Evolvement of the polish studies in the Russian historiography in the fi rst third of the XIX century.

The author’s purpose in this article is to investigate the evolvement and development of the Polish studies as part of the Russian historical studies at the end of the XVIII and beginning of the XIX century; highlight factors, whereby the historical researches in Russia were conditioned, as well as follow up ideological concepts, which basis was laid just during the said chronological period. The following main historiographic research methods were employed for this study: comparative, analytical, as well as synthetic method, biographical method. Views of Catherine II, the Russian Empress, and mainly of M. Karamzin, with regard to the history of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (pol.-Rzeczpospolita) were analyzed hereby. Attention was paid to publications of the source material concerned with the Russian and Polish-Lithuanian relations, in particular, authored by G. Miller, M. Bantysh-Kamenskyi and P. Mukhanov, which appeared at the beginning of the nineteenth century. It is found that evolvement of the Polish studies as part of the Russian historical studies was affected by different political factors, partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and personal directions of Catherine II. The aim of Russian historians was to prove the validity of the Russian Empire claims on the Old Russian lands, which were the part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and later of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Such ideas were further developed in Russian historical science. These ideas be the subject of a separate investigation