Skepticism, Faith and the Problem of Historical Authenticity

Abstract

Epistemological questions concerning the reliability of historical knowledge and the establishment of truth, which we continue to confront today, were an urgent concern for Nikolai Nadezhdin in the aftermath of his arrest in 1836 resulting from his publication of Petr Chaadaev’s Philosophical Letter. In the months following his arrest he published a trio of articles, at least partially written while in confinement, which address the problem of historical knowledge and seek to expand the range of sources available to historians. This article traces the outlines of Nadezhdin’s argument particularly with regard to historical methodology and the reliability of sources. In seeking to incorporate new sources of historical knowledge, Nadezhdin set out for the first time key principles that would later inform his influential views on the methods and goals of ethnography as a scholarly field.