The article considers three figures having started up the Russian school of comparative literary criticism: the Veselovsky brothers, Alexander and Alexei, and Alexander Nikolaevich Pypin, whose scientific heritage is placed in the context of the European history of science. The parameters by which the contribution of the scientists to European comparativistics have been assessed are: 1) a serious and responsible statement of the question of the method of comparative studies; 2) appeal to the figure of J. G. Herder as the founder of comparative thinking about literature on a European scale; and 3) a number of features of the scholarly habitus, including the origin of a multicultural environment, command of several foreign languages, experience of a long stay in Western Europe.