N.I. Kareev in the Czech and Slovak history and historiography

Abstract

This study deals with the reflections of personality and works of N.I. Kareev in the Czech and Slovak historiography. The contemporary historical science considers N.I. Kareev to be one of the most original and most important representatives of Russian scholarship in the field of social sciences during the late 19th–early 20th centuries. His interdisciplinary and manifold scientific interest in history, sociology, philosophy of history, culturology, and methodology of science has been reflected in the Czech and Slovak humanities. In 1895, N.I. Kareev published in Czech one of his most popular works “The Letters to Studying Youth” (‘Listy studující mládeží’). The introduction to this work, directly addressed to the Czech readers, was particularly valuable. N.I. Kareev’s second work “The Introduction to Sociology” (‘Úvod do sociológie’) was translated into Czech and published in 1907. His articles and the reviews of his works were published on the pages of several Czech journals. N.I. Kareev met in person with many historians, such as Jaroslav Bidlo, Jaroslav Goll, Josef Pekař, and Ľubomír Niederle, as well as with some politicians, such as Tomáš Masaryk and Karel Kramář. His scholarly works on the history of Western Europe were based on both his research on the Austrian Empire and his good knowledge of local realia (including the Slavic ones). After 1989, the Czech and Slovak scholars – historians, philosophers, and sociologists – became increasingly focused on the academic work of N.I. Kareev.

Keywords

• historiography
• slovak-russian and czech-russian scholarly relations
• history of cultural relations
• 20th century
• n.i. kareev