Describing the past: Tartu-Moscow School ideas on history, historiography, and the historian's craft

Abstract

The article provides a survey of some milestone works of representatives of the Tartu-Moscow School (Juri Lotman, Boris Uspensky and Vladimir Toporov) focused on the topic of history, approaches to the past, historiographical strategies, the essence of the historian’s craft, etc. Although these topics associated with the problem of history for the most part remained marginal in the research agendas of the Tartu-Moscow School, still a number of scholars affiliated with the School voiced novel and interesting thoughts and proposals regarding history and the historian’s craft, and to some extent even catalyzed new discussions and spotlighted previously disregarded research problems. The current article intends to give a brief overview of the most important and influential ideas on the topics found in the works of the Tartu-Moscow School scholars.