QUESTIONS OF THE OBJECTIVITY OF HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE

Abstract. The problem of the objectivity of historical knowledge has not lost its relevance since the emergence of historical science. It is especially intensified during periods of political crises. Since the significant function of history as a science is ideological, changes in the political regime, as a rule, causes changes in the content of history. And the more the political course of the state changes, the more intensively the content of historical science and historical education changes.

Keywords: Historical fact, historian, paradigm, problem.

Two interrelated problems always remain relevant for the historian-researcher:

1) is it possible to create a unified picture of historical reality, or is history always a collection of different stories?

2) is a non-politicized historical picture of a country, an ethnic group, or humanity possible?

As you know, history positions itself as a science of facts. A historical fact is understood as a phenomenon that once actually existed. But it turns out that the historian, as a rule, takes for facts, not the past events themselves, but reports about them that have authors. And for some reason, these authors often describe the same events in different ways. In particular, this problem is analyzed by Professor R.Y. Rakhmatullin, who studied the question of the personality of Jesus Christ in various historical and religious sources [1, p 79-81].

This state of affairs is explained by the fact that historical fact, like all historical science, performs not only cognitive, but also ideological function. As the French archaeologist and historian Paul Ven rightly noted, "it can be assumed that some facts are more important than others, but this importance itself depends entirely on the criteria chosen by each historian and does not have absolute significance"[1, p 79-81].

It turns out that the historical picture is strongly influenced by the value orientations and interests of its creators. If we analyze the textbooks of Russian history published during the Soviet period, then we can notice their authors deliberately ignoring the Norman theory of the origin of the states of the Eastern Slavs, borrowing the political features of the Golden Horde during the evolution of the political system of Russia, some facts of the relationship between the USSR and Germany in the second half of the 1930s.

Why do historians approach historical facts so selectively? The American historian of science Thomas Kuhn discovered that this pattern extends not only to historical science. In his works, he proves that such a selection of facts also takes place in the natural sciences[1, p 79-81].

Kuhn explains this by saying that science is made by scientific communities that are guided by certain norms, research standards, which he calls paradigms. Since there are a lot of facts, the scientist is faced with the question of which of them are important. And then the paradigm comes into play. It is she who determines which facts are important and necessary, and which facts can be ignored. "When the paradigm changes, the world itself changes with it ... A change in the paradigm forces scientists to see the world of their research problems in a different light" [2, p 69-73].

It turns out that for one historian, the social space he studies is one set of facts, while for another, it is another set of them. From the infinite number of facts that history is full of, they choose those that, in their opinion, are the most important" [2, p 69-73].

In my opinion, the belief in the existence of one true picture of history is largely the result of the centuries-old dominance in the public consciousness of the paradigm of classical science and philosophy, according to which every variant is a specific expression of an existing invariant. If we translate this statement into the language of our topic, it turns out that there is a genuine picture of historical reality, but different historians interpret it at their discretion.