Each independent science has the methods of study and knowledge of its subject. Some of them have the general character as are characteristic of any scientific knowledge. Other methods are peculiar only to this concrete science. The historical science also has the methodology which differs in a variety.
Main methods of historical knowledge
The comparative method is considered one of fundamental methods of studying history. He assumes high-quality and quantitative comparison of the historical phenomena in time and space. All events in the history have the beginning, duration and the termination, they are also most often tied to a certain place.
Comparative approach allows to bring orderliness in series of objects of a historical research. It is adjoined closely by the typological method of a research allowing to classify the facts and the phenomena of social reality, distributing them on quite certain categories.
The dialectic logic learns to consider all events of history from the system point of view. The system method of knowledge helps to open the deep internal mechanisms of emergence, formation and fading of the phenomena. All historical events at the same time appear at the researcher in the interconnected form, following one of another. There is also retrospective method of knowledge of the phenomena in the history. With its help it is possible to get far into the past, consistently establishing the reasons of events, their role in the general historical process. Disclosure of relationship of cause and effect – one of the main functions of this method of knowledge.
Features of a concrete historical research
Methods of historical knowledge find the application and expression in a concrete historical research. It is most often carried out by means of preparation, writing and the edition of the monograph. Work within the monographic research assumes existence of several stages. Starting researches, the historian defines a methodological basis in the beginning, that is selects methods of studying the area of knowledge interesting him. Further the choice of an object of a historical research and its subject domain follows. At this stage the historian studies primary plan of creation of the text of the monograph, defines the number of sections and chapters, builds the logical sequence of statement. In process of determination of structure of the monograph there can be a specification of an object and object of research. The next stage consists in carrying out a bibliographic research on the chosen subject of the analysis. Here time frames and the territory which is covered by historical events are specified. The researcher step by step collects primary information on data sources and on the predecessors which anyway concerned the subject interesting him. The main work within a monographic method consists in writing of the text of a historical research. This stage usually takes most of all time and demands extreme concentration on the subject which is subject to study and judgment. An analytical part of the monograph comes to the end with the conclusion and conclusions which bear in themselves new knowledge of the considered era or a concrete historical event.