Final «Historical Letters» by V.I. Lamansky (preface to the publication)

Abstract

The article introduces the publication of the fragments of the sixth “Historical Letter on the Attitude of the Russian People to their Tribesmen” and the conclusion prepared by Vladimir Ivanovich Lamansky, a Slavophile and professor at St. Petersburg University. It is noted that other works of the scientist, on which he worked in the following years, remained unfinished. The facts allowing to indicate the date of writing the “Historical Letters” are given: 1859–1862, work interrupted by Lamansky's trip abroad (1862–1864). It is suggested that the “Historical Letters” were a continuation of the research direction outlined by Lamansky in his master's thesis “On the Slavs in Asia Minor, Africa and Spain” (1859), i.e. they were the result of his archival and desk work. The trip to the Slavic lands enriched the scholar with real knowledge of the Slavic peoples, their history and current situation, which made many of the arguments in the “Historical Letters” irrelevant. There are two subjects that Lamansky touched upon in his “last” letters, and which were further developed in his research and work. Firstly, these are the works in the field of national ethnography: his long-term leadership of the ethnographic department of the Russian Geographical Society, the organisation of the Slavic Congress and the Ethnographic Exhibition in 1867, the publication of the ethnographic journal “Zhivaya starina” (1890), the project of the of the ethnographic department of the Russian Museum (1899). Lamansky's statements on ethnography as fatherland studies or ethnology are presented, revealing his understanding of ethnographic science. Secondly, this is a historiosophical interpretation of the Oriental Question, considering it as an episode of interaction between two civilisations: the Greco-Slavic and the Romano-Germanic. The incompleteness of the “Historical Letters” is pointed out, which is reflected in the gaps in their publication.