“Historiographical Fact”: from Soviet Discussions to Actual Understanding of the Concept

The history of the concept of "historiographical fact" in the national historiographical tradition is considered in the context of theoretical and methodological construction of images of classical and non-classical historiography. In the 1960s–1970s, the justifi cation of the concept was accompanied by the elucidation of its ontological, logical and epistemological nature and content.
The consideration of historiographical fact as a special case of historical fact oriented the use of the former as a real event in the subject fi eld of a regular historiographical process. For example, the concept of a historian was recognized as a typical historiographical fact. In the post-Soviet period, several tendencies in the use of the concept emerged. First, there were attempts to improve the "objectivist" view of the historiographical fact in the space of the historiographical process. Secondly, an alternative approach of using the concept outside the disciplinary framework of historiography, based on the separation of the notions of historical and historiographical facts, became apparent. The explanation for this should be sought in the development of the subjectivist strategy of scientifi c research, which considers the fact not as the initial material of historical reconstruction, but as the result of the activity of the subject of cognition. Related to this is the revision of the view of historiography as a natural objective and supraindividual process. Hence, the understanding of historiographical fact as a surrogate for historical fact. While recognizing the logicality of this epistemological transformation, it is also necessary to point out the methodological diffi culties of using the dual construct due to the
inevitable narrative connection between the two types of facts.