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This article is devoted to the review of the research and teaching activities of Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor Alexey Vladimirovich Sushko. By means of the analysis of the latest historiography, conducted in the vision of the problematic and biographical methods, the research provides the author’s analytical assessment of the contribution of this major academic specialist to the development of modern Russian historical science and higher education.

Paleobiology is not only a science of the deep past: it is a science of deep possibility. Drawing on recent speculative reconstructions of Spinosaurus aegyptiacus, I sketch a new account of paleobiological reconstruction. Fossils, as opposed to testing causal hypotheses, are used to characterise and evidence the ‘central subjects’ of paleobiological reconstruction, in this instance, particular dinosaur taxa. These central subjects are then situated in various ‘profiles’, representational tools which isolate particular traits across several dimensions in order to apply comparative methods which generate and test often modal hypotheses. I suggest this represents a particular phenomena-driven mode of exploring possibility, one with distinct advantages over approaches more common in theoretical evolutionary biology.

The article examines the contribution of Tatar women teachers to the education of the Turkmen people and to the training of national teaching staff for the Soviet Socialistic Republic of Turkmenistan in the first years of Soviet regime. The article explores the example of Gulnar Dzhanbekovna Karly, the oldest teacher of the Turkmen State University named after Magtymguly. The author analyses the life path, scholarly and pedagogical work of the prominent Tatar woman, who during her half-century of fruitful work took an active part in the training of highly qualified young historian scholars of Turkmenistan and in the development of school textbooks. The article reveals how representatives of the Karly pedagogical dynasty, at least five generations of educators, including mullahs, teachers and lectors, selflessly served their people, the people of Turkmenistan and the profession of a historian scholar.

The history of the emergence and formation, as well as the dynamics of development of the scientific and practical conference «Civil War in the East of Russia: a look through the documentary heritage», held since 2014 in Omsk, is presented. The key characteristics of past conferences are analyzed (topics and number of materials in collections, geography of authors, whether they have academic degrees, the total number of participants, etc.). The authors of the article (active members of the organizing committee) consider the conference as a current phenomenon of scientific life, realized in external and internal political circumstances that are special for Russia and its academic science. The review is addressed to a wide range of readers, including researchers in the history of historical science, historiography of the Civil War in Eastern Russia, historical memory, the history of archival affairs in Siberia and local history.

Modeling his position on Arthur Fine's Natural Ontological Attitude, Derek Turner proposed the Natural Historical Attitude. Although these positions share a family resemblance, Turner's position differs from Fine's in two important ways. First, Fine's contextualism is more fine-grained. Second, Turner's argument for metaphysical agnosticism seems to lead to the implausible conclusion that we should be agnostic about the mind-independence of ordinary objects – a position in tension with Fine's "core position." While this paper presents a textual analysis of Fine's and Turner's arguments, the conclusions reached here cohere well with some of the best empirically-informed assessments of the historical sciences. Given the diversity of the historical sciences, the fact that many claims in the historical sciences have enough support to be regarded as true, and the implausibility of Turner's agnosticism, philosophers studying historical science would be better served by embracing a stance closer to Fine's Natural Ontological Attitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quasilattices are algebraic structures that comprise a semilattice-ordered system of lattices. In this paper, certain quasilattices (that are characterized abstractly by a local completeness property) provide an extension of Wille's concept analysis to the study of complex systems that function on a number of distinct levels. In an important special case, a chain semilattice serves to represent a time series governing the evolution of a single system. Natural set representations of locally complete quasilattices have opposed set inclusions describing order relations within a complete lattice, and parallel set inclusions tracking homomorphisms that connect distinct lattice fibers. In the time series model, the sets that appear within the set representation accumulate successive layers at each time point, establishing a mathematical model for historical phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a relatively new subject in the physics curriculum of Malaysian secondary schools, quantum physics (QP) raises questions about its relevance to students and the best approach for teaching it. This paper aims to analyze the content of the QP curriculum to provide students with a meaningful learning experience and expose them to the nature of science (NOS). To accomplish this, the Malaysian standard curriculum document known as Dokumen Standard Kurikulum dan Pentaksiran (DSKP) and the textbook were analyzed through integrative review. Frameworks and perspectives identified by Stadermann and co-workers on the common trust of the QP curriculum in 15 different countries were used as a benchmark for this analysis. It is found that the QP curriculum in Malaysia focuses on the fundamental principle of understanding the quantum energy of light and its interaction with matter. However, it is also found that there are specific NOS aspects that can be highlighted to help students develop their scientific literacy. These might include emphasizing the philosophy of complementarity in explaining the wave-particle duality principle, the ultraviolet catastrophe, and the contradiction of classical physics interpretation with QP. It is suggested that the QP curriculum be improved by including these and other relevant examples to be on par with other countries. Overall, this analysis provides insight into the relevance and content of QP in Malaysian secondary schools. The proposed changes may help improve students’ learning experience and provide a more comprehensive understanding of the NOS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the process of formation of historical science and social thought in Mexico in the 19th century. The author focuses on the important works of some of the most famous researchers of Mexican history, which laid the foundation for Mexican historiography. The author notes that the origin and formation of Mexican national historiography and social thought was associated with key political events in the country's history: War of Independence 1810-1824, creation of the first liberal constitutions, Mexican-American War 1846-1848. and territorial disputes with the United States, bourgeois reforms, the civil war of 1854–1860, the Anglo-French-Spanish intervention, the liberation war of the Mexican people of 1861–1867. These events occupied an im-portant place in the works of the first Mexican historians, who often personally took part in the process of the political formation of an independent state and became the starting points around which the historical concepts of the Mexican history of the national period were formed. these events primarily attracted the attention of historians and became the starting points around which the historical concepts of the Mexican history.

An analytical review of the work of the II All-Russian scientific and practical conference «The activities of domestic special services in the era of social cataclysms», held on October 19–20, 2022 in Omsk, is presented. The authors of the publication (active members of the organizing committee) consider the conference as an actual phenomenon of scientific life, which took place in historical foreign and domestic political conditions that are special for Russia. Covered: the course of the event, the main content of scientific reports, key aspects of the controversy, the results of the conference are presented, the resolution is given. The review is addressed to a wide range of readers, including, first of all, researchers of historical science, Russian special services, local history and official commemoration practices.

Natalya Alekseevna Shabelnikova, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, Police Colonel, Honored Worker of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation. She is the author of scientific research on the history of law enforcement agencies in a wide problem-thematic and chronological range. This interview was agreed in October 2022 during the scientific official journey N. A. Shabelnikova in Omsk to participate in the work of the II All-Russian Scientific and Practical Conference «Activities of domestic special services in the era of social cataclysms». The interview was given remotely, and then edited by Natalya Alekseevna from Vladivostok in January 2023. The conversation was devoted to the prospects for studying the history of Russian special services in Russia, modern estimates of the historiography of the Civil War in the Far East and the policy of preserving historical memory in Russia.

The paper provides an analytical review of the scientific reference publication «Victims of the Civil War: a reference book-martyrology on the act records of the parish registers of the temples of the Omsk region (June 1918–December 1919)», prepared by the creative team of Omsk historians-archivists — candidates of historical sciences Dmitry Igorevich Petin and Maxim Maksimovich Stelmak. The features of the author’s approach, chosen as key criteria in the preparation of the publication, are critically comprehended. The use of a theoretical set, consisting of the principle of consistency, problematic and comparative historical methods, allows us to present the analyzed work as a striking phenomenon of historical science. The general scientific, cultural and methodological novelty of the publication is noted.

This article critically reviews how creationists or antievolutionists are using discussions in philosophy of science to undermine the efficacy of evolution to defuse the tension between evolution and religion. They include (1) the scientific realism debate, (2) the distinction between historical and experimental sciences, (3) the problem of induction, and (4) the definitional problem of species. It then discusses how using these specific arguments to undermine evolution is misplaced when looked at from an Ashʿarī perspective, a Sunnī school of theology. In doing so, it reveals the multiple ways that theology and philosophy of science are interacting with one another in the ongoing creationism-evolutionism debates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many people assume ceaseless conflict between natural science and Christianity, but the real conflict has been between scientism and Christianity. Scientism is the view that only the sciences (especially not theology) generate knowledge or rational belief. I show how Christianity generated rational beliefs that contributed to the rise of science. This science-fostering rational belief included rationales for when to practice methodological naturalism, and when to study nature without that restriction. Both practices cultivated science, though in different ways. This historical difference is of enduring value for recent debates about metaphysical naturalism (atheism), creationism, theistic evolution, and intelligent design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Climate models calibrated exclusively with observations from the 19th through 21st centuries are unsuitable for assessing many important hypotheses about the future. Many systems in the modern climate are expected to cross dynamic thresholds in the near future, requiring more than the instrumental record for adequate calibration. In this paper I argue that paleoclimate analogues from earth’s past can mitigate this threshold problem, even if the modern climate exhibits features that make it historically unique. While this requires that paleoclimatologists be increasingly discriminate in the past systems they target for modern analogues, the upshot is a practice of climate model construction that improves the reliability of future projections. All of this is achieved by integrating features of past climate systems discovered by the study of earth deep in the past. My analysis synthesizes important empirical work done by climate modelers and paleoclimatologists with relevant philosophical work on analogical reasoning in science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analytical review is devoted to a new and conceptual microhistorical research — the monograph «The History of the Omsk clan of Batyushkin», published by the Omsk historian-archivist and local historian, PhD in History, Associate professor Dmitry Igorevich Petin. From the standpoint of a problematic vision, the substantive aspects of the book are highlighted, which, in the opinion of the reviewer, are worthy of close attention of the academic community, as well as plots, the discussion of which can be continued in a debatable manner. In conclusion, the high significance of the analyzed monograph for understanding the Modern History of Russia is emphasized.

Goals. The article seeks to reveal specifics of historical science’s institutionalization in the Buryat-Mongol ASSR throughout the 1920s and 1930s. It analyzes the conditions to have accompanied the development of historical science in the prerevolutionary era, peculiarities in the shaping of new organizational forms for historical research in the Republic (scientific institution, scientific society, museums and archives), and a corresponding educational infrastructure. Much attention is paid to the analysis of history and ethnography research endeavors of scientific societies (Dorzhi Banzarov Buryat-Mongol Society, Troitskosavsk-Kyakhta Branch of the Russian Geographical Society) and the first scientific institution of the Republic to have evolved from Buryat-Mongol Scientific Committee into the State Institute of Language, Literature and Cultural History during the mentioned period. Materials and methods. The paper examines unpublished documents stored at the Center of Oriental Manuscripts and Xylographs (Institute for Mongolian, Buddhist and Tibetan Studies SB RAS), Scientific Archive of the Buryat Scientific Center (SB RAS), and the State Archive of Buryatia. The principles of historicism and systemacity employed make it possible to reconstruct the process of historical science’s institutionalization in the young Buryat-Mongol autonomy, the latter having been determined by objectives of scientific, cultural, social, economic and political development of the Soviet state. This has yielded a balanced approach aimed to characterize the ideological predicaments faced by the humanities in earliest decades of the BMASSR. Results. The first post-October decade witnessed the shaping of a conceptually new paradigm of historical science based on Marxist-Leninist ideologies — paralleled by the formation of Buryat-Mongolia’s infrastructure of historical science represented by institutions of science and education, public organizations and archives. In methodological terms, the very historical science was being developed ‘under the flag of local history’ with the typically insufficient detailing and generalizing nature of historical problem statements. The first 1926 meeting on ethnic culture and the 1934 meeting on controversial issues of Buryat-Mongolia’s history did articulate consolidated ideas pertaining to development directions and objectives for historical science in the Republic. Despite the ideological extremities had had most negative impacts on human resources and potentials of regional historical science, by the late 1930s there were a source base and theoretical/methodological tools generally compliant with Marxist-Leninist ideologies. All that helped P. Khaptaev, A. Okladnikov, F. Kudryavtsev and many others prepare generalized works on the history of Buryatia that have become classics of Russian historiography.

The principle cultural contexts are considered, which are necessary to be taken into account in order to create “the single textbook of history”. There should be included such things as commemorative practices, historical memory, scientific rationality. The clear understanding of their borders and forms of their representation in the historical textbooks is needed.

Explanations in the natural historical sciences often take the form of stories. This paper examines two accounts of the sources of narrative's explanatory power: Beatty's suggestion that narrative explanation is closely connected to historical contingency, and that narratives explain by contrasting what happened with what might have happened; and Ereshefsky and Turner's view that narratives explain by organizing events around a central subject with a distinctive direction of historical development. In both accounts, it turns out that non-epistemic values typically play a role in the construction of narrative, and hence contribute to narrative's explanatory force. Two case studies from historical science – the plate tectonic story of the Avalonian terrane, and the story of the evolution of trichromatic vision in (some) mammals – help to motivate and illustrate this argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes the monograph «The History of the Omsk clan of Batyushkin» prepared by the Omsk historian-archivist and public figure, candidate of historical sciences, associate professor D. I. Petin. The author analyzes the peculiarities of the author’s approach to coverage on the example of a single Omsk family and the mansion of political and social history that belonged to it in more than a century of the functioning of the Russian statehood. The scientific, methodological novelty of the monograph is noted; as critical passages, certain aspects are highlighted, with which the author of the review does not fully agree. In the final, a conclusion is made about the high significance of the analyzed book novelty.

The article highlights the formation of a separate trend in the historiography of the Byelorussian SSR, called «Bundism». Jewish historians-Marxists in the 1920s – early 1930s were actively involved in the process of scientific understanding of the revolutionary events and socialist transformations at the turn of the XIX–XX centuries. This scientific phenomenon requires a separate study, since the views of the Jewish intelligentsia on the concept of national history had a strong impact on the scientific community of the BSSR. In Belarusian historiography, the problem received incomplete coverage in the works of V.N. Mikhnyuk. The purpose of the article is to reveal the main conceptual approaches of Jewish historians-Marxists on the current trends in the history of Belarus in the late 19th – early 20th centuries. The research is based on written sources presented by published scientific works. The texts of unpublished sources are taken from the National Archives of the Republic of Belarus. On the basis of historical-comparative, historical-genetic methods and the method of retrospective analysis, the main works of representatives of Jewish historiography are identified, biographical data of a number of researchers little-known for modern science are revealed, and the degree of politicization of the historical science of the BSSR is determined. The scientific problems of the national historiography were expanded by the matters of the history of the labor movement, social democratic organizations, party (Bolshevik) and Komsomol organizations, the civil war in Belarus. The position of Jewish Marxist historians was based on a national platform, which contradicted the official concept of the history of the CPSU (b). The leadership of the BSSR considered the scientific views of Jewish authors to be a manifestation of the Bundist and Zionist ideology. A campaign of criticism and eradication of Jewish nationalism in the historical science of the Byelorussian SSR followed. Revealing the degree of scientific development of the problem, determining the personnel potential of the science of the BSSR, assessing the nature of the author’s approaches and ideas allows us to actualize the problem of forming the concept of the history of Belarus in the 1920s – early 1930s. The results obtained can be applied in the educational and scientific activities of higher school lecturers in the process of teaching academic disciplines, in the development of topics of national historiography.

In our opinion, the relevance of the logical and philosophical understanding of history for its scientific character cannot be doubted. The fact is that most of the modern interethnic and interethnic conflicts (including paramilitary ones) are «mixed up», very often, on the «historical component». Some ethnic groups, especially under the influence of propaganda, are sure that they inhabited this territory «earlier» than others (and vice versa), and therefore have more rights to it; they have a reason to be a «titular nation»; they must have certain privileges; their religious views must be endowed with the status of an official ideology, and so on. To substantiate their claims, leaders or representatives of such national, ethnic or religious formations very often resort to «scientific argumentation», while referring to the research of certain historians as «truth» proved by «historical science». And this, in turn, can lead to sad consequences. It is enough to recall the «scientific research» of the ideologists of the Third Reich, adherents of Mussolini’s ideas or some Islamist theorists. In this regard, the question arises as to how much one can trust the research of historians? Is history able to provide guaranteed true scientific knowledge about the past? In general, is history a science? That is why the purpose of our article is a logical and philosophical analysis of history in order to find out whether it is really a science. The methodology of our research has become traditional logical and philosophical methods: analysis, synthesis, elements of deduction, the method of ascent from the abstract to the concrete, as well as the method of unity of the historical and logical. The scientific novelty of this article is that the author justifies the fact that history is not a science from a logical and philosophical position. The results obtained in the course of the research carried out in the article have a certain theoretical and practical significance. Their theoretical significance lies in the fact that they can be used by scientists in conducting scientific research in the field of philosophy of science, philosophy of history, political science, sociology, social psychology, ethnography, religious studies and others. In addition, they can be used by practitioners (politicians, public and religious figures, heads of state and public organizations, etc.) in resolving social conflicts and solving other socially significant tasks.

The relevance of the study of the mechanism of evolution is determined by the fact that the understanding of scientific laws is changing in modern science. From the microworld to the megaworld, the historical nature of the processes occurring in them is recognized, which should be reflected in the interpretation of laws. The author sets out to reveal the prerequisites of the idea of self-organization, which is a distinctive feature of evolutionary processes in the synergetic picture of the world of post-non-classical science. The idea of self-organization grows out of the concepts of evolution developed in the classical and non-classical periods of the development of modern science. The article is devoted to a comparative analysis of the concepts of the evolution of these periods. The dominant approach in the modern philosophy of science is the history of science, so the author is guided by the methodology of historical and scientific research, when comparative analysis is implemented through finding out the similarities and differences of the stages of interest. The article substantiates the thesis that at this stage the concept of evolutionism is based on the recognition of the time parameter either in the form of an infinite sequence of events embodied in the present («external time»), or in the form of the principle of historicity («internal time»). The classical concept of evolution was a hypothesis. In non-classical science, the concept of evolution receives a scientific — empirical and theoretical — justification. To specify the principle of evolution in this period, the material from astrophysics, biology and historical science is given. The novelty of the obtained results is connected with the recognition of the hypothetical nature of the idea of evolution in the non-major non-rationalist branch of descriptive natural science of classical stage, the acquisition of scientific justification by it (the idea of evolution) at the non-classical stage, as well as with the transition from the concept of «external» to «internal» time. «Internal» time is the essence of the new concept of historicism, where evolution is interpreted as self-organization. A new concept of evolution and a new type of scientific laws set the prospect for further research.

The purpose of the research is to study the influence of methodological pluralism as a meta-approach on the formation of modern historical science; to examine the role that diverse approaches played in the scientific study of the past; to demonstrate the importance of a multi-vector view of history as an integral part of the study of the past. The relevance of the research: these are interdisciplinary interactions between both socio-humanitarian and natural sciences. The consequence of this is the emergence of the phenomenon of methodological pluralism as the basis of modern historical science. Conclusions: in the process of research we discovered that diverse methodological approaches influence the historical science, which ultimately leads to the emergence of the new directions in historical knowledge. Research methods: analytical and synthetic, inductive and deductive, comparative approach. The novelty of the article lies in the analysis of the potential of methodological pluralism in the discourse of post-classical historical science. The productivity of using modern interdisciplinary approaches in the study of processes that have taken place in the past is substantiated.

In this paper we argue that the difference between standard measurement and proxy measurement in paleoclimatology should not be understood in terms of 'directness' (cf. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). Measurements taken by climatologists to be paradigmatically non-proxy exhibit the kinds of indirectness that are thought to separate them proxy measurement. Rather, proxy measurements and standard measurements differ in how they account for confounding causal factors (CCFs). Measurements are 'proxy' to the extent that the measurements require vicarious controls, while measurements are not proxy, but rather 'standard', to the extent that the measurement apparatus provides sufficient physical control on its own. Guided by this account of proxy measurement, we then consider some of the challenges specific to historical proxy measurement and how it is that historical scientists address these challenges. Historical scientists rely on significant causal dependencies and naturally preserved signals to mitigate the influence of destructive processes over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a serious issue within the forensic science community, which even extends outside of the field. The role of the scientist in the investigation of crime has been increasingly confined to the laboratory, which has been accompanied by the conflation of the terms forensic science and criminalistics. This unfortunate situation has been festering for years. To make matters worse, the era of the proactive, problem‐defining, criminalist (generalist) is waning, and possibly over. Present‐day "criminalists" are treated as little more than reactive, protocol‐constrained, laboratory technicians, with few, if any, consequential crime scene roles. In most cases, these "criminalists" merely respond to routine requests from prosecutors and police. The absence of science at the front end of forensic investigations, i.e., the scene, has resulted in biased, ineffective, inefficient, and/or erroneous outcomes with immediate and long‐term societal impacts. To disentangle this imbroglio, we propose the use of another term, traceology, which has seen limited use worldwide except in the field of archaeology. With respect to criminalistics, this term has been previously proposed by Margot (20–21). Traceology is an historical science, dealing with the examination, analysis, and scientific interpretation of event traces (signs or remnants) of earlier activities. In this commentary, we define and redefine familiar, but ambiguous, terms and concepts with the hope of recapturing the essence of criminalistics (32), which we suggest is best termed traceology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explanation is a perennially hot topic in philosophy of science. Yet philosophers have exhibited a curious blind spot to the questions of how explanatory projects develop over time, as well as what processes are involved in generating their developmental trajectories. This paper examines these questions using research into the end-Permian mass extinction as a case study. It takes as its jumping-off point the observation that explanations of historical events tend to grow more complex over time, but it goes beyond this observation by scrutinizing the processes responsible for generating this pattern. Surveying several decades of research into the end-Permian extinction, I suggest that the principal "driver" of explanation in geohistory is non-explanatory work: work that is undertaken to increase our descriptive understanding of a phenomenon, not to test a particular explanatory claim. Non-explanatory work drives explanation by imposing or eliminating demands on explanation, and by furnishing new resources for constructing explanatory models. Explanations grow more complex because (1) the demands on explanation tend to increase with ongoing characterization of the target phenomenon, and (2) characterization tends grows the roster of explanatory resources. However, the fact that non-explanatory work sometimes eliminates demands on explanation means that this trend is not irreversible. I suggest that to achieve a more rounded view of the dynamics of explanation, philosophers should ask how research into complex phenomena is organized, as well as how explanatory progress depends upon the coordination of different kinds of material and epistemic resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is devoted to the analysis conducted in 2013–2019. Omsk historians and archivists of scientific conferences at which various aspects of the events that took place in Siberia after the February bourgeois-democratic and Great October Socialist revolutions and during the ensuing Civil War in Russia were examined. Then, in 1918–1919, the city of Omsk, having gained a special position on the political map of Russia, became the capital of «White» Russia, headed by Admiral A. V. Kolchak. Particular attention is paid to the efforts of Omsk historians, archivists, local historians, who became the organizers of a deeper study of the history of the Civil War in Russia and, especially, in Siberia, in the Omsk Irtysh Region in connection with the 100th anniversary of those controversial events

Тhe article presents changes in the management system of science and education, specifics of the development of some academic institutions at Russian and regional levels, institutional dynamics of historical science in the Omsk region on the backdrop of the characteristics of the social transformations of the 1990s – the mid-2010s. It is concluded that the formation of the academic platform and the expansion of the educational space in the region is based on a pronounced humanitarian perspective, in which historical knowledge is much inferior to the socio-economic areas of research

The article examines the century long way of formation and development of historical science at the Belarusian State University. It is concluded that from the very beginning of the university’s activity, the most important directions of historical research were formed in it. A special place was occupied by Belarusian studies, which became the sphere of professional activity of both historians and archaeologists, ethnographers, source researchers, historiographers, and archivists. At the same time, Russian and Slavic history was also deeply studied and since the 1920s. Belarusian antiquity, media studies, novistics et cetera has originated. It is noted that such a wide range of studies was largely determined by the fact that the university had to train specialists in the relevant fields of knowledge. Historians of BSU initiated the creation of separate research societies and institutions, including the Institute of Belarusian Culture and the Belarusian Academy of Sciences. Highlighted the stages of development of university historical science, which were characterised by their distinctive features and were determined by socio-political factors. The current state of the historical science of BSU is outlined.

Contrary to proponents’ claims, methodological naturalism is not metaphysically neutral. Consequently, its acceptance as a practice requires justification. Unfortunately for its advocates, attempts to justify it are failures. It cannot be defended as a definition, or a self-imposed limitation, of science, nor, more modestly, as an inductively justified commitment to natural causes. As a practice, it functions not to further scientific investigation, but rather to impose an explanatory straitjacket.

The article presents the analysis of such concepts as “historical regularity”, “chance” and “great personality”. It is stressed that while studying epistemological problems of historical science we must focus on the system categories being used in general methodology of science, first of all on the category “scientific theory”. The role and place of personality in historical and political process is reviewed. It is noted that in order to solve the urgent problems of social development, there is a need for leaders who, through their own energy, will, mind and abilities, can implement quality changes.

This article examines the end of the 60's – 70's of the XX century, the time characterized by intensification of repressive management of historical science in the USSR, the establishment of censorship and harassment, forcing the Ukrainian historians to serve the needs of the Soviet totalitarian state. Rejection of historical science from ideological foundations of the Communist Party was impossible. Ideological supervision of the intelligentsia in Ukraine and total control of historical research institutions started. Ruling Communist Party fought against dissidents, media and folowers of «Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism ideology», shaped prejudice to all national. The least manifestation of patriotism of Ukrainians was regarded as anti-Soviet activity. Ukrainians were reluctantly forced to feel inferior nation without its own long history.

This article discusses general trends in the development of the historical science of the Urals in the post-Soviet period. Features of the main fields of historical researches are characterized and the existence of such phenomenon as ‘retromania’ in the official historical science is explored. The article also examines the influence of the postmodern model of historical research on historians of the Urals and adherents of this model in theory, methodology and scientific issues. The article concludes that the postmodern model of historical research possesses every feature of scientific research. Despite some negative traits (such as relativism as related to certain methodological issues and overly free use of terminology), it provides benefits by expanding the arsenal of theoretical concepts and especially the methods of historical research available to a contemporary historian. Thanks to this expansion, new research issues has been explored, new problems have been raised, and new approaches to traditional historical problems have been enabled. There has been a significant expansion of the scientific research issues, completely new problems have been raised, and approaches to the study of traditional problems have changed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with the major factors of emergence of historical science (exactly as science, which presupposes investigation rather than a pure appraisal of facts) in Greece on the verge of Archaic and Classical periods. The author mentions factors of the most general character (the birth of the “Greek miracle”) as well as more concrete ones: emergence of prose as a literary genre, formation of general historical views (beginning already from Homer and Hesiod), of notions of unity of the historical process and abilities to describe that unity, creation of techniques of rational thinking and its verbal expression. In the article, a question is also posed on mutual relations between early Greek historiography and rhetoric.

The article is devoted to analysis of the experience of methodological synthesis, carried out during the reconstruction of the historical evolution of science and higher historical education in Siberia. In relation to the object of study three approaches were used: modernization theory, the theory of internal colonization and the concept of centre-periphery relations. The critical analysis of various research strategies allowed us to reveal and formulate their cumulative heuristic potential which can be staticized and applied at the present stage of historical researches at the level of any Russian macro-region. Shortcomings and expenses of their research application are compensated on condition of their complex use and mutual addition. The results received by means of their synthesis make it possible to consider the Siberian macroregional system of historical science and education which developed in the 20th century as a complex multiple-factor socio-political phenomenon performing, first of all, integrative function in the space of social consciousness. The Soviet practices of the organization and carrying out historical researches within system of the higher school on the territory of the Siberian region correspond to trajectories and logic of development the center – the peripheral relations. Formation of the Soviet scientific and historical worldview took place in the context of socio-political and socio-cultural evolution of the Soviet state and, in general, fit within the frame of the modernization processes initiated as early as in the second half of the 19th century.

The paper reviews the initial period of the creative path of the scientist of antiquity S.Ya. Lurie, who is a famous classical philologist specializing in the field of Ancient Greek history. In 1913 he graduated from the History and Philology Faculty of St. Petersburg University and was left to prepare for the professorship at the Department of Classical Philology. The beginning of his independent scientific and teaching work coincided with the period of global transformations that occurred in Russia in the second half of the 1910s – 1920s. The historian of the “old” school was not able to find a place in the “new” Soviet historical science for a long time. Because of these conditions, the researcher used his knowledge and skills to work for various institutions, including archives, schools, vocational schools and institutes. Despite the hardships of the 1920s, S.Ya. Lurie did not stop his scientific work. Furthermore, he discovered new directions for research and became recognized by foreign specialists in the field of epigraphy. In 1934, the brilliant scientific works of the historian allowed him to receive the Doctor of Historical Sciences degree without defending the dissertation. With the restoration of history teaching in 1934, the scientist was invited to work at the Faculty of History of Leningrad University, where he continued his scientific and teaching activities until 1949.

In recent decades, the interest of Russian society in historical science has grown immeasurably. The first reason for this increased interest is because in an era of global cataclysms people turn primarily to the past to find psychological support and thereby restore the connection of times. The second motivation is that, with the emergence of new states on the territory of the former Soviet Union, their political elites began looking through history for tools of their legitimation, often representing Russia as an occupant and an aggressor, ignoring the advantages gained by these peoples over the centuries of being in a single state. This report gives an answer to the question of how the professional community of historians in our country, relying on archival documents and scientific, reliable interpretation of the past is opposed to false theories and attempts to reconsider seemingly well-established historical facts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reveals the relevance of N. Karamzin’s historical and providential method in the context of philosophical hermeneutics of H.-G. Gadamer. Highlighting a deep connection of the ideological basis of Karamzin’s historiography with the up-to-now-incomplete search for the “Russian idea” the paper shows the suitability of appealing to Karamzin’s historiographical methodology against the backdrop of still controversial dynamics of Russian history, with its typical duality, dual beliefs, and vagueness regarding its place in the world.

There are virtually no specialized studies into the creation of poetic image of N. Karamzin in late 18th — early 19th centuries in Russian literature; though it is the expressiveness and imagery of poetry which can have a great impact on the myths in public consciousness. The present study is based on the texts published in the following collections of poems: “Epigrams and Satire: from the history of literary feud of the 19th century” (Epigramma i satira: iz istorii literaturnoy bor’by XIX veka. Moscow, 1931. Vol.1); “Russian epigrams of the second half of the 17th — early 20th centuries” (Russkaya epigramma vtoroy poloviny ХVII — nachala ХХ vv. Moscow, 1975); “A wreath to Karamzin” (“Venok Karamzinu”. Moscow, 1992). These are collections of epigrams and poems by N. Karamzin’s opponents (N. P. Nikolev, D. P. Gorchakov, P. I. Golenischev-Kutuzov, N. M. Shatrov, S. N. Marin) and his multiple idolaters and followers (G. R. Derzhavin, P. A. Vyazemskiy, I. I. Dmitriev, P. I. Shalikov, K. N. Batyushkov, V. A. Zhukovskiy, A. S. Pushkin, V. L. Pushkin, N. M. Yazykov, A. N. Maykov, F. I. Tyutchev). N. Karamzin is depicted in poetry as a Russian language reformer; the one who brought harmony into the ‘nature’ of Russian language; a discoverer, ‘Columbus’ of Russian history, in disregard for famous Russian historians before N. Karamzin; and a true Russian citizen. Ultimately, the history of image of N. Karamzin in Russian poetry shows his relevance at hard and critical times of country’s history when fundamental values and value orientations were strained, but human worth which N. Karamzin presented to the world the full took on particular significance.

In the given article the main topic under research is a scientific pedagogical work during the war-period in the Czecho-Slovak Republic by M. A. Slavynskyi (1868–1945), a prominent Ukrainian historian, ethnographer, man of letters, interpreter, publicist, poet and a diplomat. Here, in this article, for the first time the generalization approach attempts to study the history of the scientific pedagogical work of the famous Ukrainian social and political figure.

Four legislative Acts have been passed by the French Parliament since 1990 dealing with the memory of the Holocaust, of the Negro Trade and Slavery, of Colonization and the Armenian Genocide, and retrospectively named as lois mémorielles (memorial laws). Since 2005, a large number of history teachers and historians – increasingly anxious about the way law engages with history – made appeals to the French Parliament to stop legislating the past (described in this paper as ‘the memorial laws’ debate’). Taking into consideration the reflections this debate has led to and the repeated warnings against the incursion of law’s reason in the field of historical science, it is argued here that this controversy creates an opportunity to reflect further on the different methodological approaches to knowledge that historians and jurists develop, and their respective relations to history, memory and authority.

Adrian Currie (2018) argues that in historical scientific research, speculation is sometimes justified on pragmatic grounds. Hypotheses that outrun the empirical evidence may still offer indirect epistemic payoff. Although Currie frames the issues in a helpful way, the costs and benefits of speculation may be more of a mixed bag than his discussion would suggest. And his defense of speculation leaves some questions unaddressed, such as whether there is any justification for different levels of tolerance for speculation in different areas of historical science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Philosophers of science who think that the historical sciences typically provide us with reliable access to the deep past are dubbed 'optimists' about the historical sciences. Philosophers of science who think that the historical sciences typically fail to provide us with reliable access to the deep past are called 'pessimists' about the historical sciences. Although these two positions seem diametrically opposed to one another, they do share at least one thing in common: they are both positions of confidence about what the historical sciences are typically capable of. This commonality suggests another position within the conceptual space and potentially available for philosophers of science to adopt: one of a lack of confidence about what the historical sciences are typically capable of. Claims about typicality regularly rely on trends; claims about capability regularly rely on dispositions. If the trends and dispositions of the historical sciences are not established (argumentatively or factually), then agnosticism (lack of confidence) about what the historical sciences are typically capable of is a viable position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I summarize the central ideas and arguments of Rock, Bone, and Ruin: An Optimist's Guide to the Historical Sciences, before responding to criticisms from Leonard Finkelman, Joyce Havstad, Derek Turner, and Alison Wylie. These cover whether, and to what extent, we can establish optimism about the historical sciences, the distinction between 'trace-based' and 'non-trace' evidence, the distinction between experiments and models, and the purpose and limits of speculation in scientific reasoning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The epistemology of studies addressing questions about historical and prehistorical phenomena is a subject of increasing discussion among philosophers of science. A related field of inquiry that has yet to be connected to this topic is the epistemology of climate science. Branching these areas of research, I show how variety-of-evidence reasoning accounts for scientific inferences about the past by detailing a case study in paleoclimate reconstruction. This analysis aims to clarify the logic of historical inquiry in general and, by focusing on a case study about climate change, it offers an epistemic account of a particular discipline that is of environmental and social importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]