Abstract

This study focuses on some features of the scientific outlook of M.M. Khvostov (1872-1920), who made a serious contribution to the formation of a new profile of historical science, as well as to the study of various aspects of the history of the Ancient world. The authors attempt at finding the correlation between a number of Khvostov's theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of history and the ones employed by his three main teachers, professors of Moscow University P.G. Vinogradov, V.I. Guerrier, and V.O. Klyuchevsky. For the first time, the study is based on a comparative analysis of the main works by Khvostov and his teachers. It is noted that he resorted to (though not imitated) Vinogradov's positivist gnoseology and research paradigm. Khvostov's creative heritage reveals reception of Guerrier's views and ideas on the organic nature of the historical process, the inadmissibility of under- and overestimation of the role of the individual in history, and peculiarities of constructing the image of history. Following in general Klyuchevsky's historical and sociological discourse, Khvostov demonstrated his own ideas about the social development, developed the concepts of his teacher concerning the driving forces of historical evolution. He searched for evidence of the recurrence of economic cycles in the history of the peoples of antiquity, sought to understand the principles of historical determinism. Following Klyuchevsky, Khvostov recognized the decisive role of the economic factor in the historical process and correlated with it all the other changes in the social life. As a result of the research, the authors prove that the affiliation of Kvostov's teachers to different schools of Russian historical thought could not but affect his approaches to solving the core issues of philosophy and gnoseology of history. The eclecticism and contradictions become apparent by comparing individual ideas presented in his works of different years. Nevertheless, Khvostov had his own academic priorities, and as an independent original scholar sought to respond adequately to the intellectual challenges of the boundary epoch of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and make adjustments to his theoretical approaches.