Hermeneutical tradition in Russia of the 19th century as applied to the history of historical knowledge (in the experience of Russian philosophy of history and historiography) is considered by the author as a new area of interdisciplinary research. The relevance of these studies is motivated by the possibility of identifying or clarifying historical knowledge as a holistic and dialogically open reality of mutual understanding ‒ the «sphere of conversation», the vital unity of which can be instructive in a situation of epistemological fragmentation of the history of the beginning of the 21st century and a loss of interest in historical anthropology. The author emphasizes that the study of the hermeneutics of history in Russia of the 19th century. complicated by the idea of the century before last as a kind of cognitive antiquity. The historical texts that have come down to us, with all their abundance, are often regarded as fragments of past conversations, which often cause bewilderment because of their fundamental understatement. The article substantiates the need to clarify the rallying, dialogical aspects of the cognitive behavior of participants in «bygone conversations», to reveal the reasons for their incompleteness and possible sources of understanding. The author concludes that the formation of Russian hermeneutics of history can be successful today only in the context of an active research attitude to the practices of Russian historical thought.