Abstract: The article is devoted to the philosophical, publicist and artistic environments of the Western European Renaissance of the late 19th - early 20th centuries. The author of the article tries to define the main directions for interpreting Renaissance in the history of Russian philosophy and culture. The author also views the main research traditions and methodological approaches that were developed in that direction during the aforesaid period as well as the problems of translating Renaissance images and their reflection in fiction and poetry of the early 20th century. Grishatova refers to works written by famous cultural, literary and art experts of the late 19th - early 20th centuries as the main sources that reveal the connection between interpretation of Renaissance in Russian philosophy and Russian cultural history. As a result of analysing interpretation of Renaissance by different representatives of Russian philosophy, history and art, the author of the present article describes a few original methodological approaches that later develolped into independent branches of Russian humanities. It is a fair assumption to say that Renaissance studies were one of the main trends and traditions in Russian history and philosophy during the aforesaid period. For many researchers Renaissance was the main topic back in those times. Noteworthy that in a number of researches and works the contradiction theme was the main one as it often appeared in Russian tradition of interpreting and perceiving the epoch from the point of view of cultural and art analysis as well as analysing peculiarities of the worldview and philosophical attitudes of Renaissance reality. The phenomenon of Renaissance is viewed from different sides and thematic approaches. Moreover, much attention is paid to Renaissance personality and attempt to go inside one's mind and 'reveal the soul' of a Renaissance man. This is the novelty of the Russian tradition of studying and interpreting Renaissance. The aforesaid issues are quite important because their analysis allows to better understand peculiarities of Russian philosophical thought, Russian cultural mind and their connection to specific features of Russian history of culture.

Abstract: The subject of this research is the phenomenon of the Western European Renaissance in its interpretation by the Russian philosophy and culturological thought, as well as examination of the phenomenon of Renaissance in application to the Russian history of culture. The article conducts a comparative analysis of the views of the Russian philosophers and researchers upon the phenomenon of the Western European Renaissance in general, and its connection with the Russian historical and cultural tradition. The Renaissance culture was being thoroughly examined by the Russian philosophical scholars, art and literature experts, and historians. At the same time, their assessments at times strike by their originality and non-traditional research approach, as well as are quite ambiguous and ambivalent. The author attempts to analyze the fundamental these on the topic of Western European Renaissance altogether, and clarify in which way the Russian view and interpretation of Renaissance differs from other, particularly classical European vision. The main conclusion consists in the fact that the Russian philosophical thought contains a specific and critical opinion regarding the phenomenon of Renaissance, and the researchers of Russian culture often raised a question about its correlation with the history of Russian culture and art. It is no coincidence that particularly acute interest towards the Renaissance emerged within the Russian thought in the early XX century, when Renaissance has become one of the head topics of contemplation among the Russian philosophers, and art community of the Silver age. The bloom of the cultural and philosophical thought of the early XX century and the “Silver Age” of the Russian literature are evaluated as the Russian Renaissance, which concurred with the general European era of modernism.