Preface to G.V. Vernadsky's article ''The rise of science in Russia. 1700-1917''

The article is devoted to a historian-Eurasianist G.V. Vernadsky (August 20, 1887 - June 13,1973). In the introduction to the article attention is paid to the establishment and development of scientific creativity of the scholar. Inhis early works G.V. Vernadsky expressed patriotic views, his first historical articles (''To Meet the Sun'', ''Movement of the RussianTribes to the East'', ''Connecting the Churches in the Historical Reality'' (1923) written for the anti-Catholic book ''Russia and Latinism'',and ''Two Deeds of St. Alexander Nevsky'' (1925)) prove it. However, in the mature period of his activity, G.V. Vernadsky conceptuallyoutlines Eurasianism inspite of his emigration (1921) and moving to the United States (1927). Acquaintance and further cooperationwith the leading historian of the Eurasianism movement P.N. Savitsky (1922) influenced the situation, too. G.V. Vernadsky in his fivevolumework on Russian history examines the theory of space development and from this perspective reviews the historicaldevelopment of the Eurasian space, rather than the history of any nation-state community (Russia, the Horde). This position proves bythe historical and geopolitical concept of forest and steppe, and the rhythm of the state-forming process, thus introducing a certain law ofthe correlation of time and space. Another historical and geopolitical model developed by P.N. Savitsky and ultimately supported byG.V. Vernadsky in his writings is ''The Pulse of History'', which consists in the alternating periods of rise and fall in the historicalprocess of analysis on the subject of generation changes. The scholar also paid attention to the theme of Russia's relations with the East,which interested him when studying at the Faculty of History and Philosophy of Moscow University (1905-1910). After a while,G.V. Vernadsky published an article ''On the Influence of the Mongol-Tatar Yoke on Russia'' (1927), and then wrote a then brand newwork ''The Mongols and Russia''; the novelty is that the object of his research was the reign periods of the Khans of the Golden Horde.G.V. Vernadsky as a historian is not well known to Russian readers, since many of his historiography work appeared in English, one ofthem is ''The Rise of Science in Russia. 1700-1917'' which has not yet been published in Russian. In the article, G.V. Vernadskyconsiders the formation and evolution of the scientific thought in Russia, the prominent scientists of natural sciences of the past and thepresent.

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