Abstract

The history of Russian studies in Italian though dates back to the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century; but for now Italian philosophy remains terra incognita for Russian researchers. This article presents the origins of this historiographical tradition. The author describes the philosophical dispute between Boris Jakovenko and Benedetto Croce over the status of ideas in Russian philosophy; she gives some critical consideration of Vladimir Ern’s historical and philosophical works on Italian thought providing a comparative study of G. Gentile magister thesis “Rosmini and Gioberti”, and Ern’s work “Rosmini and his Theory of Knowledge”. In addition, the article contains information about the key-philosophical figures, issues and specific trends of two important periods in the development of Italian thought: the Risorgimento period and the beginning of the 20th century.