causes they prefer. Some like economic reasons, others like state ones, connected with political development. You can find geopolitical, ideological, geographical, ethnographic explanations...

The trouble is that all these explanations are correct, and all schools are right. This situation arises because the history of society is a process of development. We can talk about development in relation to open non-equilibrium complex systems. On the other hand, the methodology of causal analysis was formed in the study of completely different systems - closed, balanced, relatively simple. In such simple processes as the collision of billiard balls, the cause entails the effect. Such processes have long been studied by mechanics; almost all of physics was built on a similar cognitive basis until the beginning of the 20th century. And the processes of development were studied by other than physics, natural sciences, and biology has achieved the greatest success in this regard. The study of developmental processes has shown that the causal method simply does not work in them; like any method, it gives answers, but these answers turn out to be inadequate to the ongoing processes.

Imagine: a certain person was late for an important meeting and explains his lateness by the fact that the transport was delayed today, he met a friend he had not seen for a long time and could not help giving him a few minutes, his watch was behind him, he felt bad. Suppose that everything he says is true, everything he says is the reason for his delay. Doesn't the thought arise that in fact the question is posed incorrectly, the point is not in the search for reasons as such. The psychologist here may refer to the metaphor of "internal deep reason", may say that he "subconsciously" did not want to come to this meeting. But not only a psychologist, but any person, faced with many reasons for one phenomenon, begins to suspect that all these reasons are “false”, that they do not explain this phenomenon, even if they all turn out to be “true” in the sense that each of these reasons took place and influenced the investigation.

Embryology has long been engaged in the search for the causes of changes observed in development. Why does this animal develop a head? You can answer by pointing to the effects of certain substances on a certain part of the embryo in a certain period of development (this phenomenon is called induction). And if at this time these substances will not work? It turns out that then the compensation system begins to work, other substances are released, other effects are exerted - development is regulated in such a way that the adult organism has a head, despite the fact that the causes of the phenomena have changed radically. In the development of an organism, the result is fixed, but the causes vary; the causes are accidental in terms of the result. The reason for the presence of the head is the goal of development - the creation of a normal organism. Such a phenomenon is called equifinality. The essence of equifinality is that in a fairly wide range of influences, a developing system, regardless of specific types of influences and causes, produces a fixed result - the appearance of a normal organism of a given species. The equifinality of the development of an organism is explained by the experience of thousands of generations of its ancestors, who experienced in their development different ways of responding to disturbing influences. In an equifinal way, organisms respond to historically typical developmental disturbances.

There are two types of development - ontogenesis (individual development of the organism) and phylogeny (development in a series of generations). Only ontogeny has the property of equifinality; with respect to phylogeny, one can speak of a direction that only sometimes leads to equifinal development. The difference between onto- and phylogenesis is given by the degree of integrity of the developing system. The more integral the system, the more correlated its elements, the more its development bears the features of cyclicality. The high correlation of parts is achieved by referring to relatively constant hereditary information.

As the integrity of the developing system decreases, the possibility of regulating the development of parts from the side of the whole decreases; at the same time, the difference between ontogenesis and phylogeny decreases, ontogeny is more and more like phylogeny. The degree of fixation of the final shape of the developing system decreases. However, some organic systems with a degree of integrity lower than the organismic one develop equifinally. For example, biocenoses do not have a dedicated “heredity substance”; the integrity of communities of organisms is much lower than that of organisms of higher animals; it is rather correlated with the integrity of protozoa or viruses. However, the individual development of biocenoses (succession) proceeds equifinally, in contrast to the evolution of biocenoses (more precisely, successional systems), which is similar to phylogeny and therefore does not have the property of equifinality. Communities of organisms have varying degrees of integrity, and if groupings can be explained as a simple mosaic of randomly converged organisms (for example, inhabiting a volcanic island after an eruption), then complex biosystems, for example, a forest or a swamp, are highly equifinal and restore a fixed normal appearance as a result a wide variety of disorders (the return to a stable state after a violation is called homeostasis). The meaning of the phenomenon of succession lies in the fact that in response to a wide variety of disturbances - excessive moisture, fire or drought - the biocenosis restores its original appearance. The path of recovery depends on the type of violation, but not the result.

In human society, there are analogues of "hereditary information"; they are the recorded results of cultural activity.

An analogue of a gene is a book. At the same time, it is obvious that the integrity of human society is much lower than the integrity of the individual. The development of human society, as well as the community of organisms (biocenosis), is not a "classical" ontogeny, however, many of its aspects develop cyclically, equifinally, and all development as a whole is undoubtedly purposeful and directed.

So, when we deal with evolving systems, identifying chains of cause and effect does not lead to an understanding of reality. The causal method does not give obvious errors: causes have consequences, what happens can be described as a process of producing effects by causes. However, this description is not complete enough, since the specificity of the end result depends very little on the specificity of the cause. The causal explanation of the phenomena of history turns out to be only partially adequate to the historical process. There are causes and effects in history, but many aspects of history can only be explained by describing closed cycles of phenomena leading to an equifinal result. Moreover, it is precisely such aspects of history that are especially valuable for historical knowledge, since the most important thing in the history of human society is, undoubtedly, the process of development. Only a correct comparative, morphological approach is capable of finding a method of explanation that penetrates into the nature of the phenomenon under study. The very choice of the type of explanation - causal or otherwise - is one of the results of the study, and not a pre-announced form of such a result.

History as a science does not yet deal with a detailed morphological description of history, does not operate with the concepts of homology and equifinality, being easily deceived by causal explanations - the easier it is that all causes, and each separately, are true, but not essential. Let us recall, for example, how the fact is explained that in the history of Russia state principles prevail over economic and cultural ones, that Russia traditionally has a strong state that has supplanted other phenomena.

AT the answer to the question "why so" says that it's all about geographical factor. Russia is a vast country, without natural borders, open to attacks by aggressive neighbors. Therefore, it must maintain a large standing army and be a centralized state (why? the size of the borders grows as the root of the area; the larger the country, the smaller the share of the tax on the maintenance of the army falls per capita - with equal population density, of course). In addition, there are climatic The reasons are that our climate is harsh and unstable, agriculture is developing difficultly, the people are poor, and, again, they cannot maintain a large army. The people must be forcibly taken away from the people for the maintenance of the army, and this can only be done by a strong state. The low purchasing power of the population also follows from the poverty of the peasantry, hence the instability of the internal market, and hence the lack of investment. Therefore, the economy itself cannot develop, it is urged and forced by the state, which robs it for its own needs. Such a train of thought can be seen quite often, and the deep meaning of such reasoning boils down to the situation: our economy is in a difficult situation, because the people are poor, but if the people were rich, the economy would immediately recover.

You can mention the borrowing factor cultural"template": Russia built itself on the model of Byzantium, and Byzantium was a multinational state without natural borders and surrounded by aggressive neighbors. Throughout its history, Byzantium was characterized by a centralized powerful state that subjugated all other spheres of social development. For example, the major recession of Byzantium, which began around the 12th century, was associated with an economic recession caused by excessive interference in economic relations by the state (inflation, excessive taxes, petty tutelage of trade and crafts by the state apparatus). The re-development of state power was accompanied by its consequences: Byzantium was characterized by the intersection of the functions of various administrative bodies, general bribery, embezzlement, the purchase of titles and positions. Property and social instability gave rise to the arbitrariness of the authorities and selfishness, indifference of the population. There is a special combination of individualism of the population without the freedom of the individual. This cultural pattern was borrowed by Russia.

Further, one can say about spatial and demographic factors - only a strong centralized state could support a single society in our open spaces, which are very sparsely populated. There is a well-known pattern: the poorer and more extensive the country, the larger its capital, the stronger the centralization tendencies. Russia is not just a vast country, it has been growing throughout its history (from the 15th to the end of the 16th centuries, its territory increased 10 times, by the end of the 19th - about 10 times more). The population of Russia throughout most of history has been growing much more slowly than the territory. However, the capital - Moscow - in the XVI century. It is inhabited by about 100 thousand people (on a par with London, Rome and Amsterdam), only Paris and Naples (200 thousand) overtake it. At the same time, the rest of the cities of Russia in the 16th century. have an average population of 3-8 thousand people, and the average city of Europe - 20-30 thousand. The capital "swells with hunger": the population of the capital is especially large in a poor country. As the territory expands, the population density decreases, the centralizing tendency of state building becomes more and more pronounced; with poor communication between the regions of the country, only over-centralization can keep it from disintegrating. By the way, the situation was similar in Byzantium: in this “country of cities”, the legal and administrative boundaries between the city and the countryside were very fuzzy, the cities had an agrarian character, so gardens and vineyards were located inside the city.

In addition to this, there is systemic reason: once formed, a strong state will take away from the poor population a significant share of the property for the existence of a strong army and the maintenance of the state itself, and therefore the population will not grow rich at all, and it will have to support such a strong state by force, for which a powerful state is needed. In addition, a strong state, by the very fact of its existence, creates tension on the borders, acquiring aggressive neighbors, which requires strengthening the state. A positive feedback is formed: the dominant state oppresses the economy, provoking a set of reasons that cause the strengthening of statehood.

The systemic cause is one of the factors of equifinality: once it has arisen, a strong state is self-supporting and itself creates the reasons for being necessary and reborn when violated. A circle of causes is formed that renders unimportant all other (presumably original) causes. Thus equifinality renders causal explanations unimportant. But if the cause of the event is not important, what is important for understanding the phenomenon? It may be important to see that a higher social education than one country - Europe as a whole - provides the whole range of forms from societies with the primacy of statehood (Russia in the East) to societies with a clear primacy of economic life (England in the West; outside Europe, even further west - the United States). Such is the structure of this social whole, its morphological composition. The nature of the provision of causes for a particular feature of such division is of interest only for the mechanics of development. We may be wondering what reasons led to such a division of Europe. But we must be aware that if these reasons did not work, other groups of reasons would come forward - we have already seen that there are many of them, they lie in different planes and duplicate each other.

So, history as a search for the causes of phenomena encounters methodological difficulties, therefore the comparative historical method, so firmly forgotten over the past hundred years, acquires special value. As a result of the comparative method, we get selected objects - historical phenomena - which are arranged in rows according to the degree of similarity. The analysis of such sequences is also the subject of history morphology.

2. Own time

The comparative method in history is used much more widely than just for a simple comparison of phenomena. In the above example with gunpowder, everything is, in general, trivial; when they talk about the discovery of gunpowder, everyone understands what is meant, and establishing the degree of similarity is not difficult. It is much more difficult to understand that the comparative method creates the very fabric of historical research - the very chronology of events, the actual subject of history.

should be distinguished chronology and chronometry. When chronologizing, we describe the states of the object known to us in the sequence in which they replace each other, i.e. we study the object’s own variability (own time object). During timekeeping, the intrinsic variability of an object is transposed to an external process in relation to this object (“clock”).

Two kinds of external process are conceivable, to which we can transpose the existing variability of our object. The first type of "clock" - "absolute" clock - should not depend on any external influences, otherwise they will not give independent readings and the scale developed with their help will not be an independent time scale. But in this case, changes in the object under study will not affect the readings of the clock, precisely because these clocks are “independent”. Then, for transposition, an external observer is needed, who notices the clock readings at a certain moment when significant changes in the object occur. However, it is very difficult to find such an external observer.

The second type of clock is a clock that is triggered by a certain marked event, and then its course does not depend on the process under study, which, in fact, means that this process can be used as a clock. We can imagine a series of clocks that start at different times. An example is practically the only method by which we can tie some events to absolute (independent) time - radioisotope analysis. "Nuclear" clock can be considered working if the postulate of the invariance of the rate of nuclear decay is accepted. If, for example, once the rate of decay was different than now, and then it became the same as we observe in the modern situation, then the indications of radioisotope analysis do not give grounds for dating the processes involving the decay of atomic nuclei. Apparently, the constancy of the rate of radioactive decay is an empirical regularity.

Thus, when timing historical processes, we encounter a number of difficulties. In practice, direct chronometric methods are used relatively rarely in historical research and act as auxiliary methods. Much more important for history as a science is not chronometry, but chronology. For the historian it is first of all important to know in what order the events took place. The sequence of events, given without correlating them with events in other event series, is called the proper time of the developing system. Revealing the sequence of events solves the problem of chronology. Moreover, chronology is the primary method of dating, while chronometry is secondary. The fact is that any chronometry, any date is the assignment of the proper time of one system to the proper time of another, for some reason selected as a reference system. When we have a revealed chronology of events, we can transpose it to another chronology well known to us, used as an external process, like an independent clock.

In general, the morphological study carried out to date events can be formulated as follows. By tracing stably inherited (successively preserved) trait syndromes, we obtain oriented series of traits. Combining these series in one way or another, revealing the correlation of a series of signs, we get a series of events. Considering such series, we get an idea of ​​the sequence of events, of chronology. Such a series shows the relative, or proper, time of a given developing system. Time is a sequence of events. The resulting time series is relative, or the proper time of the developing system, since it is not tied to other time series in any way. Such series solve the problem of chronology, but not chronometry. If we correlate this chronological series with another reference series, we will obtain a solution to the problem of chronometry using chronological methods.

This is how the most famous dating methods are arranged - stratigraphy and dendrochronology. Studying in different regions the sequence of occurrence of layers with the remains of different living forms or the relative width of the rings of wood, they compose a generalized continuous scale, which serves as a standard, allowing other events to be correlated with each other. If the sequence of events in the proper time of an object is known, it is enough to “link” several events to an external scale (stratigraphic in paleontology; dendrochronological in archeology) in order to date (with varying degrees of accuracy) a number of events of interest to us.

Known geological periods (Carboniferous, Jurassic, Cretaceous, etc.) are examples of how the chronological method works. When they say that some event occurred in the "Cretaceous", this indicates a segment of the chronological (stratigraphic) scale, built according to the sequence of changes in the remains of living beings in sedimentary rocks. The generalized stratigraphic reference scale is correlated with astronomical time taken as an absolute scale. This means that each dating operation is the result of a whole series of correlations of scales (local scales, standard scales, generalized scales of proper time of the objects under study and the "absolute" scale). After correlating with the astronomical (“absolute”) scale, one can name the abstract date (numerical date) of the event.

So they say, for example, that 100 million years ago there was a Cretaceous period of the Earth's development. It must be borne in mind that here it is the conceptual dating that is primary - the "Cretaceous period", and the numerical value of the date is just secondary, less significant. Here the numbers mean much less than the meaning of the words "Cretaceous", since the empirical grounds and evidence are primarily for the assertion that some event occurred in the Cretaceous period, but the value of the numerical date is the result of very approximate judgments.

Absolute time is usually called astronomical time. However, it is clear that this is the proper time of the Universe. There is no other "absoluteness" in the concept of astronomical time. By linking the resulting series of events to some aspect related to absolute time, you can get the numerical values ​​​​of dates, or just dates (since the words "Cretaceous" are usually not considered a date). Thus, numerical dates are indexes that are externally enough attributed to a chronological event in order to correlate it with another sequence of events and thereby solve the problem of chronometry. Date is an index of the ratio of two time scales. This index can be expressed in numbers, and then we get the usual dates, or it can be expressed in terms, and then we have such a date as the "Cretaceous period".

Of course, I do not want to say that there are no other ideas about time. The concept of relative, proper time comes from the methodology of natural history, the study of real things in the real world. But those areas of science that deal with ideal objects, with our logical representations, in short, with logic, and not with nature, also have their own concept of time: “Relative, apparent or ordinary time is either exact or changeable, comprehended by the senses. , an external measure of positivity, performed through some kind of movement, used in everyday life instead of true mathematical time, such as: hour, day, month, year ”(Newton, 1989).

The mathematical theory of time describes eternity - a situation where there is no real time. In this area, there is only logical consequence, and in such a way that a stage from one sequence of conceivable events can be correlated with any stage of another sequence. Inappropriately applied to the real world, the mathematical theory of time has given rise to the idea of substantial time (and substantial space), when time has a direct material carrier - a particle (chronon). Let such a view live its own life; it is possible that it will also find a worthy field of application: maybe it will find its own particle. But to describe historical time, one should use the notion developed by all natural sciences that consider developing systems. Physicists call this theory of time referent.

It is important to pay attention to the fact that obtaining a relative (own) time series is, in essence, a purely classification task. Such a conclusion is a trivial consequence of the fact mentioned above that a series of successively connected events is a time series; the process of sequential correlation of scales for the development of chronometry is carried out by means of homologization (comparison) of events. The construction of successive series of events and the correlation of these series is a common task solved by means of meronomy and taxonomy. The methodology of comparative natural science indicates that time is fundamentally known in comparison. This does not make time subjective (fictitious, changing at the whim of the researcher). The comparative method is a general method for the scientific study of objects existing in nature. The “products” of the comparative method are not only time and space, but also such an objective and obvious thing as the difference between a cat and a dog, and also, as we found out above, the objects themselves studied by science in the real world.

The objective reality we observe is built with the help of our thinking; reality is a synthesis of the world process and the process of thinking. It is often asserted that man achieves "true objectivity" by purifying what he observes from the results of his cognitive process. It is argued that the "correct", scientific perception consists in the analysis of reality in order to identify the "elementary building blocks of being". Such attempts to penetrate “under” the observed reality by means of the reduction of its mental component destroy reality.

In order to better understand the “functioning” of subjective time, we can consider the situation when for some period in absolute time nothing happened to the system of forms under consideration (no significant change in the law of composition of the system, or nothing significant from the point of view of the tasks set by the observer) . This situation in the proper time of the system is not described as a long pause - the proper time of the system did not move in this interval, i.e. the system “did not notice” that time was passing, time stopped for it. From the point of view of the system under study, there was no duration between the two changes, and it is possible to assert that these two changes are separated by a large period of time only from the outside, from some external point of view. Since this point of view is external in relation to the developing system, it will by definition be artificial, subjective, related not to reality as such, but to our tasks that we formulate in relation to this reality.

This is exactly the situation with “living fossils” (persistent taxa) – there is no time for them. When a statement is made that, for example, the tuatara has not changed over millions of years (assuming that this is indeed the case), the very form of this statement implies that this is not a characteristic of reality itself - the tuatara - but the subjective attitude of the researcher to this reality. For the tuatara (as a type of a certain taxon), since it has not changed, nothing has happened and there has been no duration between the moment of the last change and the present time. The statement about the millions of years that have elapsed between these moments is made from a different frame of reference, and therefore can only be artificially attributed to the reality that the tuatara is. Such a situation can be compared with the fact that a certain person suddenly lost consciousness, and then abruptly, immediately came to his senses. He would have no reason to assert that some time passed between the moment of losing consciousness and regaining it (if we abstract from physiological mechanisms, for example, feelings of hunger, etc.). He would be forced to learn about the elapsed time from an external source - for example, he could look at the clock, and then say: "I was unconscious for two hours." If we identify the ego and consciousness, this statement immediately turns out to be meaningless. Who was unconscious? Only external sources of information in relation to consciousness can report that in them, in these other sources, some changes took place between two moments that are not separated by anything for consciousness. Hence, such a statement (“I was unconscious for two hours”) does not assert the fact that two hours have passed between two moments of my consciousness, but that something outside of me has changed. Time passes for those who change, for unchanging systems the concept of time is meaningless.

Time is the measure of change, it reflects the variability of the system. In an unchanging system, time does not move at all, it does not exist. When we say that something has not changed for a long time, we always indicate that other systems (by which we measure time in this case) have changed, while the observed system has remained unchanged. All changes that have occurred to other systems, while there were no changes in this system, are, from its point of view, simultaneous, instantaneous, occurring between its significant changes. If we assume that the tuatara will begin to evolve from this morning, then all the events that have occurred in the world since the moment 200 million years away and this morning will be simultaneous events for it. The concept of simultaneity (synchronism) is introduced in this way. From the point of view of the observer, at the same time, what happened between changes that are significant to him. Since it can be argued that there are no true time reference systems singled out in a special way (all conceivable times are someone else’s, these are the own times of some developing systems), then the primary given is precisely the time of this developing system, in our example - a hatteria that suddenly began to change, for which 200 million years represent one inseparable and non-durable moment of time. Any other assessments of what is happening are secondary, interpreting the true event from the point of view of another system, for the own purposes of this other system, and from this point of view - subjective.

And vice versa, if in some relatively small (from the point of view of an outside observer) period of time, during which nothing significant happened to this system before, the system suddenly underwent a large number of changes, this means that the proper time of the system relative to the absolute time scale ( or time taken as absolute) accelerated. Thus, critical periods in ontogeny, when the embryo is especially sensitive to influences, when the majority of tissue and organ differentiation occurs, are just such areas of accelerated time. It is easy to see the acceleration and deceleration of time on the chronological scales of historical events. Even without ranking the events by significance, from the most superficial consideration it is obvious that in the XIII-XIV centuries. in Russia, time flowed slowly, but under Peter - very quickly.

Time in the Middle Ages moved more slowly in Europe than in the Renaissance or later, in the 19th-20th centuries. It is quite meaningless, say, to compare the number of great people who appeared in a unit of absolute time during these two periods (the sociological method of Pitirim Sorokin). The fact that fewer “significant” (from the point of view of modern culture) personalities appear in a hundred years in one period than in a hundred years in another period of time may indicate both the actual fact of “impoverishment in talents” and a different speed of the passage of time. . Only by finding out the relative speed of two periods of time, it is possible to make a judgment about the wealth (or poverty) of a given period by any events, in particular, the births of great people.

A process in which succession is limited falls out of time to the extent of this limitation. An example is cyclic processes. Directly observing the cyclic process, we can assign a numerical index to each of its stages, date the stages of the process. However, since this process is cyclic, the system "forgets" everything that happened at the end of the cycle. The proper time of such a system is closed. Dates related to different cycles are not meaningful for this system; such dates do not characterize anything in it and can only be used for external and, in this sense, subjective purposes (for example, for calculating the number of cycles by the researcher), without characterizing any of the essential processes in the system. So, in China at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. transformations were carried out that took place in Russia both in the time of Peter the Great and in the time of Ulyanov-Lenin. And the point is not only that in some metaphorical way in China, Peter and Lenin acted simultaneously, but also that the real Peter the Great and Lenin, from the point of view of China, acted simultaneously: the events marked by the actions of these personalities and taking place in Russia, according to "Chinese calendar" occurred simultaneously. Dating makes sense only for directed processes, as well as pseudo-cyclic ones, in which the cycle is not closed and a significant change in the system can be observed over long periods of time.

In the proper time of the system there are also "rings of time". These are physiological functions that usually proceed cyclically. Time flows very rapidly in these processes, but as a result of the high degree of repetition of the structure of the process, the system “forgets” everything that happened before the beginning of the current ongoing cycle. Of course, "forgets" only in the aspect of the considered physiological function. Indeed, at the same time, other processes with other characteristic times are going on in the body, for which the periods of “forgetfulness” can be significantly different. Similar processes occur in phylogenesis (evolutionary development of organisms). Examples of this kind are quite rare, but still there are: such is, for example, the picture of the evolution of sharks. Unrelated and very similar forms arose several times in the phylogeny of shark fish. In evolutionary development, such examples are rare, since in phylogenesis there is no organizational substrate similar to the genotype, the appeal to which ensures the repetition of ontogenies. In the same way, only pseudo-cycles are observed in history; there is no exact repetition of all states of all processes occurring in society. However, if the essential variables of social life do not experience a long-term directed development, such development acquires many features of cyclical processes, as can be seen in the history of China or Egypt.

To be convinced of the presence of the aspect of the cyclicity of historical time, it is enough to recall the development of the revolutionary movement in the 19th century (Dostoevsky in his mature years watched with horror how the demons that surrounded him in his youth were resurrected). At the end of the 20th century, Russia essentially repeated its very beginning - most political issues were discussed in such a way as if there was no period of Soviet power, historical development in the 90s stepped into the 1910s. Modern time as a whole largely repeats the development of the ancient Egyptian civilization. Of course, there are countless differences, but the way of life after the urban revolution had many similarities with modern society: high-rise buildings in which rooms were rented out and villas of the rich; business people's notebooks, sewerage, sunglasses, modern fashions and women's cosmetics, attitudes towards body hygiene; the construction of gigantic structures, the development of astronomy and cosmology, mathematics ... Interest in astronomy, mathematics and the natural sciences is characteristic of the Egyptian time - and for the New Age, while antiquity has opposite features. “... Antiquity, in accordance with its attitude, did not seem to “see” the technical part of the cosmos of civilization at all, did not show any interest in it (as is known, apart from data on vaults, there is not a single noteworthy mention of the technical discoveries of antiquity); the interest of antiquity was directed exclusively to the intellectual and theoretical field…” (A. Weber, 1999). It is important to pay attention to such a stylistic feature of culture as the attitude towards personal hygiene. Both ancient Egyptian and modern times paid great attention to the cleanliness of the body; in the interim period between these eras, people preferred to leave this aspect of life unattended. This indicator has various deep correlations with the organization of people's mental life. In general, according to this indicator, the new time is homologous to the ancient Egyptian and differs significantly from the era of the Greco-Latin civilization lying between them.

I mentioned several cycles of culture of different duration - from several decades to millennia. Similar cycles of different lengths can be observed in state building (periods of fragmentation are replaced by times of increased integration), in the economy. Over the past decades, economists have discovered more than a dozen "economic waves" of different duration: 10-12 years, 25, 50-60, 150 or more. Some cycles begin with the Industrial Revolution in England (late 18th century), others can be traced back to medieval China. It can be concluded that a certain degree of repetition, a certain cyclicality is widespread in history. Historical cycles are superimposed on the general progressive course of history, on the general evolution of mankind, and as a result this evolution looks like a gradual development; we can say that over a period of a little more than two centuries, the “style of time” is replaced, and the number of these styles is fixed, so that each large cycle of history (it includes a little more than two millennia; such a cycle is the Greco-Latin era; New time is a new cycle, its very beginning) consists of a set of "repeating tenses". It is enough to get acquainted with the literature on the history of styles in art, cycles in economics, etc., to meet many parallel phenomena. In many ways, such parallels in the relevant areas of knowledge have already been noted, although they have not been reduced to uniform forms.

So, identifying a series of events, orienting it and thereby establishing the proper time of a developing system, is, in fact, a classification task and is solved by typological methods. In its essential features, the methodology for determining the chronologization of a developing system is an expanded version of the comparative historical method. Another task is chronometric, the binding of this relative time to an absolute scale is usually carried out by correlating not with the absolute scale itself (more precisely, as mentioned above, with the scale taken as absolute), but with another relative scale, which is assumed in this approximation to be close to absolute . As a result, this problem is also solved by the comparative method.

It is clear that linking paleontological samples to the history of the earth's crust through stratigraphy is a link to the relative scale of the proper time of the Earth. Thus, the problem is always reduced to the homologation of the scales, to the comparison of the scales themselves. The example of stratigraphy is quite obvious in this respect. Stratons (layers of the earth's crust) are visible merons (classified parts of the body) and, moreover, in the sequence of their occurrence, time is directly "materialized" (Stenon's principle). This means that the tasks of chronology (establishing one's own sequence of events) and chronometry (binding a series of events to another series) are solved using typological procedures. The main method of the historical sciences is the typological method based on the comparative method.

One can try to refute this statement by citing the fact that, unlike nature, history has conscious chroniclers, external observers who, without any homologation of scales, indicate in their testimonies the dates of the events taking place: “In the year from the birth of Christ 2000…”. This objection is refuted by pointing out the methods of dealing with original dates on documents. It just seems that the dates are given directly to the historian. However, a slightly more in-depth study of the issue shows that the situation is the same with these “obvious” dates, as with other historical realities - they are clarified by homologation, correlation with other events, establishing similarities and differences. A beautiful example of the relative value of authentic evidence comes from Greek archeology. In the city of Priene, on the wall of an ancient building, they found an inscription entitled: “Names of the ephors,” and a list of 15 names, famous Spartan names ... For the entire list, there is only one ephor (Brassid). This building was a gymnasium, the inscription was an ancient cheat sheet, also compiled by a “loser”. Authentic evidence turned out to be incorrect. The historian does the same with dated documents - he checks whether the dates indicated on them are true. And this verification is possible only in one way, which boils down to the homologation of the events mentioned in the document with the events known from other sources. No, even the most authentic historical evidence can be included in the chronological scale, apart from a morphological study that compares this fact with others. If any dates are in doubt (and in the limit these are all dates), then the true course of events is established by comparing different dating systems and comparing events.

A vivid (albeit negative) proof of this is the “new chronology” of A.T. Fomenko. Fomenko (following Morozov) demonstrate an attempt to revise the "written history" of mankind by homologating events and identifying similar events. Another thing is that this homologation is carried out rather haphazardly and according to an insufficient syndrome of features, insufficiently checked for mutual correspondence, etc. It is important for us now to note that in the humanities, chronometric work with data is carried out according to the same principle as in the field of natural sciences. Sciences: events are homologated, checked for compliance with surrounding groups of events (correlation with local scales) and the final assignment of a place on the time scale (“dates”). Simply put, Fomenko is a very bad historian, and what a professional does masterfully, automatically, so that one’s hands are not visible, Fomenko clearly shows through in clumsy cognitive acts.

In the language of biology, the method of chronologizing events, that is, establishing their sequence within a single time scale, consists in analyzing the meronomic structure of the studied archetypes, establishing the highest level of meron that distinguishes this event from similar ones, and correlating meron levels and taxon ranks. In the language of history, this methodology is formulated in different terms: the signs of compared events are analyzed (for example, feudal treaties in Russia and France), differences and similarities are established, which allows us to conclude either about the different nature of these phenomena (say, about the absence of feudalism in Russia), or about their fundamental similarity and the possibility of their unification within the framework of a common concept (feudalism, with its own, but not very significant variations in France and Russia). In the same way, in biology, signs are compared, for example, of a whale and a dog, differences and similarities are established, and a conclusion is made either about the different nature of these organisms (that they belong to different taxa, orders of cetaceans and carnivores, respectively), or about a fundamental similarity them and thus about uniting into one large taxon (mammalian class), within which their structural plans appear as variations of one archetype. Thus, the comparison of properties does not just lead to a judgment of similarity or difference, but indicates the level of noted similarities. In fact, the method is much more subtle; it also allows one to establish the significance of phenomena and thus their place in the system of comparison (which is analogous to the rank of a taxon in biology).

So, the fundamental method of history, like that of the natural sciences, is the typological method, which begins with a comparison of objects. Thanks to the comparison of events, ideas are built about groups of similar phenomena, denoted by one name; the boundaries, volumes of these groups, as well as their content, structure are revealed. As a result, the researcher has a picture of the world, which allows one to put forward meaningful hypotheses about new properties of phenomena and test these hypotheses, clarifying the composition and structure of similarity groups. All these cognitive operations begin with the comparison (homologisation) of phenomena according to their parts (aspects, features), the organization of the series of phenomena being compared. This means that in order to get acquainted, at least in a superficial way, with the results of the work of the comparative method, we will first have to build a number of series of similar phenomena in different historical integrity. Only then will it be possible to imagine what the study of history by the comparative (typological) method brings us to.