The idealization of the past is one of the most widespread cultural phenomena. In the era of modernity, it begins to penetrate paradoxically into scientific discourses in the form of ideal models reconstructing the past. In modern historiography, everyday life may well correspond to scientific criteria: by virtue of its homogeneity, it provides a link between the past and the present and simultaneously meets the needs characteristic of the “theater effect". The "theater effect" has for many decades promoted the transformation of scientific discourses, reinforcing the tendency to substitute scientific interpretation for quasi-utopian models of the reconstruction of social reality. The report demonstrates only one example, characterizing a specific type of interpretation of the political structure and everyday life of Russian medieval cities, developed in late Soviet historiography, whose representatives elaborated a tradition that arose in pre-revolutionary historical literature (I. Froyanov et al.).