The book describes the multilateral development of basic ideas about the past of their country and Europe in the Russian Empire in the second half of the 18th - early 20th centuries. Unlike traditional historiographic consideration, focused only on the evolution of academic science, the authors proceeded from a more comprehensive approach based on the reconstruction of key concepts and mechanisms of the country's historical culture (including the field of education, the activities of the church and theological schools, museums, historical societies and archaeographic institutions, regional communities, etc.). The study of historical knowledge is organically complemented by detailed essays on the evolution of historical consciousness (taking into account its receptive and creative components), as well as on the dynamics of historical imagination (in Russian art and literature of the 18th-19th centuries). The monograph was prepared for the anniversary of the director of IGITI, an ordinary professor at the Higher School of Economics I.M. Savelyeva.