scientific career, when they tried to elucidate, from different points of view, the origin of the Russian State and the Norman or Slavonic nationality of the first Russian princes. The critical school developed further in the works of Bestuzhev, who was to some extent under the influence of Pogodin and had some pupils, Platonov and others. Criticism manifested itself also in the acute investigations of Golubinsky, Shachmatov and others.
The comparative method of historical study was also used in different domains: in the history of Russian literature and art, by Buslaev and Tihonravov, Pypin and Veselovsky, by Kondakov, Azhnalov and others; in the history of Russian economics, by Nikitsky, Milyoukov, Struve, Tugan-Baranovsky and others; in the general history of Russian law and institutions, by Nevolin, Kavelin, Chicherin, Gradovsky, Sergueyevitch and others. One of these, Vladimirsky-Budanov, author of a comprehensive history of Russian law, applied the comparative method to the study of similar institutions of Eastern and Western Russia, showing, by the way, their originality in comparison with those of other European states; subsequent historians, Lyubovsky, Lappo and others continued this comparative study of Russian and Lithuanian institutions. In opposition to Vladimirsky-Budanov and some other investigators, Pavlov-Silvansky insisted, from a "sociological" point of view, on the similarity of the mediaeval institutions of Russia with the corresponding feudal institutions of Western Europe, particularly in the period, when the manor began to subjugate the ancient village community.
