History as an Open Whole: The Metaphysics of Tone in Nikolai M. Karamzin

This article discusses one of the least studied aspects of Nikolai Karamzin's legacy, the implicit preconditions for his historical thought. I argue that, in Karamzin's History of the Russian State and his other historical works, there are no rigid theoretical blueprints, nor an ideological design for ultimate meanings of historical processes and events. Therefore, it seems to be more promising to reconstruct the prerequisites of Karamzin's historical thought in the context of the organic (hermeneutic and dialogic) tradition found in the writings of Russian and Western thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It thus becomes possible to clarify Karamzin's understanding of history as an open semantic whole, which reveals the metaphysical tone of Karamzin's historical deed writing inherent in his historical thought.