History is a science about the past. By means of various sources – documentary, human – she tries to define the sequence of events of historical process, objectivity of the studied facts and also to draw conclusions on occasions and the causes of concrete events.
Meaning of historical knowledge
History in many respects defines a vector of development of the future: the one who controls the past controls the present and the future. There is an opinion that history – the most politized science. And this opinion has the right for existence, each previous era denies another, as a result – history is adjusted taking into account inquiries of time.
Historical knowledge covers several millennia and if understanding of the most ancient world is based on shabby sources, archeological excavations, the assumptions and hypotheses, then a support of modern history – the facts, events, documents, statistics and human witnesses.
If to consider the facts as reality fragments, it is possible to understand that in itself they tell nothing. For historical knowledge the fact – a basis, and only the historian can give to the fact that sense which is demanded by certain ideological and theoretical views. Therefore the same fact in historical practice can have different vision. Thus, the interpretation standing between the fact and its understanding by historical science is important.
Historical schools and subject of their researches
The subject of historical science is defined ambiguously. On the one hand, a subject of history is the political, economic, demographic history and also the history of the concrete place – the village, the city, the country, sometimes history of separate unit of society – the person, family, a sort. Modern historical schools contain up to thirty definitions of a subject of history (in scientific understanding). As a rule, the subject of history is defined by outlook of the historian, his philosophical, ideological beliefs. Therefore you should not look for in the history of objectivity, own understanding of processes, independent work with the facts and sources and also critical thinking has to be a support in her understanding. Historians materialists hold the opinion that history studies regularities of development of society which depend on material benefits and ways of their production. In other words, at the heart of history in terms of materialism – the economic relations, and by means of society are defined the reasons of development or not development of these relations. The belief that a subject is specifically the person (his personality) through whom his natural rights are exercised is the cornerstone of the liberal understanding. That is, history, according to liberal historians, studies people in time.