Lev Karsavin interdisciplinary discourse heuristic potential

The subject of this study is interdisciplinary discourse of Lev Karsavin as a prominent representative of Russian Christian historitism. The main author's objective was to study the evolution of his research preferences from the medieval people's mentality reconstruction to deep reflections on the trajectory of world and Russian history in the era of the "mass revolt", Russian and European culture's tragedy in the 20th century. In result, the author made the following conclusions: Lev Karsavin was an opponent of the world history linear development and socioeconomic causality as the main determinant of historical evolution. His criticism of progress was not only the result of scientific controversy, but also the consequence of his existential experiences and catastrophic "time spirit" perception. Natural and technogenic 20th century's catastrophes, imperialism with its cult of violence, two World wars, revolutions in Russia, Europe and Asia - all this exposed both the modern era "explosive material" and the inconsistency of its discourse in the rational -progressive Enlightenment paradigm. So, historian was a pioneer of the Requiem for Enlightenment, being convinced that the universal historical categories should be opposed to the incompatibility of the axiological and semantic codes of various cultures that obey their own logic of being. The catastrophic vector of world history forced the historian to think about the meaning of the unconscious as a motive for the historical action of the "insurgent masses". L.P. Karsavin formulated an understanding of the subject of historical science, starting from the concept of "all -unity" as the metaphysical basis of his historiosophy. The basis of this unity of all spheres and manifestations of the human development process is the mental one, since all social activity is determined by needs and desires, accompanied by emotional experiences and always emotionally colored. Therefore, the author considers the art of understanding the Other to be the main way of comprehending history by penetrating into someone else's individual or collective soul. L.P. Karsavin noted the psychohistory significance in its ability to reproduce the whole in fragments, because it is the "spiritual", "social-psychic" that is the system-forming principle of the "spirit of the epoch", the people, culture and other historical individualities that shapes the motives for their actions, principles of behavior, forms of consciousness. Karsavin's interdisciplinary discourse, developing the intellectual tradition of Russian Silver Age religious historicism, at the same time reflected the atmosphere of the new era with its desire to search for a deeper and more refined justification for historical knowledge, the formation of a new language of historical science in the interdisciplinary synthesis of historiosophy, the history of mentality, and cultural anthropology.

Keywords

Authors

References