«OSMNICHEE» AND «OSMENNIK» IN MEDIEVAL RUSSIA: TO THE QUESTION OF CONSTRUCTION OF CONCEPTS IN RUSSIAN HISTORICAL SCIENCE OF THE 19th CENTURY

Purpose. The Article is devoted to history of constructing of concepts “osmnichee” and “osmennik” in the Russian historical science of the 19th century. In contemporary historiography, the content of these concepts is the subject of debate. Medieval terminology of customs affairs was an object for study, at least, of four generations of the Russian historians of the 19th century (N.M. Karamzin; Y.A. Gagemeister; D.A. Tolstoy, E.G. Osokin, I.D. Belyaev, S.M. Soloviev, V.O. Klyuchevsky, V.I. Sergeevich, S.A. Shumakov). The author sets as the purpose to reveal stages and to estimate the research approaches to the construction of historical concepts, corresponding to them methods, linked with names of historians of different generations. Methodology. The character of data, which historians of the 19th century had, when designing concepts “osmnichee” and “osmennik”, had led them to the necessity of putting forward hypotheses and the systems of hypotheses which filled lacking in sources links of explanation. When assessing the persuasiveness of the argumentation underlying the reconstruction of concepts, it is necessary to distinguish the direct indications of the source from hypotheses based on the empirical material of the sources and provide a convincing and simple explanation for the indications used, and, finally, from the guesswork, i.e. assumptions about the fact that could have occurred. The research is based on the historical-comparative method. Results. The author has identified and reconstructed the methods used by historians to construct hypotheses, and the conjectures based on them, which eventually turned into “historical facts”. The construction of the content of the concepts “osmnichee “ and “osmennik” from generation to generation of historians was increasingly alienated from the empirical data of sources, and was increasingly based on the historiographical tradition. The mechanism of constructing the concepts “osmnichee” and “osmennik”, and the methods that make up it, characterize a certain stage of positivistic historical science in Russia. Practical implications. Results of the research can be applied in the sphere of teaching history of customs affairs and customs policy of Russia, economic history, taxation history