Abstract
This article explores the conceptual trajectory of the Slavicist Vladimir Ivanovich Lamansky in the 1860s. The author aims to identify the factors that influenced the topic and content of Lamansky’s doctoral dissertation, On the Historical Study of the Graeco-Slavic World in Europe (1871). The study is carried out within the field of intellectual history: it employs the method of reconstruction, which permits the identification of the evolution of the scholar’s conceptual path from his master’s thesis to his doctoral dissertation. The article refers to works of V. I. Lamansky, archival materials, and recent studies. In the course of work on his doctoral dissertation, V. I. Lamansky moved from a local topic on Serbian history to a new, conceptually critical theme (European views on Slavdom). In this connection, the question is raised of the factors that influenced such a turn and choice. Also, the author of the article focuses on Lamansky’s acquaintance in the mid-1860s with Russia and Europe, a manuscript of the highly topical treatise by N. Ya. Danilevsky. The conceptual intersections of Lamansky’s dissertation with Danilevsky’s treatise (the justification of the Graeco-Slavic world alongside the Romano-Germanic, and the emphasis on European views) testify to the influence of Russia and Europe on the choice of the topic and content of the dissertation. The ‘Graeco-Slavic world’ concept was for the first time widely used in the west by C. Robert. The reconstruction carried out here makes it possible to suppose that Danilevsky’s treatise became an impulse and a catalyst for Lamansky. His doctoral dissertation, on the one hand, continued the ideas of his master’s thesis, and on the other hand, deepened and developed the approaches of Russia and Europe, becoming a new significant step in the conceptualization of the Graeco-Slavic world. Lamansky’s conceptual trajectory in the 1860s is a precondition for the later formulation of the pro-Eurasian concept of the ‘three worlds’.