How to overcome the gap between historical knowledge and social consciousness? (An experience of the Russian historical school)

The article highlights the experience of the Russian historical school, connected with overcoming the gap between historical knowledge and the public consciousness. In this context, the author considers educational projects of Mikhail Lomonosov and Nikolay Karamzin, as a method of Russian history studies through visual art. The article showed that the implementation of painting projects by Lomonosov and Karamzin had contributed to the formation of national consciousness of the Russian society, as well as to the development of historical painting in Russia in the second half of the 18th - 19th centuries, and establishment of a national school of painting. The method of Russian history studies through fine arts, primarily, paintings, proposed by the representatives of the Russian historical school, had been just in the spirit of the European Enlightenment.