The research problem is the title first methodological revolution in the Polish university discourse relating to the past. This revolution is understood as a departure from the so-called narrative historiography, sometimes telling history in a colorful and literary flair, for the development of specific methods, which with time, also thanks to the auxiliary sciences of history, gained the name of historical. An example of the implementation of this revolution is the Imperial University of Vilnius, which before the establishment of the Royal University of Warsaw gained a group of outstanding humanists of international renown, including outstanding students of Georgia Augusta (such as EG Groddeck), famous for transforming various fields of humanities into disciplines subject to systematic criticism. academic. As a result, Vilnius became a center for the development of new methods in historical sciences. The presented research is part of a larger project that will also include research in the archives and library of the University of Göttingen and Erlangen. The research questions to be answered by the analysis of the material collected during the query include the following: 1) How did Vilnius come to distinguish historical discourse as scientific from other discourses about the past? 2) what in the Vilnius center began to be called history, and why was this name denied? 3) what in the Vilnius community allowed to talk about history, who and when could talk about it? 4) who for Vilnius intellectuals was the subject of history and what was its driving force?