Brief biography of Tatishchevo

Yuri Borisenok, for the year of the flying of the great historian Karamzin, is also a round birthday of his predecessor Tatishchev, about which modern historians, as in Karamzin’s time, are fiercely arguing to hoarseness. Vasily Nikitich Tatishchev was born years ago, on April 29. A participant in the Battle of Poltava and the younger contemporary of the first Russian emperor, he was definitely one of the "chicks of the nest of Petrov" mentioned by Pushkin.

And at the same time, its turbulent time, when the very difficult Peter's reign replaced the motley and changeable "era of palace coups", managed to get ahead. For he ended up in many of his hobbies, and in the composition of history, too, along with the rule, which he, having died in M, did not find, - over time of Catherine II, the empress exceptionally enlightened.

And not in vain in the press, his "Russian History from ancient times" began to appear precisely in the Catherine years, starting with th.

The whole biography of Tatishchev is permeated with the ideas of the enlightened reorganization of the world, and from there his passionate interest in the past, which appeared already in the year, when the young artilleryman in the vicinity of Korosten examined the hill, known as the "grave of Igor"; According to legend, it was there that the Kyiv prince fell at the hands of the Drevlyans.

Vasily Nikitich began his hobbies by history on the advice of the famous Jacob Bruce at the end of the 10ths, but he was closely and systematically engaged in his favorite thing only in disgrace 5 years before his death, in the metro station of the Boldino estate, “Tatishchev was considered in court, and at the door of it was constantly stood soldiers of the Senate company” - these are the conditions, according to the description of the historian of Constantine Bestuzhev-Ryumin, so well written by the founder of the scientific study of our history.

Like many other newspapers, Tatishchev had a lot not only "first and again", but also at the junction of eras and research manners. He did not have predecessors at all, and it is not at all surprising that for many years he cherished the story as his favorite hobby, which he can engage in even with his truly work -granical performance only in snatches. This state husband was known to his contemporaries only in his rather high positions: he managed to visit both the head of mountain plants in the Urals and the managing the Orenburg Territory, and the Astrakhan governor.

So was Tatishchev a scientist-historian actually? The ulcer Klyuchevsky called him a "practical businessman", which became "the first collector of materials for the full history of Russia." That is, Vasily Nikitich stuck at Vasily Osipovich somewhere in the dressing room of scientific history, but did not get into the steam room. In fact, all the signs of the scholarship of Tatishchev’s classes are not in doubt: both the study of the past by sources, and the good knowledge of foreign languages ​​that he owned in the amount of ten, and the first work for Russian historians in foreign libraries and archives - this is what our polyglot was engaged in during his official trip to Sweden in years, after which Rus' was first called, and Novgorod was called Novgorod.

Holmgard. And to Peter the Great in Danzig in M, he was able to very evidence that the local magistrate is cunning, trying to “dilute” the king into a huge amount of 50 thousand rubles at that time and give a certain courtyard “The Last Court” for the creation of the brush of the Enlightener of the Slavs Methodius. Finally, Tatishchev very convincingly explained why history is a real full -fledged science in contrast to “starring”, that is, astrology, or “man -linked”, palmistry.

And this science is basically deeply moral: “History is not another, as a memory of former deeds and adventures, good and evil, because everything that we have been in a long time or recent time through hearing, vision or sensation we have learned and remember whether there is a real story that we teach us or from our own, or from other people, and he teaches about good, and to be angry.” The first Russian writer of academic history knew very well what the professional skills of skills should look like the preserved and to this day.

From the "historian" is required as "well -read and solid memory, and to that a clear mindset," but also the knowledge of "all philosophy." The historian is not only obliged to write by sources, but also to be able to select them, "so that as a builder he can distinguish the materials suitable from unusual, rotten from healthy ones, as well as the writer of history must be considered with diligence so that the fables for truth and composed for the present are not accepted for the present." The works of predecessors must always be treated with addiction, because "even the best ancient writer, scientific criticism is not frantically knowing." It is especially necessary to condemn the falsifiers of history, but it is not necessary to look for them for a long time, they live nearby: "Poles, both about themselves, are boastful and courageous, are not ashamed to compose fables, and at the same time they will not be bored with others." But all these Tatishchev’s reasoning is from the field of theory, but did he himself follow the principles in the “History of the Russian”?

This is where the reasons for acute discussions are hidden.Trying to start reading Tatishchev from the very beginning, we will find part of his first work, which sets out our history to Rurik. The narrative, to say, the legendary, speaking more critically, the same fables. True, this was the then European science: the acquaintance of Tatishcheva, the secretary of the Swedish College of Antiquities, Bierner convinced him that "Russians were already announced around the 5th century." Is it worth it to blame our first historian of not having to modernize this date pleasant to the eye?

The main debate about Tatishchev comes from his sources: one historians see that he used the annalistic news that did not come to us and thereby the mother-historia is valuable. Others, starting from Karamzin, believe that Vasily Nikitich introduced the texts composed by him himself into his “Consolidated Chronicle”; It even seems to some of his critics that he was such a skillful master of such falsifications that he deserves the honorary title of "historian of modern, conceptual, innovative." Closer to the truth is more likely to the third, to which academician D.

Likhachev also belonged to the historical search for the 18th century was characterized by a literary component. The historian could strictly could not distinguish between the readings of the sources and his own opinion, he could give inaccurate links, and mix reconstructions with facts. Is it because Tatishchev preferred to call himself not a historiographer, but precisely the "historian"?

But whatever the relevant discussions about Tatishchev, his figure of the pioneer of domestic history, is not subject to doubt, as well as his words of the demand for the demand for historical science: “No man, not a single settlement, science, not any kind of government, and even more so, without knowledge, is perfect, wise and useful, and there can be useful to this day.