What historical science studies.

SECTION I BASES OF HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE

The value of studying history. You can cite many statements of great people about the benefits of studying history. The famous Roman orator Cicero called history the teacher of life. Many other prominent figures expressed similar ideas. Thus, the Spanish writer Miguel Cervantes noted that history is a treasury of our deeds, a witness to the past and a lesson for the present, a warning for the future, and the Russian writer Leonid Andreev stated: “To go forward, look back more often, because otherwise you will forget where you came from and where do you need to go. "

The cited and many other similar statements emphasize the idea that knowledge of the past helps to better understand the present and even foresee the future. Indeed, despite all the differences between the present and even the very recent past, it is not difficult to see that much in the life of mankind has remained unchanged since its appearance on Earth.

People have always strived to improve their lives and the lives of their children, and for this they always had to work using natural resources. They interacted with each other, uniting in various communities. Between these communities (tribes, nationalities, states, social groups) there were often clashes and at the same time there were mutually beneficial ties and cooperation. Since ancient times, a person has tried to realize his place in the world, therefore, problems associated with spiritual life (religion, culture) were of great importance in his life.

All spheres of human society have their own laws, which are studied by historical science. Having considered the operation of these patterns in the past, you can use them in modern world... The Russian philosopher Arseny Gulyga believed that history is a school of behavior and in the past people are looking for and finding the right models. In his opinion, the experience of history is the right reference point, which is often used unconsciously. Both individuals and entire nations behave this way.

True, there is another well-known aphorism: "History teaches that it does not teach anything." New generations of people often make the same mistakes as their predecessors. Probably, this is due to the feeling of superiority of each new generation: after all, people in the past did not know much of what any modern person knows. But we must remember that people at all times have solved problems (sometimes successfully, sometimes not) no less difficult than those facing modern mankind.

On the other hand, the failure to use the "lessons of history" is also due to insufficient knowledge of this science. That is why it is important to study history for every person, regardless of their profession.

The problem of the reliability of historical knowledge. Many large and small events have taken place and are happening in the world. They, first of all, need to arrange them according to the degree of importance. This is where the work of the historian begins, who knows how to consider events as links in a certain chain stretching from the past to the present.

In history, unlike many other sciences, there is an "Achilles' heel": the object of historical science - the past - can be called an unreal reality. It is very difficult to verify the correctness of our knowledge of what happened before. Experiments, experiments to confirm theories and hypotheses (as it happens in other sciences) in history are largely unrealizable. Can we be sure of the truth of our ideas about the past, and if we go even further - in the possibility of knowing history in general?

Historical science has accumulated a rich arsenal of techniques and methods that make it possible to make our knowledge of the past as a whole provable, verifiable and consistent.

Of course, the historian does not consider it possible to reveal the "whole truth" about the event he is studying. But the same applies to any other, even the most exact science. After all, the world is endless, and the process of its cognition is endless. There are heated debates among historians on a variety of issues. Sometimes discoveries are made that fundamentally change established concepts. However, nowadays very few people would deny a number of firmly established facts and assessments of the past. It is these facts and assessments that are the basis educational literature on history.

Historical sources and the main methods of the historian's work. The most important problem of historical science is the problem of sources. In the most general terms, all the remnants of the past historical writing can be called historical sources, until very recently, the role of archaeological materials is very great (for example, for the study of the Great Patriotic War important data is obtained through the search for weapons and military equipment, the remains of soldiers in the battlefield). Currently, scientific archaeological excavations are carried out in compliance with strict rules: after all, often the most important information is provided not only by the found things, but also, for example, their mutual location. Closely connected with archeology anthropology, which, based on the remains of people, as a rule, recovered by archaeologists, recreates the external appearance of a person. Anthropology is especially important when reconstructing the history of the origin and settlement of peoples. The same questions are among the most important for historical linguistics(linguistics), which studies the origin and development of ancient and modern languages. Part of linguistics are onomastics(the science of names), toponymy(the science of place names). The most valuable information for historians is provided by the coins that are studied numismatics. Coats of arms explores heraldry, print - sphragistics. In the study of history, an important place is given to ethnography. Customs and traditions, occupations and way of life of peoples, for various reasons, remained on

transitional stages of development, help in recreating the past of all mankind. Some ancient customs and traditions have been preserved among quite civilized peoples, which is also an object of study by ethnographers. Important and sometimes unique information about the past is contained in legends, traditions, legends, and fairy tales of the peoples of the world. Studying these sources folklore makes a huge contribution to the science of history. As humanity develops, the number of historical sources increases. In the XIX-early XX century. arose such of them as photographs, sound recordings, newsreels, in the second half of the XX century. there were documents on an electronic basis. All this expands the possibilities of historical research. The purpose of studying historical sources is to extract the facts necessary to solve the problem under study. Thus, the work of the historian begins with the formulation of the question to which the scientist wants to find an answer. In this regard, any scientific work on history begins with a review of scientific literature. (historiography), which identifies resolved and unresolved problems and contradictions of former researchers. The historian also assesses the possibility of solving the problem posed and, first of all, the presence of remnants includes both everything consciously created by people and everything that appeared independently of their consciousness (for example, the remains of people themselves). The source is also the "past in the present", for example, the languages ​​that arose in antiquity, which are now spoken by the peoples of the world, customs and traditions, geographical names, etc.

When studying a topic, a historian seeks to draw on as wide a range of sources as possible. When classifying sources, take into account their origin, form and content. Most often, sources are divided according to their form into seven types:

1) written;

2) real;

3) ethnographic;

4) oral (folklore);

5) linguistic;

6) film and photographic documents;

7) phono documents.

It is clear that many sources can hardly be attributed to any one type. For example, coins are both material and written sources. The form of the source largely determines the methods of working with it. There are a number of so-called auxiliary historical disciplines that study certain types of sources.

So, when working with written sources, you cannot do without paleography- a science that studies the external features of handwritten and printed sources in their historical development (signs of writing, features of their graphics, underlines, writing material, etc.). Exploring ancient written sources that have come down to us, as a rule, in several lists with some differences, historians use textual criticism- an auxiliary historical discipline that studies the relationship of various lists, revealing their original form.

Historians receive the most extensive information about the past from written sources. However, they must be read. The oldest written documents are about 5 thousand years old. Many of them are written either in languages ​​that are now dead, or in ancient forms of modern languages.

A number of dead languages ​​have never been forgotten (Latin, Ancient Greek), others were deciphered in the 19th-20th centuries. (ancient Egyptian, Sumerian, Akkadian, Hittite, Mayan language, etc.), and some have not yet been solved (for example, Elamite, Etruscan).

A significant part of material sources was obtained using archeology. Our information about the history of peoples before the appearance of writing in them is mainly based on the data of archaeological excavations. And for the period after the invention

To solve the problem posed, the historian uses facts gleaned from sources. When selecting facts, assessing their significance, their interpretation, the scientist relies on his theoretical ideas. Among them, the methodology used by the historian, firmly established scientific conclusions concerning the problem under consideration, information from other sciences that help to understand the historical problem under study, general cultural ideas and, finally, everyday life observations, which often make it possible to immediately assess, for example, reliable or the information contained in the source is unreliable. Thus, the process of historical research combines work with sources and the use of theoretical knowledge. It is in this way that the historian can reveal the laws of historical development.

History is one of the most ancient sciences. The word "history" translated from ancient Greek means "story, narration, research." V modern language the concept of "history" is used in two main meanings: 1) the past and everything that happened in it; 2) a science that studies the past of mankind.

Scientific knowledge of the past is a necessary component of historical consciousness. But not the only one. Awareness of history can be formed on the basis of myths, legends, traditions, epics, songs. In them, truth is mixed with fiction. But this fiction often acquires a greater reality than reliable historical facts. For example, according to legend, the battle on the Kulikovo field in 1380 began with a duel between the Russian monk Peresvet and the "evil Pecheneg" Chelu-bey. The heroes hit each other with spears and both fell down dead. Many represent this episode of the Battle of Kulikovo based on the famous painting by M. I. Avilov "The Duel". Without it, it is very difficult to talk about one of the most heroic pages. national history... But, according to authoritative historians, the hero of the first battle with the Tatars was not Peresvet, who really laid down his head on the Kulikovo field, but the Grand Duke Dmitry Ivanovich, who rode out to meet the enemies at the head of a guard regiment.

Thus, historical consciousness includes both reliable knowledge and myths created by folk fantasy. In our example, the legend has an important social function. It promotes awareness of the greatness and heroism of our national history, encourages us to be proud of our ancestors. And all the same, a person is characterized by a striving for historical truth. Destruction of myths and legends when faced with real facts is fraught with deep disappointments, spiritual losses, and unbelief for society. Thus, our country is extremely painfully experiencing the collapse of the myths about October revolution, Civil War, collectivization and other major events of Soviet history. And although now many legends have been debunked, they are being replaced by new ones created by television, radio, and the press. It is from them that most people get information about the past of their country.

Other sources of historical "knowledge" are often novels and films. For example, A. Dumas-father said that history for him is just a “nail” on which he “hangs” his novels. Nevertheless, most people imagine France in the times of Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu not from boring scientific monographs, but from the famous novel of the great storyteller, The Three Musketeers. In the same way, some of our compatriots "study" the history of Russia from the novels of V. S. Pikul. And this is easy to explain. Artistic versions of historical events are closer and more understandable scientific descriptions and characteristics. They touch the heart and captivate thought. However, true education and intelligence needs not a set of historical anecdotes, but a system of evidence, which is inconceivable without a scientific approach to the study of history. In order to separate truth from fiction, to be able to understand complex political and life situations, to operate with various types of historical sources, every educated person needs to master a certain scientific toolkit. World and domestic historical science has a rich arsenal of various, often very complex and even sophisticated research methods.

Methods of historical research can be divided into three groups: general scientific (historical, logical and method of classification or systematization); special (chronological, synchronous, comparative-historical, retrospective and DR-); as well as methods of other sciences (mathematical, specific sociological research, psychology, etc.). The historical method is based on the study of history in motion, as a developing process. The logical method involves the study of a system through a deep analysis of its elements. For example, an analysis of such a valuable source as "Russkaya Pravda" allows not only to find out how the court was going in the Kiev state, but also to recreate a wide panorama of the life of Ancient Rus. Historians are actively using the classification method. Depending on the choice of the criterion, the classification of the same phenomena can acquire different kind... So, political parties in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century can be grouped according to the social-class principle (landlord, bourgeois, petty-bourgeois, proletarian), in relation to the state system (monarchical, constitutional-monarchical, advocating a democratic republic and aiming to establish a socialist republic), by methods of struggle ( reformatory and revolutionary). Each of these classifications supplements the picture of the socio-political situation in Russia at that time with new touches.

Historians study past events in time. Therefore, they often use the chronological method, that is, they line up the facts in their temporal sequence. A variety of the chronological method is the problem-chronological method, which was brilliantly mastered by V.O. Klyuchevsky and other outstanding Russian historians. The synchronous method can lead to very interesting observations, which makes it possible to compare events that occurred simultaneously in different countries... For example, we often forget that the hero of The Lay of Igor's Campaign, Prince Igor, was a contemporary of the English king Richard the Lionheart, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, the Georgian Queen Tamara and the great Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan. Many books by the famous historian L.N. Gumilyov are based on the skillful use of the synchronous method. The comparative historical method is actively used in historical research. Thus, comparing the events of the July international crisis of 1914 with the pre-war crisis of 1939 helps to gain a deeper understanding of the mechanism of the outbreak of world wars.

The use of methods of other sciences opens up rich opportunities for historians. Interesting research has been created in the field of "psychohistory", "new social history". The use of mathematical methods laid the foundation for a very promising direction in the study of the past - "cliometry". Until recently, mathematical methods were used mainly when working with mass sources. For example, the mathematician I.N.Kiselev and the historian S.V. Mironenko, using computers, processed part of the huge collection of formal lists of civil officials kept in the Central State Historical Archive in St. Petersburg and covering the entire 19th century. This helped them draw interesting conclusions about how the age composition, property status and social origins of the ruling elite in Russia changed during the 19th century. Computer technology makes it possible to solve more complex research problems: to establish the authorship of historical works, to study the content of medieval texts using the method of content analysis and, thus, to understand the way of thinking of people of the past.

Consequently, historical science uses the achievements of modern scientific and technological progress. But at the same time, it has its own specifics. Unlike natural and technical sciences, it cannot use the experimental method. Historical science studies the life of people and the results of their activities. Therefore, she has to deal with a complex interweaving of objective factors and subjective personality principles. The facts of history are individual and difficult to typologize. Finally, in history, regularity always coexists with chance. This is how the outstanding Russian philosopher SN Bulgakov wrote about this: “The course of history is determined not only by sociological reasons already known to us, by the general conditions of historical development, but also by the activities of people. Meanwhile, every human person is something absolutely new in history, not amenable to any prediction. Unlike natural science, which has to deal with a certain number of elements and certain forces of nature, history deals with an indefinite number of constantly appearing and annihilated elements ... ". Thus, the use of the methods of natural sciences in history has certain boundaries... The mechanical transfer of research methods from natural science and technology to historical science creates the danger of primitivization and distortion of our ideas about such a complex phenomenon as the past of mankind.

Let's summarize. HISTORY is a science that studies the past of humanity in all its diversity.

Since the historical method is universal, all sciences use it. On the other hand, history itself can be considered as a complex of sciences that study various aspects of society, from political and military history before the history of science and technology. And yet, the main object of scientific interest of historians has been and will remain a man. The famous French historian M. Blok wrote splendidly about this: “Behind the visible outlines of the landscape, guns or machines, behind the seemingly dry documents and institutions, completely alienated from those who established them, history wants to see people. Whoever has not mastered this, at the most, can become a laborer of erudition. A real historian is like a fabulous cannibal. Where it smells of human flesh, there, he knows, prey awaits him. "

What does history learn? There has never been a definite answer to this question. Karl Jaspers, reflecting on this topic, said that when we try to peer into history, it plunges us into the very mystery of human existence. After all, it is our past that made us who we are. Or at least the way we think we are. That is why we ask ourselves similar questions: where does everything come from, where does it lead to, and what does it actually mean? The need to refer to the past and keep records of various events is deeply rooted. In the beginning, history was only a chronological (and even then not always) conglomeration of events and phenomena. The latter are usually called facts. Actually, by what history studies, namely by the main structural elements on which the entire research process, characteristic of a given science, is based.

However, the accumulation of facts alone was completely insufficient for the emergence of a scholarly discourse. Theoretical reasoning begins with a search for a connection between events and phenomena. When people start trying to look for the meaning of what is happening or bring it in, to see the goals or reasons for what has happened and will happen, then science arises. There is a rationalization of history. She seems to stand out into a special world that remains outside of us and at the same time has some kind of communication with us. But when we begin to ask questions about the essence of this special being, we thereby carry out its philosophical analysis. He, too, answers questions about what history studies.

Even initially, when the formation of this science took place in the archaic period, no theorizing could do without structures and categories. After all, any concept used in this area, such as a city or a people, a state or slaves, is no longer a historical fact. This is a kind of category that generalizes it. Therefore, history also studies these concepts, and the relationship between them and the events that have taken place. When we look for the meaning of facts and try to understand whether they fit into any system, we often think not even about what was and will be, but about what should be. Thus, we are looking not only for what history studies, but also for what it leads us to or what we should all come to ideally.

This is how the concept of a special time arises, a process that has a beginning and an end. This historical category was also understood in different ways. In ancient times, time was a symbol of corruption, the fall from the "golden age". Then the concept of development appeared - the epic history of individual peoples. And then, at the end of the ancient era, after Augustine, the theory of progress was born. She said that history is a linear time passing from fall to salvation, that it has a hidden meaning, the main driving force of which is God and His plan. In fact, all the later secular theories about successive progressive formations repeated the meaning of Augustine's ideas about the movement from hell to heaven, only interpreted them in a social sense.

From the earliest times, the study of history and philosophy has also focused on the analysis of politics. However, this was not an analysis. real events rather, there was a search for ideal forms of state and legislation. Then, in the Renaissance, the analysis of law prevailed over the consideration of the types of political systems, and the latter were made dependent on the former. At the present stage, whole science... It is called political history. It analyzes the processes taking place in real time. Thinking that political history studies, we can say that now she reflects not only on what is happening today, but tries to deduce modern events from the traditions of past eras.

Related materials:

• A detailed answer to the question of why a story is needed
• History as a science

Many of us, especially schoolchildren and their parents, tirelessly wonder why we need to know history. What is the significance and relevance of studying the events of many years ago? However, there are many and varied reasons indicating the need to study this subject, which is a combination of many other disciplines. Many arguments have already been made about the importance of history, but they still remain relevant today.

Virtual time machine

Raise patriots

A healthy social atmosphere in the country, a full-fledged society and peace is the goal towards which all people in general and each individual state in particular strive. It is impossible to evaluate everything with money and pay for everything. Therefore, the state rests not on businessmen, but on patrons of art, altruists and patriots. The whole world rests on them. History remembers them. Those who loved their country, who gave their lives for the happiness of others. They are fearless warriors, selfless doctors, talented scientists, and simply disinterested patriots of their people.

Why is history needed? Because she popularly tells every next generation about what it owes to its ancestors. We will learn what ideals our great-grandfathers lived, what deeds they performed. We understand how their life has affected our present. Fostering respect for the past with its reforms, struggles, victories and failures is the task of history.

Why Study History?

Today is inseparable from yesterday. All people and nations live by history: we speak languages ​​that have come down to us from the distant past, we live in societies with complex cultures inherited from ancient times, we use technologies developed by our ancestors ... Thus, the study of the relationship between the past and the present is undeniable the basis for a good understanding of modern human existence. This explains why we need history, why and how important it is in our lives.

Acquaintance with the human past is the path to self-knowledge. History helps to understand the origins of contemporary social and political problems. It is the most important source for studying the characteristic behavior of people in certain social conditions. History makes us realize that people in the past were not just “good” or “bad”, but motivated in difficult and contradictory relationships, just like they are now.

Each person's view of the world is shaped by their individual experience, as well as the experience of the society in which they live. If we do not know the modern and historical experience of different cultures, then we cannot even hope to understand how people, societies or nations make decisions in the modern world.

The very essence

Historical knowledge is no more and no less than a carefully and critically constructed collective memory. It is memory that makes us human, and collective memory, that is, history, makes us a society. Why know history? Yes, without the individual, he will immediately lose his identity, he will not know how to act when meeting with other people. The same thing happens with the collective memory, although its loss will not be noticeable so instantly.

However, memory cannot be frozen in time. Collective memory is gradually acquiring new meaning. Historians are constantly working on rethinking the past, asking new questions, looking for new and analyzing old documents in order to acquire new knowledge and experience for a better understanding of the past and what is happening. History is constantly changing and expanding, as well as our memory, helping us to acquire new knowledge and skills to improve our life….