he article deals with new approaches in studying the general historical process. The author represents the concept of a synchronous studying of the past. Such approach should include the following components: a comparative analysis, interdisciplinary, civil and cultural-anthropological approaches, the elements of modernization theories. On studying the past, reproducing the previous stages of a historical reality in the research process , the historian restores them as the specific conditions of social systems connected genetically. According to the author, it is impossible to create a historical picture of evolution of any system, if historic conditions and elements are considered separately.