The study of the early philosophy of Edmund Husserl is aimed at eliminating the continuous "white spot" in the development of the legacy of this thinker in Russia. It includes the study of the socio-historical situation in Germany in the last decades of the 19th century, that is, the specific environment in which E. Husserl took the difficult path from mathematics to philosophy. The main lines of his spiritual, philosophical development and his activities at the University of Halle-Wittenberg, as well as interactions in the scientific and philosophical community, can be traced.