Purpose and function of history

The study of various humanitarian disciplines plays an important role in the world outlook and general education of modern specialists, as well as in the intellectual and creative development of the individual. Historical science is one of the most important social sciences.

History is a science about the past and present of human societies, about the patterns of development of concrete forms of social life in temporal and spatial changes. The historical process serves as the content of history, revealing itself in phenomena and events, of which information in historical sources and monuments has been preserved. These phenomena are diverse and concern the activities of famous personalities, international relations, internal and external life of states, their economic development.

Accordingly, history is a science composed of a number of branches of historical knowledge - such as the history of religion, state and law; Military, civil, social, political and economic history. Archeology also belongs to the historical sciences, which studies history through ancient material sources - ornaments, household utensils, tools of labor, and sometimes even entire complexes - treasures, burial grounds, settlements; And ethnography, which studies the culture and way of life of peoples.

History is also divided according to the breadth of the study of objects: the history of individual peoples and countries (for example, the history of Russia), continents (the history of Africa and Asia), the world as a whole (universal or world history).

There are also historical auxiliary disciplines that have a fairly small subject of study, studying it separately and thus contributing to a deeper understanding of the historical process as a whole and the function of history. These include regional studies, studying the history of the region, the region, the terrain; Toponymy, which studies the origin of geographical names; Genealogy - its subject is the origin of family names and cities. To auxiliary historical disciplines also include epigraphy (studying inscriptions on metal, clay, stone); Sphragistics (studying seals and impressions). The subject of studying heraldry are the coats of arms of individual families, cities and countries, veksillology - flags, metrology - systems of measures, numismatics and bonistics - money signs, diplomats - historical acts and legal documents, paleographies - old letters and manuscripts, chronologies - dates of historical events.

The most important historical auxiliary disciplines are source studies, which investigate historical sources, as well as historiography, studying the patterns in the development of history, analysis and description of the concepts, ideas and views of historians that reveal the functions of historical knowledge.

History is not only one of the many existing sciences that serve modern humanity, but also one of the most ancient. The functions of history are always connected with other sciences, such as literary criticism, linguistics, mathematical statistics, mathematics, economic theory, legal science, philosophy, sociology, psychology, etc. But, unlike them, it considers the development of society as a whole, is analyzed The totality of the phenomena of social life, each of its sides (life, culture, politics, economics) and their interdependence and interconnection. At the same time, all existing sciences (technical, economic, social) developed simultaneously with history. And at the present stage every kind of arts and sciences necessarily has a section reflecting the functions of history: for example, "History of Cinema", "History of Music", "History of Physics", etc. At the intersection of historical and other science, interdisciplinary sciences appear - for example, historical Geology or historical geography. In all these aspects, the functions of history are included.