The article examines the institutional aspect of the development of the historical science of St. Petersburg in the last decades of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The focus of attention is the process of entry of the young generation of historians into scholarly world within the framework of social practices associated with the activities of formal and informal institutions of historical science. In this context, the activities of youth and adult scientific societies and circles are considered. The author consistently examines student scientific societies and circles (starting from the 1880s) and notes a significant growth of these organizations. The article reveals that the number of adult scientific societies associated with historical science increased simultaneously with student ones. It is noted that the St. Petersburg (Petrograd)
University appeared to be the main place for the creation of such institutions, where most of the capital’s historians were trained. The article points to the commonality of scientific communication practices developed in youth university organizations and used in “adult” scientific societies. The author points to the significance of scientific
societies in terms of expanding the horizons of historical science, expanding the disciplinary research field, and searching for prospects for the methodology of scientific studies. The autonomy of university and non-university scientific societies of historical orientation is emphasized; a valid assumption is put forward that the
initiative nature of the most important projects and scientific enterprises of historical science, implemented outside the state bureaucratic institutions, was one of the reasons for the “golden age” of the St. Petersburg historical school at the turn of the 20th century.