Intercivilizational interaction in Russian scholarship at the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries: the works of N.P. Kondakov in the assessments of G.V. Vernadskiy and D.V. Aynalov

The article examines the formation of historiographical approaches to understanding Nikodim P. Kondakov’s (1844-1925) research contribution to the world humanities, which was triggered by the jubilee celebrations on the occasion of the scholar’s eightieth anniversary in 1924 and his sudden death in 1925. In the immediate focus of the author’s attention are two detailed essays by G. V. Vernadsky and a report by D. V. Ainalov. Being representatives of different academic fields - history and art studies, respectively, they both gave a deep understanding of the main vectors of N. P. Kondakov’s intellectual searches, converging in their judgments on most of the issues raised. The key features of N. P. Kondakov’s academic creativity that have been recognized by the scholars were the historical nature of his research, the focus on civilizational issues, unsurpassed mastery of visual sources and the development of his own methodology for their analysis, the discovery of new fields of study that were not previously in demand in research, which primarily involve the art of Byzantium and its periphery, including ancient Rus, as well as the identification of the most important role of the East in the process of the birth of new cultures in the Middle Ages and early Modern times in contrast to the Eurocentric view of the subject.