The article analyzes the direction in the development of historical science at the turn of the twentieth-twenty-first centuries, associated with the socalled “memorial boom”, which determined the appearance, in the 1980-1990s, of a special area of “memory research”, memory studies, in the subject field of history in general and the history of Russia in particular. The evolution of this area of historical knowledge was undoubtedly influenced by the emergence of new electronic means of storing and transferring information, as well as the forms of representation of the past and digitalization of sources of different types and species. The result of these processes was the formation of the category of “sources of historical memory”, whose development requires solving a number of important theoretical and methodological problems. The methodological and source critical aspects of the study of historical memory are of the greatest interest to the historical community. So, in order to select from various bodies of sources of different types and species those that can be included in the structure of sources for studying historical memory, one should apply the criterion of their informative potential, which permits to “see” the past, enrich historical knowledge with emotional and psychological perception of the image of the past. An important thesis of methodological nature is the recognition that the work of the historian also involves the function of imagination, not being limited to reconstructing events, but supplementing them with “seeing” and “presenting a vision” derived from memory sources. In this regard, the source researcher gives considerable significance to the problems of interaction between the forms of representation of the past and the informative potential of the source in the context of modern practices of memory studies, the hierarchy of sources of historical memory (written-text, audiovisual, monumental) based on the criterion of the importance of certain types, kinds and sets of sources for studying the rich spectrum of problems in memory research, as well as for a general assessment of the cognitive potential, limits and possibilities of this category of sources. The article shows the dangers posed by the manipulation with the images of history and falsification of sources related to the study of historical memory, the significance of the scientific-historical approach, which helps to save our past from oblivion, without distorting or “renovating” the memory of the past in its diverse representations.

Trends in modern historiography are largely determined by the influence of the linguistic turn in the methodology of study of Russian history, including the development of discursive analysis of textual sources which reflect the worldview of contemporaries. The historical community has realized the methodological inadequacy of both the use of the Western scientific language and the search for universal historical concepts suitable for the study of the history of any country, regardless of its socio-cultural uniqueness. Currently, the principle of contextuality is brought to the forefront, that is, the study of historical phenomena within the socio-cultural environment that gave rise to this phenomenon, which actualizes the treatment of the political history of the Russian Empire with the use of new optics, i.e., the methodology of discursive analysis of the texts of contemporaries. Cognitive possibilities of the named approach can be demonstrated on the example of the analysis of the language of the texts representing the content of public and memorial discourses about the elections to the State Duma of the Russian Empire, voters and people’s deputies. The author focuses on the concepts used by contemporaries, which reflected the historical and cultural national specificity of the perception of “Russian voter” and “people’s representatives” as actors in the historical process, who were called to “participate in the destiny of their country”. Thus, the disclosure of the meaning of the most frequently used concept “Russian” in the discourse of contemporaries includes its understanding as a representation of the guardian of the tradition of national political culture, and as a centripetal force, uniting Russians in their awareness of their ethno-cultural identity. This specificity is recorded in contemporaries’ explanation of the significance of the project of the representation of people, “granted by the tsar’s will”, which represents a form of “inherently Russian autocracy”. The Russian voter’s awareness of civic identity in the public and memorial discourses of his contemporaries is represented by the perception of “elected ones from the population” as “their own” in contrast to the government officials who act as “aliens”. Revealing an authentic meaning of the notions, used by the contemporaries, it is possible to understand the world of values, rules of social communication during the decisive historical period of reforms and revolutions in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century.