За началото на българската историческа наука
About the Beginnings of Bulgarian Historical Science

Summary/Abstract: The article defines and tries to give an answer to a fundamental question which refers to the evolution of Bulgarian historiography. In the development of historiography there conditional “interruptions” - border zones where it rises into higher hierarchical transformations. One of the most essential transformations in the evolution of Bulgarian historiography was the appearance of the phenomenon we call Bulgarian national historical science. The article supports the thesis that historical science constitutes a complex, relatively differentiated public system. It may be considered as a unity of reproductive, informative, institutional and publicizing subsystems. The first true elements of these subsystems appeared in Bulgaria’s social reality in the late 19th and early 20th c. Precisely that time can be regarded also as the start of Bulgarian historical science. The thesis defended in the article is at variance with the view predominant at present that about the middle of the 19th c. historical science was already a reality in Bulgarian society. Two are the basic arguments in favour of this view. The first is the personal one: it is believed that historians like Vassil Aprilov, Spiridon Palaouzov and Marin Drinov with their writings marked the beginnings of Bulgarian historical science. The specific analysis made in the article proves that V. Aprilov could not be regarded as a research historian. Spiridon Palaouzov and Marin Drinov, notwithstanding their indubitable Bulgarian ethnic consciousness, as learned historians were part of a non-Bulgarian social reality – Russian Slavonic studies. The second argument is the institutional one. The Bulgarian Learned Society, founded in Braila in 1869, is considered as a scientific society which also promoted historical research. In actual fact, in its statute there was such a wish but it was nor realized. Up to the end of the 19th c. the society was predominantly of an enlightening and not of an academic character.

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