Dialogue of history and culture in the creative heritage of S. M. Solovyov

Abstract

The creative heritage of S. M. Solovyov is main­ly viewed in the context of his historical and methodological investigations, as a result of which other aspects of his scientific work such as philosophical, sociological and cultural studies are underestimated or even ignored. The purpose of this article is to fill up the mentioned gap by referring to the specific material that reveals how the understanding of cultural phenomenon made Solovyov use the concepts which later became philosophical terms and allowed the scientist whose historical works had always been rather theoretical and generalizing to approach to the study of culture the way, as does it the philosopher, sociologist, and culturologist. The author shows that there is a kind of dialogue between history and culture in the scientific works of Solovyov, and this dialogue makes it possible to conclude that the Russian historian was also at least a sociologist of culture. In spite of the fact that cultural phenomena are always difficult to determine or systematize, Solovyov was able to connect them with each other and to present them as a whole structure. While doing it, he took into consideration their value components, signposts of his times, etc. Moreover, Solovyov argued his position as a philosopher in lively polemics with famous scientists. The author of the article concludes that Solovyov’s views on culture resemble those of modern culturologists and philosophers because culture is described by him as a multi-valued objective reality, which is inexhaustible like life itself and impossible to be conceived or expressed by means of a system of absolute knowledge.