Historicism in geography and the polarization of main trends in its evolution

Abstract

directions: the descriptive country study (having mainly humanity character) and natural science or physical geography. The former was closely related with history and up to XIX^th century was an occasion to mention call geography a «history's maid». The latter inherited historicism as a methodological approach to studying the natural phenomena in its continuous temporal changes. Afterwards, in the works of Dokuchaev school geographers it was perceived within the single dialectical-materialistic cognition method. In the beginning of XX^th century the traditional descriptive country study had undergone a significant influence of Hettner's chorology that excuded the historical approach from geography. Historians, having lost the support in geography, initiated the development of historical geography as a special area of science, a sort of geographical introduction to istorical science. In turn, a number of human geography representatives, having experienced the lameness of Hettner's anti-historicism, have turned to historical geography.
The word geography of XX^th century had a bipolar character. One of its «pole» was the Soviet physical geography, the other was the American, so-called regional geography, representing the utmost form of chorological anthropocentrism. Between these «poles» lies a wide «vague» area of different almost or completely divorced schools, mostly empiristic and bitty, intersecting with many individual social sciences. the chaotic state of present-day world geographical thought does not leave a considerable hope of integration trends development, and it spells geography a breakdown into separate branches of konwledge and its decay as a special system of sciences.