А.С. Лаппо-Данилевский: социокультурное значение «живых» источников прошлого

In the space of socio-humanitarian knowledge at the turn of the XIX–XX centuries, the myth, the eyewitness accounts, hearings and other similar evidence of the past were considered to be unreliable and not treated as historical sources. A.S. Lappo-Danilevsky, among the first theorists, drew attention to the social and cultural significance of “living” sources that can store and broadcast the treasures of human thought. In his work, “Methodology of History,” the mythological story and eyewitness accounts are presented as “living” sources of historical memory. The article highlights the dual position of Lappo-Danilevsky: from a scientific point of view, myth and evidence cannot be reliable sources; in the socio-cultural sense, on the contrary, they are important for immersion in the era, for the search for the social and cultural identity of the author of the text and its interpreter. It is shown that in the theoretical reckonings of Lappo-Danilevsky myth and evidence are presented as complex sources, and their critical analysis helps to solve problems of a value-theoretical, typologizing and methodological nature. The hermeneutical interpretation of “living” sources, in the opinion of Lappo-Danilevsky, allows us to identify their origin, to determine the ultimate boundaries of reliability and to reveal a number of questions: the type of this source; the type of culture to which it belongs; degree of sincerity of evidence; the form of the worldview of the speaker. The Russian methodologist argues for criticizing the source, yet does not approve of two extremes: the haste of conclusions and, conversely, the rejection of final conclusions, i.e. recognition of the constant "openness" of the fact. It is concluded that Lappo-Danilevsky considered oral traditions as important sources of the past in the register of modernity. This allowed him to understand the mechanism of formation of the cultural and social legitimation of myth. According to the observations of Lappo-Danilevsky, the process of legitimation is as follows: first, the content of the story is detected and recorded, then it is repeatedly retold / rewritten and eventually takes on a solid form. In this unchanged form the myth turns out to be a symbol of historical memory.