Philosopher of science Olga Medushevskaya: the Soul and the Icon of the Institute for History and Archives (devoted to the publication of the scientific heritage of O.M. Medushevskaya)

The article analyzes the scientific heritage of the scholar and thinker, Professor Emeritus of the RussianStateUniversityfor the Humanities, Olga Mikhailovna Medushevskaya. The collection of her works was published in four volumes in 2017. This edition proved to be a significant event not only in Russian but also in the world science, since the works of O. M. Medushevskaya, characterized by an interdisciplinary approach, represent a model of systemic thinking, novelty in the formulation of problems and the impeccable rationale in resolving them. The humanitarian-anthropological vector of her research in the context of contemporary Human Being Studies has determined her contribution to world science. In the centre of Medushevskaya’s research is a valuable historical source as a phenomenon of human existence in an endless space-time continuum. Medushevskaya’s views on the regularities of Genesis, development and evolution of source studies and noospheric “measurement” of the information complex of sources are being discussed in the article. It is noted that Medushevskaya’s works reflect the formation and evolution of the theory and methodology of cognitive history. Another vector in the system of her views is represented by the phenomenological concept of history, which has finally been embodied in the work “History as a Rigorous Science”. With regard to the historical and documentary heritage, the phenomenological approach can be applied to the study of the manifestations of the objective and the subjective sides of archives’ activities, in which archival funds, being organically integral “clumps”, are included in the area of centralized identification, acquisition and storage of documents, as well as of their use and management.

O.M. Medushevskaya has made a unique contribution to the formation of the humanitarian integrity of science as the basis of self-awareness of mankind. That is why the innovative ideas of O.M. Medushevskaya, her scientific heritage and her Personality attract more and more researchers in the world.

1. Medushevskaya 2017 – Medushevskaya, O.M. (2017) Sobraniye sochineniy v 4 t. [Collection of works in 4 vol.], Berlin: Direct-Media, Moscow, Russia. Vol 1: Filosofiya, istoriya I teoriya istoricheskogo posnaniya [Philosophy, History and Theory of Historical Knowledge]; Vol. 2: Istochnikovedeniye: teoriya, istoriya, metod [Source Study: Theory, History, Method]; Vol. 3: Istoricheskaya geografiya I antropologiya [Historical Geography and Antropology]; Vol. 4: Nauchno-pedagogicheskaya shkola [Scientific and Educational School]. Medushevskaya, O.M., (1992), “Source study and humanitarian culture”, Otechestvenniye archivy, no. 4, p. 12.

2. Medushevskaya, O.M., (1995), “Archival document as historical source in the present day reality”, Archivovedeniye I istochnokovedeniye otechestvennoy istorii. Problemyvsaimodeystviya na sovremennom etape [Archival studies and source studies of domestic history. Problems of interaction at the present stage, AllRussian scientific conference summary reports, 20–22 Dec 1994], Moscow, Russia, pp. 27–36.

3. Medushevskaya, O.M., (1996), “Between science and administration: contradiction and entirety of achive professional”, Vestnik archivista, vol. 35, no. 5, pp. 58–63.

4. Medushevskaya, O.M., (1998), “A historian and an archivist: spheres of their knowledge of the past”, Istoriki i archivisty: sotrudnichestvo v cohranenii i posnanii imi proshlogo v interesah nastoyaschego i buduschego [Historians and Achivists: Cooperation in preservation and cognition of the past for the sake of the present and the future: All-Russian scientific conference], Moscow, Russia, pp. 15–29.

5. Medushevskaya, O.M., (1999), “History as rigorous science”, Vestnik archivista, vol. 50–51, no. 2–3, pp. 160–168.

6. Medushevsky, A.N., (2017), “Olga Medushevskaya: intellectual portrait”, in Medushevskaya, O.M. (2017) Sobraniye sochineniy v 4 t. [Collection of works in 4 vol.] Vol. 1: Filosofiya, istoriya I teoriya istoricheskogo posnaniya [Philosophy, History and Theory of Historical Knowledge], Berlin: Direct-Media, Moscow, Russia.

7. Medushevsky, A.N., (2017), “O. Medushevskaya’s theory and changing of the paradigm in contemporary cognition, education and teaching” in Medushevskaya, O.M. (2017) Sobraniye sochineniy v 4 t. [Collection of works in 4 vol.] Vol. 4: Nauchnopedagogicheskaya shkola [Scientific and Educational School], Berlin: DirectMedia, Moscow, Russia, pp. 5–37.