Indian Lettre Philosophique: the Lecture On the Nature and Importance of Historical Studies by Krishnamohun Banerjea. Banerjea, Krishnamohun, On the Nature and Importance of Historical Studies, Trans. by Tatiana G. Skorokhodova, ed. by Anna A. Neivirt

Abstract

The lecture On the Nature and Importance of Historical Studies by Krishnamo­hun Banerjea (1838) and the first Lettre Philosophique by Pyotr Tchaadaev (1836) demonstrate an important parallelism of ideas and meaning in the context of Indian and Russian Modernity. A comparative analysis of the texts by Indian thinker and Russian philosopher is presented in the research. The analogue of Let­tre Philosophique had symbolically begun the period of development of historical consciousness in social thought of Modern India. Both text had raised the prob­lems of crisis condition of thinkers’ own societies, on uncertainty of the future perspectives and possibilities for development, on conscious discovery of the peo­ples by themselves in history and on a meaning of historical consciousness and memory as well as on need of research of own history. In his lecture K. Banerjea had articulated an imperative of creation new and unusual sphere of thinking and study in India. He had denoted three dimensions of Indian Modern problematics: the need for explanation of contemporary crisis based on the knowledge of own history; a searching for experience and the means for a settling of problems in history and a need of historical knowledge for definition of future perspectives and an optimistic view to human perfection and social development.