The article discusses the development of ideas about history in Russian philosophy of the late XIX – early XX centuries and proves that all significant thinkers followed the tradition set by P.Ya. Chaadaev. It is shown that the historical views of L.N. Tolstoy, expressed in the novel War and Peace, was directed against the idea of the significance of great personalities in history, but in later years Tolstoy changed his views, he acknowledged that some “best people” who understood the true teaching of Jesus Christ and determine the history; they are trying to bring it to life in order to create the “Kingdom of God on earth”. Fol - lowing Chaadaev, Tolstoy claimed that “higher personalities” are distinguished by the fact that they completely subordinate their lives to God, while in God they gain the fullness of life, which loses the negative characteristic of empirical time and acquires the quality of absolute time, “eternal present”. The direct heir to Chaadayev was V.S. Solovyov, who claimed that God acts directly in humanity and leads it to the state of pan-unity, the state of the “Kingdom of God on earth”. In the twentieth century, Chaadaev's historical concept was developed most obviously by S.L. Frank. Like his predecessors, Frank argues that the ideas of personal independence and “human rights” lead man to degradation, and society to crisis and death; only the idea of serving the higher divine truth, acting in man and humanity, provides them with a good future. At the same time, society should be governed by “higher personalities” who understand the meaning of divine truth better than others. It is shown that a similar concept of history is often found in Western philosophy, for example, it has been consistently developed by H. Bergson.