Abstract: The purpose of the article is to substantiate the main theoretical and methodological provisions of museology as a humanitarian science. Its basic concepts are formulated from idealistic positions, its methodology is defined. As an object, the ideas of a person who creates a museum reality to achieve influence on the consciousness of other people are considered. The idea of a particular museum, realized in objective reality, is defined as the subject. The subject of museology is also the process of realization of ideas – the functioning of museum reality and the process of its perception by visitors. The purpose of the museum is to make certain changes in the consciousness and attitude of another person – a visitor. The methodology of museology as a humanitarian science is based on the method of understanding, which provides comprehension of the ideas underlying the museum. Methods play a special role: communicative and construction. The goals of the museum determine its functions, the most important is the communicative one, it is she who realizes the main goal of the museum – to convey ideas and feelings from the museum employee to the visitor. The ways to achieve the goal may change with changing attitudes in society, while the museums themselves and their functions change. The main factor determining the role and social significance of museums is a person's interest in them, which manifests itself when the ideas embedded in their foundation correspond to the main ideological ideas prevailing in society and help people solve their vital problems. A museum should be relevant only when it plays an important role in the life of society. The next stage in the development of museology as a humanitarian science is its approbation in the course of solving scientific and practical tasks facing a museum employee.

Abstract: The subject of this research is the historical writing technique, which allows creating convincing images of the past. The goal of this article is ti analyze the structure of texts written by the historians and covering the period from antiquity to the XXI century. The theoretical framework consists of the idealistic approach towards history developed by the author. This article is first to examine the structure of texts written by the prominent historians of the past, such as Herodotus, Nestor, Karamzin, Klyuchevsky, and some historians of the XX – XX centuries from the perspective of idealistic approach and the use of quantitative methods. For comparison, analysis is conducted on the literary texts of A. S. Pushkin and V. S. Pikul dedicated to historical themes. The article employs content analysis, structural analysis, and terarchical cluster analysis of the texts on the basis of their structure. This revealed that the structure of these texts consists of the factual and theoretical statements, where the firs prevailed until the mid XX century. The use of cluster analysis allowed building a matrix of similarity of the works. The main method of creating convincing historical text lies in selection and interpretation of the the facts in accordance with the dominant worldview or a widespread historical concept. Facts are subordinated to the theory and confirm the fundamental ideas and historical concepts, as well as depict a convincing image of the past. The conducted analysis indicates that theory plays the key role in creating a convincing historical text, while facts are secondary; no significant impact of historical methods is revealed. The major difference between the analyzed historical and literary texts consists in the fact that there is no theory in the literary works.

Abstract: Historical time is one of the varieties of time used by the historians for creating an image of the past. Its peculiarities are defined by the object history – the past, as well as the theoretical specificities of structuring an image of the past into a certain worldview era. Time, same as space, serves for the allocation of events in historian’s mind. Historical time, subjectively, forms for arranging the historical transformations on human consciousness and build an image of the past. In idealistic approach, time is a characteristic of consciousness, rather than an external world, and is meant for arranging the chaos of the objective and subjective reality in human mind. A historian needs historical time for creating a single, noncontradictory and convincing image of the past, where each event is assigned to its unique place. Historical time depends on the key worldview ideas of the era, which is a creation period for one or another historian. Historical time can be of various length in the context of formal equality of the time intervals. The category of time is closely related with the concept of era and period, which are known for their characteristic formed mostly by the dominant in the society ideas.

Abstract: The subject of this article is the idealistic approach to history, that is, the theory and methodology of constructing an image of the past as part of the overall worldview of the world. In this article, the idealistic approach to history is considered in a comprehensive way: the history of this phenomenon is analyzed, the past is examined as part of the picture of the world, the subject and the features of the idealistic approach are shown. From the idealistic point of view, the past has no objective meaning since it is a product of the creativity of the human consciousness, but, as part of the picture of the modern world of man, it can exert a colossal influence on his perception of reality and on his actions. The research's work is based on the principles of historicism and objectivity. These traditional approaches are supplemented by new methods, which were developed in recent decades on the basis of the principles of human cognition. The scientific novelty of this study lies in the formulation of the topic itself. The author offers his own vision of the idealistic approach, based on the understanding of history as an image of the past created by scholars, derived from their worldview and founded on the facts they consider relevant to the past, according to certain principles. In this respect, the idealistic approach consists of looking at the past from the standpoint of man-creator. History is presented as an open project, which does not have a precise goal lying beyond the human consciousness. History goal-setting is set by the human mind, proceeding from the prevailing worldview of the time. With a change in worldview, the goal of historical development and the trajectory of the movement towards the set goal are changed. Recognizing the temporality of modern history, the idealistic approach considers legitimate only the comprehension of relative historical truths within the framework of specific worldviews and conceptual systems. The main conclusion of the article is that the idealistic approach to history was created within the framework of the European Enlightenment tradition, which through that placed man and his consciousness at the center of history, was a new way of creating the past.