Approaches to the scientific study of the eschatological problem in Polish historiography

The article attempts to typologize the directions and approaches to the study of the eschatological perspective in Polish scientific periodicals on theological topics. One of the objectives of this article is to demonstrate the benefit of the introduction into circulation of Russian humanities literature in minor European languages even if the research subject is not limited by regional issues. Plenty of links to English-speaking, German, and French authors meet the formal requirements of the modern Russian scientific journals. However, ignoring the languages less common in the scientific use can lead to lapses in historiographical elaboration of themes. The advantage of the Historical and Religious Studies in the Polish language introduction into the scientific circulation is in the creation of new independent perspectives in the history of religion. There is certain underestimation of the Polish scientific literature on the issues of religion and the history of Christianity that is observed among the Russian-speaking researchers. This article discusses the possible causes of the relative isolation of the two largest Slav scientific schools. The paper substantiates some of the advantages of using the Polish language in the study of the history of eschatology. The author draws attention to the achievements of Polish science in the Slavonic Studies, particularly the problems of Old Believers eschatology, in a comparative analysis of the Russian and Polish historiography and the history of Christianity. A fundamental difference in the understanding of the origins of Russian religious conflict of the XVII century is evident. Russian emigrant thought was in opposition to the Soviet historical school and contrasted their understanding of the political nature of the conflict to the class and economic approach. Modern Polish researchers, Elzbieta Olzacka and Urszula Cierniak in particular, oppose their conclusions about the anthropological motivation of Russian religious conflict to the both approaches. Further, the article offers an analytical review of recent publications on the Polish eschatological issues, which exposes specific questions, which are not studied in the Russian science enough or at all. These questions concern the relations of the Christian perception of the afterlife with Gnosticism, as well as changes in the eschatological conception in the transformation of the Christian community into the institutionalized church. The article ends with a demonstration of research interest to the Polish science advances in the eschatological perspective of the famous German thinkers. In particular, Krystian Pawlaczyk refers to the works of the German scientist Karl Lowith who proved the implicit connection between historiosophy and Christian eschatology. As a result, the article draws conclusions concerning not only the benefits of attracting minority European languages in the Russian humanities research, but also the risks caused by the continuation of their ne-glection.

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