The beginning of the course on the historiography of ancient history at Leningrad State University was associated with S. I. Kovalev (1886—1960), who taught it at the Faculty of History in the 1930—1950s. Special attention is paid in the article to the characteristics of an important source that allows us to consider the structure and content of the Kovalev’s course, namely, the typewritten manuscript “Historiography of Classical Antiquity” prepared by him as a result of these classes, but remaining unpublished. This manuscript is currently kept in the personal archive of E. D. Frolov (1933—2018), who taught a course in historiography in 1958—2018 following his teacher S. I. Kovalev and largely relied on the foundations laid by him.