P.A. Florensky: reflections on historical knowledge

The article analyses the features of the historical research of P.A. Florensky. It gives a review of the main works of the thinker, in which he formulates his understanding of history and historical knowledge. The article reveals the internal connection between the historical ideas of P.A. Florensky and his doctrine of discreteness and antinomicity as the universal principles of being as well as the philosopher's ideas about the immanent rhythms of the movement of culture. It shows the common grounds of P.A. Florensky`s ideas and the cultural-historical monadology of N.Y. Danilevsky, O. Spengler, A. Toynbee. The historical methodology proposed by P.A. Florensky denies the laws of «direct perspective». P.A. Florensky’s representations concerning the meaning of history and culture are analyzed. His understanding of historical crisis as a blessing harboring in itself the possibility of change and growth. He offers his own understanding of the «end of history» and «another» history, taking its standpoint from that a person’s change to a different qualitative state. In this context Florensky’s teachings view theocracy as the least hostile form of government and the ideas about «extrapresence» as the most reasonable form of political positioning. The refutation of the linearity of history, as if having some immanent intent and moving towards some kind of logical realization, is a sign that characterizes the historiosophical discourse of religious thinkers of the Silver Age.